TalkTalk Price Rises?

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BTOpenreach, which holds the responsibility for maintaining much of BT’s national telecoms network across the United Kingdom, has on New Year’s Eve announced a heap of new price reductions and increases for their line rental (WLR and LLU), Ethernet and various other connectivity services.

The changes, which will become effective from 1st April 2015, appear to be broadly in line with Ofcom’s requirements under their Fixed Access Market Reviews 2014 (FAMR) and related Charge Controls. Typically these prices represent what ISPs pay and that’s before we factor in the cost of additional services and the need for providers to make a profit, thus the retail price is often a fair bit higher.

...

Elsewhere ISPs that make use of Local Loop Unbundling (LLU allows providers to take over full or partial control of BT’s lines by installing their own kit in the operators telephone exchanges), such as TalkTalk and Sky Broadband, will see the rental price of a fully unbundled (MPF) line increase by +1.6% to £87.48. Meanwhile the one-off charge for a new connection will fall by -1.5% to £45.74.

It’s also interesting to note that Openreach will be increasing the energy usage price for LLU and Access Locate by 8.97% to 12.88 pence per kWh (kilowatt-hour) in line with the terms of the LLU (Revised Access Network Facilities Agreement) and Access Locate contracts. Apparently this change is being driven by an increase in BT’s raw energy costs.
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.ph...eaks-uk-line-rental-ethernet-prices-2015.html

Can we expect TalkTalk to raise prices and send out notification letters allowing customers to leave without penalty as Ofcom demand?

I'm a new fibre customer and although the speeds are fine (though there appears to be some network congestion) I'm really not happy with the interaction I've had with the staff on the community forum(takes about three days for an often unhelpful - some might suggest deliberately unhelpful - post reply) or the resident forum busybodies. Basically I'm looking to leave as soon as a reasonable opportunity presents itself - so I'm praying for a price rise this April.
 
It might just be me being silly, but why have you singled out TalkTalk as potentially announcing price increases? This as usual will affect all ISPs.

It depends, some ISPs suck up the price increase for a while and announce price increases later in the year. Some may do so in the coming few months.

Your guess is as good as anyone! :)
 
It's important to note that this is a 1.6% increase to bring MPF costs to £7.29+VAT per month, up from £7.18 - e.g. a tiny amount. I fully expect to see at least £1 line rental increases by the time we hit September though.

The chasm between Openreach MPF pricing and retail line rental charges is still growing: http://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/...es-continue-to-diverge-from-retail-price.html

There's a crazy amount of margin in line rental, and there's no reason why service providers need to push the price up ever closer towards £20, other than so they can offer people 'free' broadband.
 
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There's a crazy amount of margin in line rental, and there's no reason why service providers need to push the price up ever closer towards £20, other than so they can offer people 'free' broadband.

The margins on line rental are indeed becoming very wide, but i suppose you have to view it as an amalgamation of charges.

Thats the way i am trying to view it, my line rental is now a rip off, but on the flip side my 80/20 FTTC is £10/mo minus £90 cashback......
 
I'd rather the ASA / Ofcom hammered them for advertising a service that doesn't exist to put an end to this smoke-and-mirrors crap.

It's not £5 broadband if you have to have a line from the same provider for £16.70, it's a £21.70 phone and broadband package.
 
Yeah, agreed, it would be great to see some regulation to stop "broadband for £2" type adverts. Until then i guess you simply have to view it as i am trying to.
 
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