Talk Talk to raise TV, broadband and phone prices

TalkTalk is putting prices up for existing customers from May, but new rules mean you can switch before they come in.

TalkTalk has announced it's hiking the cost of its TV, broadband and line rental services.

New customers face the higher charges with immediate effect. But existing customers will feel the impact from 1st May 2014.

The changes

Here is a table outlining the major changes.

Older packages that are no longer on sale are also going up by at least £1 a month from 1st May. These include:

• Talk Global Anytime
• Talk Global Evening & Weekend
• Talk International Anytime
• Talk International Evening & Weekend
• Talk Total Anytime Evening & Weekend
• Talk Total Anytime
• Talk International Evening & Weekend IPS
• Talk International Anytime IPS
• Talk UK Weekend BB (£1.40)
• Talk 3 BB (£1.21)

Call charges outside an allowance will rise too. The 9p/minute charge for out of bundle calls will go up to 11.5p/minute from 1st June, but the new rate will apply to all calls day or night.

Details of all TalkTalk’s price changes can be found here.

What you can do

TalkTalk said it would be contacting existing customers from 27th March to inform them about the changes.

Under new Ofcom rules, mobile, landline or broadband customers can leave their provider without penalty should it raise prices during their contract.

But the rules only apply if you signed up on or after 23rd January.

Customers will have 30 days from when they receive their letter about the changes to switch onto a different package or switch to another provider.

What TalkTalk says

TalkTalk says the price rises are being introduced to help pay for improvements to its services.

Plus TV customers (who face the biggest hike), for example, will get seven Sky channels added to their package including Sky 1, Sky Sports News, Sky Living and Sky Arts from 5th April.

TalkTalk also offers truly unlimited broadband usage on all of its current deals and has introduced a Speedy Payment Discount which gets you 15% off if you pay your bill on the first day you receive it.

Should you stick with TalkTalk?

Despite the hikes, TalkTalk says it remains the UK’s best value provider. You can judge for yourself using a comparison service like broadbandchoices.com to see if you can find a cheaper deal.

To get you started here are the top five providers offering deals for TV, broadband and phone at the moment.

At the moment TalkTalk has an offer on its Essential TV (£2.50 off for first six months) and Plus TV (£5.50 off for first six months) which pushes it into the top five for cheapest deals.

However, these deals will be for new customers. Existing customers will pay the higher price sooner.

On the Talk Talk Essentials TV package an existing customer will pay £293.40 a year once the price hikes take effect, but this is still the best value deal compared to next best at the moment.

However, as a new customer you can get some pretty good freebies for signing up. Virgin Media is offering sixth month’s free Netflix subscription (until 31st March), while Sky and BT are offering Sainsbury’s gift cards.

If you are a broadband-only or broadband and phone customer you can see if you can get a better deal using broadbandchoices.com.

More on household bills:

Water bills to rise 2%

Utility Warehouse reviewed

Where to get help with paying your energy bills

First Utility launches cheapest energy deal on the market