TalkTalk have announced price rises in line rental and call packages with will take affect from October following a similar announcement by BT in July. BT's announcement saw a price increase of 50p per month on landline rental and TalkTalk will increase the cost of their rental by 5% putting it at £12.04, the same as BT's new line rental cost if you opt for paperless billing. TalkTalk have also increased their daytime call charge to be in line with BT's new price of 6.4p a minute, up from 5.8p.
Other standing charges such as late payment fees are increasing by 33% (to £10) and if you move house the fee to move your service will increase by 66% to £49.99. A TalkTalk spokeswoman said that the company still offered "the best value home phone and broadband services" but perhaps with it falling more in line with BT's charges, the competitive advantage will be diminished, particularly with new operators entering the market.
This is the second change TalkTalk will have made to pricing this year. In June, they altered their daytime pricing from 4.6p up to 5.8p per minute, and increased the hours that daytime calls run by two hours to 7am-7pm. This second rise will put the price at 39% higher than it was just 5 months before. This does draw in to question whether TalkTalk still offer good value over BT's services, even if TalkTalk remain marginally cheaper than the incumbent operator.
Full details of the TalkTalk price changes are available here: http://broadband.talktalk.co.uk/pricechange
What a strange move for a second tier supplier.
I signed up for TT on the basis that it would be much cheaper but that internet speeds for example would not be as good as Sky - my previous ISP. This has turned out to be true. I used to get 8meg but now just over 3meg with same copper lines etc.
What I have not seen commented on is the apparant removal of free local calls from new contracts. This again was a major draw.