“Competition and price caps will mean cheaper phone bills” – watchdog

Tuesday 19 May 2015

Price caps, competition and tighter regulation will mean that Islanders get better value from phone and broadband services this year, according to the competition regulator.

From the start of next month, Sure and Airtel will be able to challenge JT in the home landline market thanks to intervention by the regulator, and they say that price caps are also coming this year.

Channel Islands Competition Regulatory Authority director Michael Byrne said that the work that they had been doing to add value and fairness for consumers would start paying off this year.

He said: “From mid-2015 it will improve choice and remove a long-standing obstacle to fairer competition in the marketplace.

“We expect consumers to see the benefits of this decision by CICRA, with telecoms operators able to offer full bundled packages, ie. landline, mobile, broadband and multimedia services to their customers.

“Through the exercise of that choice available to consumers we anticipate a market that is more responsive and delivers better value to Islanders.”

Mr Byrne – who made the comments in Cicra’s annual report – also says that Jersey phone companies are being forced to work to European rules on reducing “bill shock” from roaming charges, and that they have given customers the right to scrap phone contracts if the operator changes their prices.

He also says that regular customer satisfaction surveys – which have so far recorded less-than-brilliant results – will continue, and that they expect companies to improve their services this year.

Mr Byrne said: “Through publishing customer views of their telecom providers we sought to encourage providers to raise their standards but to also give recognition of positive customer experience. Cicra is confident that operators will take account of the views of their customers with improvements seen over 2015.”