What the CPI plus 3.9% 2024 price increase means for you

No one likes price rises. Sometimes though they’re a necessary part of business, if we’re to keep up with the rising costs we face to continue delivering a brilliant network experience. Customers data usage grows month on month and we’re continually reviewing our offerings, to ensure that our products remain competitive, and so that we can continue to invest in the future of the company.

As the UK continues to embrace digital technologies, the demand for the connectivity & services that we provide is always rising.

We invest more than any other network provide in the UK to maintain the quality of our network for our customers, ensuring your business has everything you need to embrace the digital age with confidence. This is an expensive activity.

As with all businesses, inflation drives up the cost to run and maintain our network every year. That’s why we believe using the Consumer Price Index (the official inflation measure in the UK economy) as a baseline to calculate our annual price rise is fair. It lets us continue to offer both excellent service and a range of products to our customers, while allowing us to invest in the network and services we’re able to offer our customers.

There are huge changes currently taking place with the old copper voice network being switched off in 2025, all customers using traditional phone lines will need to move to a digital service before the switch off date.

Find out more about the PSTN Switch Off and what it means for you.

Find out more about the PSTN Switch Off and what’s happening between now and 2025.

In most of our standard terms and conditions, we have the right to amend our contract, and that includes increasing prices. The contract will say how we must tell our customers about amendments and what customers may do.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a figure published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as a measure of inflation. It’s a reliable measure to reflect the increase in costs to run and invest in our network and the services we provide. 

CPI is a measure of whether the cost of goods and services is going up or down. It’s based on average price changes from across several industries. It measures inflation by taking a basket of goods (things like food, clothes, petrol etc.) looking at what they cost last year, looking at what they cost now, and finding the difference.

However, the CPI leaves the costs of your home out of the basket (things like rises in mortgage payments, rents, and council tax) so they don’t get reflected in it. 

The ONS publishes a new CPI inflation rate every month.

Find out more about CPI from the Office of National Statistics.

The CPI % inflation rate figure we’ll use is the December % inflation rate figure. This is published by the ONS in January of each year and it measures the average change in prices for consumers across the country, over the last 12 months.

CPI + 3.9% is the CPI % inflation rate figure plus 3.9%.

A new % inflation rate is published by the ONS every month. We’re using the December 2023 % inflation rate figure published in January 2024.

We’ll adjust standard monthly charges as outlined in your terms and conditions of contract by this amount, plus an additional 3.9% from 1 April of the same year.

As an example, for a standard monthly price of £40, if we used a CPI % inflation rate figure from December 2023 of 2.0% and then add 3.9% (2.0% + 3.9% = 5.9%) the monthly price would go up by £2.36 on 1 April 2024.

If the CPI % inflation rate figure is negative in the relevant year, then we’ll only increase monthly charges by 3.9%.

No, in this scenario we’ll take the CPI % inflation rate to be 0%, so the price increase will only be 3.9%.

As the UK continues to embrace digital technologies, the demand for the connectivity and services that we provide is always rising. To maintain the quality of our network for our customers we’re continually investing in it which is expensive.

The CPI element of our annual price increases enables us to continue running our network considering cost and wage inflation. The 3.9% lets us continually invest in the UK’s digital future. Things like improving our customer service and propositions and increasing social inclusion through widening our network footprint.

You’ll still receive any discounts you get, and these will be applied to your new standard monthly charges.

Yes, you can, but if you cancel your service before the end of your minimum contract term, you’ll need to pay a termination charge for cancelling early.

If you’re outside of your minimum contract term, you can end your service at any time without termination charges, but bear in mind that other charges may apply if you want to cancel services that are not affected by a price increase.

We’re engaging with Ofcom on what it means for our small business customers and will update on any changes as soon as we can.