Legislation to limit price rises ?

50Twuncle

Why is it that some utilities (such as Water and Power) are "protected" by legislation that prevents the companies from increasing prices as they want, generally limited to RPI, when others - such as Internet Service Providers are allowed to increase their prices, at least annually at far greater rates ?

JJ_Egan

My alternative question is why do some ISPs cut the rate so low ??
Why should it be protected anyway my loaf of bread and packet of tea are not .
Though i would like to see the nonsense of a contract with a price agreed being subject to a price increase .

50Twuncle

JJ_Egan wrote: »

My alternative question is why do some ISPs cut the rate so low ??

They do it as a temporary method of attracting more customers - only to increase prices exponentially once they have been tied in to a contract...
I mean - how much does it actually cost an ISP once connected to fibre ?
In electricity costs - fractions of a penny per month - and what other on-going costs are there ?

unforeseen

50Twuncle wrote: »

Why is it that some utilities (such as Water and Power) are "protected" by legislation that prevents the companies from increasing prices as they want, generally limited to RPI, when others - such as Internet Service Providers are allowed to increase their prices, at least annually at far greater rates ?

Possibly because power and utilities are considered as essential whereas ISPs can treat their products the same as any other commodity and soak the customer for as much as they can.

50Twuncle

unforeseen wrote: »

Possibly because power and utilities are considered as essential whereas ISPs can treat their products the same as any other commodity and soak the customer for as much as they can.

Isn't it about time that an internet connection was considered an essential service ?
I believe that mobile phones are essential services (Three limit their annual price rises to RPI) ?

Browntoa

Without an adequate return you wouldn't get the increase in speeds that we've seen

BT and Virging Media are the only ones who invest in research and development , the others just piggy back the backbone

Hence an ofcom decision to seperate Openreach from BT would halt BTs investment in research , why would they want to invest billions in technology for a seperate company . Alternatively BT or Virgin could charge Openreach for the use of their technologies , which could cause prices to rise in the long term

brewerdave

To balance the argument, I've actually paid a lot less in the last 4 years for my internet connection than before -was paying £17.99 pm then £12.99 pm -last two years and next 18 months FREE!!!

Browntoa

Bt do a low cost offering if you are on certain benefits

http://www.btplc.com/inclusion/ProductsAndServices/BTBasic/BTBasicBroadband/index.htm

brewerdave

The problem with increases is down to line rental -and they all appear to be in some sort of cabal - if A puts up LR by 10% so does every other supplier!
But if you negotiate hard on broadband (as I have done for several years) and are careful about call costs, then the overall telecom increase can be controlled -but it needs work!!

By the way, the OP is wrong about power costs -they are not directly controlled

JJ_Egan

50Twuncle wrote: »

Isn't it about time that an internet connection was considered an essential service ?
I believe that mobile phones are essential services (Three limit their annual price rises to RPI) ?

Essential then you would have to put food in the same category . Cars petrol etc etc .

50Twuncle

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Essential then you would have to put food in the same category . Cars petrol etc etc .

We are just talking about "services"
Elect, Gas, Water, Phone etc etc......