BT will be freezing prices for its broadband bundles throughout 2013, while raising costs of standalone services and out of bundle calls.
Customers taking BT broadband and calls will be able to enjoy the same prices now up until 2014, meaning that deals like BT’s current Broadband and Evening & Weekend Calls – for £13/month – will be priced the same all throughout next year.
BT is also introducing Anytime Unlimited Plus for £8/month. This is a new calls package that will see the cost of calls to UK mobiles falling to 2.65p/minute in the evening and 5.65p/minute during the day. BT says this represents a drop of around 50 per cent down from the standard rate.
However, BT is also raising the costs of standalone services – broadband taken without phone calls – the basic BT Vision service and the per minute costs of calls to certain numbers. The rises aren’t huge but they’re rises nonetheless.
Recombu Digital has taken a magnifying glass to all of the price freezes and changes that are due to take effect from the 5th of January 2013.
BT Total Broadband: 2013 prices
Note that these price changes apply to BT broadband when taken on its own, so without added Evening & Weekend call plans or bundled with BT Vision.
BT Total Broadband Option 1 (Up to 16Mbps, 10GB usage) on its own currently costs £17.80/month, and will rise to £18.85/month in 2013. This represents a 5.9 per cent price rise.
BT Total Broadband Option 2 (Up to 16Mbps, 40GB usage) on its own costs £22.50/month right now and will rise to £23.80/month next year (a 5.8 per cent rise).
BT Total Broadband Option 3 (Up to 16Mbps, Unlimited usage) costs £26.80/month today but come 2013 will climb up to £28.35/month (a 5.8 per cent rise).
Standalone BT Infinity fibre broadband services won’t be subject to any price rises.
For more information on BT’s broadband packages read our buyer’s guide here.
BT Line Rental: 2013 prices
BT’s line rental costs will be going up in 2013. This will affect all subscribers, whether they take BT Broadband bundled with calls or without.
Right now, BT line rental costs £14.60/month and will be rising in 2013 to £15.45/month.
However if you elect to sign up for BT Line Rental Saver – where you pay for a year’s worth of rental up front – then you’ll be paying the same equivalent amount per month in 2013 as you would do now.
BT Line Rental Saver costs £129 which over 12 months works out at £10.75/month. Compared to the regular 2013 rate for regular line rental, this will save you £4.70/month or £56.40 for the whole year.
The rub is that you’ll need to have £129 set aside in order to benefit from this saving. After Christmas and the New Year, having £129 ready for your line rental might not be feasible for everyone.
The other way of looking at this of course is that you’ll have from now until the 5th of January to start saving. So you’ll only (!) need to put away £25.80 each month for the next five months.
BT call packages: 2013 prices
BT’s Weekend calls package will continue to be free as standard. This gives you calls to 01, 02, 03 and 0845 & 0870 numbers (excl. Channel Islands) between midnight on Friday to midnight on Sunday.
BT’s Evening & Weekend Calls will stay the same in 2013. This provides free calls to UK landlines (01, 02, 03 and 0845 & 0870 numbers, excl. Channel Islands) during evening (7pm to 7am Mon-Fri) and weekend (midnight Friday to midnight Sunday) hours and costs £3.15/month.
The BT Anytime calls package (01, 02, 03 and 0845 & 0870 numbers, excl. Channel Islands – redial before 60 minutes) currently costs £4.90/month and will go up to £5.15/month (a 5.1 per cent rise) in 2013.
Anytime Unlimited Plus, BT’s new call package costs £8/month and offers the same benefits of Anytime, only it comes with reduced rates for calls to mobile numbers. BT Anytime Unlimited Plus will stay at the same price throughout 2013.
We’ll update our line rental comparison feature ‘Cheapest line rental face-off: BT, O2, Orange, Plusnet, Sky, TalkTalk, Tesco, Virgin and more’ once BT’s new prices roll around next year.
BT local and national calls: 2013 prices
The prices for BT local and national calls outside of any call packages are set to go up in 2013. So for example if you made a local call in the daytime and you’re on the Evening & Weekends Plan you’ll be paying a little more next year.
Daytime local and national calls currently cost 7.95p/minute and will climb to 8.41p/minute (up 5.9 per cent).
Evening local and national calls will go up 1.05p/minute to 1.11p/minute (up 5.9 per cent) next year too.
Call set up fees are also going up. Costing 13.1p per call, these will go up to 13.87 (another 5.9 per cent rise) in 2013.
The call set up fee is what you’re charged at the start of any call to any number that’s outside of your call plan. So if you’re calling a number not covered or calling during a time of day that you’re not covered then you’ll be charged this set up fee for the call.
For more details on BT’s call packages, read our guide here.
BT Vision: 2013 prices
Finally there’s to be a slight change to the price of BT Vision Essentials. The entry-level BT Vision service will cost £5/month, up from £4/month from January 2013. The BT Vision Unlimited pack will however remain priced at £12.50/month.
BT Vision Essentials comes with 75 Freeview channels and gives you access to a library of on-demand content, priced from 50p a TV show and £2.50 a movie.
BT Vision Unlimited comes with all the above plus ESPN sports and unlimited access to the on-demand library.
Sky Sports 1 and 2 will also be going up, from £12.90/month each to £15/month. The cost of bundling both Sky Sports channels together will remain at £18.20/month after the 5th of January.
For more information on BT Vision read our buying guide here.
Leave a Reply