Legislation to limit price rises ?

50Twuncle

At the moment "ESSENTIAL SERVICES" are limited to :

• the hospital sector
• electricity services ...;
• water supply services ...;
• the telephone service ...;
• the police and the armed forces ...;
• the fire-fighting services ...;
• public or private prison services ...;
• the provision of food to pupils of school age and the cleaning of schools ...;
• air traffic control …

According to Wikipedia

kwikbreaks

Water was a publicly owned service that was privatised. The water companies got one hell of a lot of infrastructure which they never produced originally which they bought from HMG. Part of the deal was regulation of pricing.

There was never a publicly produced broadband service. Closest you get is the Post Office privatisation when BT got control of a lot of pretty obsolete infrastructure and some regulation was part of that deal too but mostly on service provision rather than pricing. BT invested a lot in converting the exchanges to digital and have added a load of broadband infrastructure but that was all private investment so they can charge pretty much what the market will stand for it - the main rule being they have to charge all ISPs the same for access including BT retail.

50Twuncle

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Water was a publicly owned service that was privatised. The water companies got one hell of a lot of infrastructure which they never produced originally which they bought from HMG. Part of the deal was regulation of pricing.

There was never a publicly produced broadband service. Closest you get is the Post Office privatisation when BT got control of a lot of pretty obsolete infrastructure and some regulation was part of that deal too but mostly on service provision rather than pricing. BT invested a lot in converting the exchanges to digital and have added a load of broadband infrastructure but that was all private investment so they can charge pretty much what the market will stand for it - the main rule being they have to charge all ISPs the same for access including BT retail.

I am not saying that the ISP's shouldn't be allowed to set their own charges - but that they should be limited in the price rises that they are allowed to impose on customers...
I reckon that TT are simply reclaiming their loses made through their "problems" in 2015 and they should not be allowed to. They should have to "take" the loses and simply increase by RPI.

iniltous

You seem to overlook the fact that the wholesale price is regulated, more so than water, gas or electricity, and those utility's really are 'essential services', broadband isn't, you can die of thirst, or hypothermia, you won't die by not updating your social media profile
The pricing structure in this country is being addressed by Ofcom but in its usual half arsed way, ISP's load their profit margin onto 'line rental' ( wholesale £8, retail £17-£19) so they can disguise the true cost of 'broadband' saying its £0 to 10 per month.
Most punters will assume it's the cost of line rental that goes up and 'blame' BT/OR, and not in the 'control' of the ISP, when in fact it's the thing that the ISP's control that has increased in price, but obviously they prefer to keep this from you
In my opinion instead of these 'inclusive prices' where if you have to take line rental with the same company as the broadband, the combined price is quoted, a better system would be for them to show the wholesale price of the line rental, after all they all pay OR the same wholesale price (£8), then you can see what you are then paying for the services delivered over the £8 line.
OR have a pretty tough regulatory regime to abide by, in real terms they get less money per line, per year ( it's an inflation minus formula, low inflation means the price actually reduces, but you wouldn't know this looking at your line/broadband bill)
The fact that retail ISP's can put up prices when they want is capitalism, don't like the price your ISP charges, move to another company, what you imply is that ISP's operate as a cartel, and cartels are supposedly illegal

kwikbreaks

50Twuncle wrote: »

I am not saying that the ISP's shouldn't be allowed to set their own charges - but that they should be limited in the price rises that they are allowed to impose on customers...

They are limited in what they charge customers - if it's too much any customers with a bit of common sense will go elsewhere. Don't forget that every increase gives you the option of a penalty free move (apart from if you've prepaid line rental).

teddysmum

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) ?

I must be deprived, then, as I use my mobile about 3 or 4 times a year.