Elderly face 10% phone price rise

Monday 01 December 2014

JT has announced annual cost-of-living rises for landlines and international mobile calls – but the cost of the subsidised Prime Talk line rental for the elderly is going up by almost 10%.

The rest of the price increases have kept pace with inflation, meaning that the cost in real terms to most customers hasn’t changed. But the Prime Talk tariff offered to all over-65s irrespective of their income – which provides a heavily discounted line rental and reduced call charges – is due for an inflation-busting increase from the end of January.

JT have defended the big rise, saying that the Prime Talk rates have not increased at all since July 2009, and that they have absorbed the cost of inflation for the last five years. They say that the 10% price increase just means that the cost of the service is actually still the same in real terms as it was in 2009.

From next June, Islanders will also be able to get their landline services from other operators besides JT when full competition comes into force, although none of the other operators provides a similar discounted senior citizens tariff for landline calls.

The Island’s competition regulator has already changed the rules so that Islanders don’t have to put up with unexpected changes to their mobile, broadband or fixed line contracts anymore and now have the right to break them if their operator changes the terms of the deal midway through their contract.

The Channel Islands Competition and Regulatory Authority has ordered local telecoms operators to give customers more than two month’s written notice if they are putting up their prices and anyone whose not happy about it will have the right to break their contracts without being charged.