BT’s landline-only customers will continue to have their prices protected for the next five years, after Ofcom accepted BT’s commitment to continue price caps on its line rental and call charges.
This follows our initial 2017 review of the market, which found that customers who only have a landline were getting poor value for money compared to customers who had bundles of landline, broadband and pay-TV services.
In 2018, following our review, BT reduced the price of line rental for these landline-only customers, from £18.99 to £11.99. At the time this represented a saving of £84 a year, or 37%, for up to one million of BT’s customers who didn’t also have a BT broadband service.
BT also committed to capping any overall increases to line rental and call charges to inflation for three years.
This was particularly important to older customers, since nearly two thirds of customers who only had a landline were over the ages of 65, and more than three quarters had never switched provider.
BT’s original commitments ran to the end of March 2021. However, it has committed to continue these protections for a further five years, which we have accepted.