BT broadband users face price rise this week, but you can avoid it

Millions of BT users across the UK are about to be hit by a record price increase that will see bills soar by a whopping 14.4 percent. The change kicks in from March 31 and will affect the majority of customers that have this popular broadband beamed into their homes. The massive hike will leave those with a £60 bill facing an extra £8.64 per month to pay – that’s over £100 a year more.

“For those customers who will be affected by the price change it’s important to put our price change in context,” explained Nick Lane, MD Customer Services, BT Consumer. “Telecommunications as a sector provides incredible value for money when you think that our customers are using as much as 50 per cent more data every single year. In fact, customers in the UK are some of the highest data users in Europe. We are also a small proportion of household spend every month.”

That statement from BT probably won’t be of any comfort to those now facing much higher costs but there is something that can be done to get things back under control.

READ MORE: Virgin Media’s ultimate half-price broadband could convince you to ditch Sky and BT

Making some simple changes to broadband plans, haggling or even switching to a new supplier could cut costs by a considerable margin. If your BT bill is heading upward later this week here are some things to try.

TOP TIPS FOR LOWER BROADBAND BILLS

The first thing to do is get on the phone and give BT a call. There’s always a chance that a simple chat could see the price of your plan reduced.

It’s often the cancellation or retention teams that offer the lowest prices so try and be put through to these departments first.

If that doesn’t work then maybe it’s a good idea to look elsewhere. Switching can be relatively easy and you’ll probably get a much lower price.

Along with moving to the big Internet Service Providers such as BT, Sky or TalkTalk it’s also worth looking at smaller, so-called Alt-net providers. These ISPs often have very fast speeds at much lower prices so see if any have arrived on your street.

Names to look out for include Community Fibre, Toob, KCOM, Hyperoptic and Gigaclear.

Another way of cutting costs is asking to be put onto a Social Tariff. All of the UK’s biggest ISPs, including BT, offer cheaper prices for those claiming benefits such as Universal Credit.

HERE’S WHAT THE BIG ISPS CHARGE FOR SOCIAL TARIFFS

Vodafone’s social broadband tariff is £12 a month for 38Mbps speeds. BT Home Essentials offers 36Mbps speeds for £15 a month, while Virgin Media Essentials is £12.50 a month for 15Mbps speeds. TalkTalk offers free average 38Mb speed of broadband-only internet for six months.

Finally, do you really need those very fast speeds? The slower things are the less you’ll pay so if you’re simply browsing the web and watching the odd show on Netflix it might be worth reducing your downloads as it can save some cash.

HERE’S A SIMPLE GUIDE TO BROADBAND SPEEDS

36Mbps speed – 4K movie download time = 15 minutes

76Mbps speed – 4K movie download time = 9 minutes

200Mbps speed – 4K movie download time = 3 minutes

500Mbps speed – 4K movie download time = 1 minute

1Gbps speed – 4K movie download time = under 40 seconds