Orange and T-Mobile pay monthly customers face price hikes of 79p a month on their existing contracts after parent company EE said that “rising business costs” had forced its hand.
The increases are set to affect 5.5 million customers on the two networks but will provide EE with a £52 million windfall.
Subscribers are unlikely to be thrilled by the prospect of having to pay more for their mobile deal, but EE has said that its terms and conditions state that prices can be increased during a contract at the same rate as the Retail Prices Index, which measures inflation.
“Price increases to monthly bills, set to come into effect in March and April, will be a blow to EE’s customers, especially considering the ever-increasing cost of living,” commented Adam Kirby, telecoms expert at uSwitch. “However, the network is providing customers with a ‘get out of jail card’ by offering a fixed price option. This innovative alternative will not only give customers a way to avoid these increases, but will also shelter them from any future rises.”
Both T-Mobile and Orange have implemented mid-contract price increases before and telecoms regulator Ofcom is becoming increasingly concerned about the practice. It has called for operators to be more transparent about the potential for price rises and has proposed a plan to let users exit their mobile deal without penalty if prices are increased.
The regulator said it had considered a complete ban on mid-contract price rises, but said this would most likely not fall in line with European laws.
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Ofcom is becoming increasingly concerned about the practice and so they should be this is grossly unfair practice and is basically dishonest. The regulator should also look into the increasing periods for these locked in contracts.
The whole idea of long fixed term contacts is against the interests of competition, max lock in should be 12 months maybe even 6 months. Same applies to internet, land line and other contacts offered to consumers.
The option to pay an addional fee to avoid an increase smacks of the work of the mafia - nice!
I am surprised that this article doesn’t mention that this is not the first time. I can’t stand EE – it was their complete lack of service, reduced features through my contract and increased prices that have put me off contracts all together. I only ever buy phones outright now and use GiffGaff instead. I had a two year contract with T-Mobile. When I signed up it was £30 for unlimited internet. After signing up I found I had a limit of 3Gb per month. To add insult to injury they then tried to sell me a “truly unlimited” internet package for additional cost (presumably the package they sold to me in the first place was ‘fake unlimited’). Basically they wanted to charge me extra to get what they sold me in the first place. Now they are saying they will stick to their contracted price – if you pay extra. Then the signal got worse and worse, they put the prices up. They are offering less and less service for more and more money. Where does this end? Surely they must be able to reasonably forecast their business costs over the duration of a contract. If they can’t then they should not offer them. What other industry is it acceptable to change the terms of a contract whenever they want? It’s beyond belief. It’s clear they have spent a fortune on 4G – did they not realise 12 months ago they were going to do this? Was it all a big surprise? They are so full of 'it'. OK, sorry rant over, for now….