BT Group PLC (LSE:BT.A) has confirmed it is putting its prices up by an inflation-busting 9.3% on average adding to the current squeeze on household bills.
The increase, which comes in from April, reflected higher costs for the business it said and will mean an average rise of £3.50 per month for most customers.
BT introduced a policy of changing prices once a year on 31 March in 2019 and said that this latest increase reflects the CPI (consumer price index) rising by an annual rate of 5.4% in December.
Nick Lane, managing director for consumer customer services, said that the rises were a necessary part of business “if we’re to keep up with the rising costs we face and ensure we can continue to deliver a brilliant network experience as customers usage of data grows month on month”.
"We’ve thought long and hard about how we make sure that any pricing changes are predictable, clear, and not unfairly focused on our existing customers, but reflected in our new prices too."
Other telecom companies have announced rises in line with BT as nearly all base their pricing on a CPI-plus methodology.
Vodafone is raising its prices by 9.3%, TalkTalk by 9.1% and PlusNet by 9.3%.
BT and subsidiaries such as EE add 3.9% on top of the official inflation number, while Vodafone and TalkTalk add 3.7%.
Hull-based KCOM scrapped its contractual price rise this year to ease some of the pressure on customers, consumer group Which? reported recently.
December’s CPI figure was the highest since the index was introduced 25 years ago by the ONS.