This article is more than 1 year old
Brit ISP TalkTalk scraps line rental charges
Complies with regulator ahead of time. Fancy that
UK ISP TalkTalk is scrapping line rental charges and freezing price increases for 18 months – in a bid to comply with forthcoming regulatory changes and retain its declining customer base.
The move comes exactly one year after the disastrous hack at TalkTalk, which resulted in 150,000 of its customers' details being stolen.
Since then the business has been haemorrhaging customers, with 9,000 having fled its broadband service in the last quarter.
TalkTalk is contacting existing customers from today to offer them the package. However, subscribers who refuse to sign up to the new deal will be subject to price increases.
Tristia Harrison, TalkTalk’s consumer manager said: “TalkTalk is changing. Nothing matters more to us than our customers and doing right by them is the right thing for our business."
Harrison added: "We’ve listened hard to what they’ve told us and we’re acting on it. People are fed up of confusing packages and loud advertising, they’re frustrated with deals which shoot up mid contract, and they hate seeing the best deals saved for new customers."
However, the Advertising Standards Authority is requiring all ISPs to offer line rental and broadband as one single price by the end of this month to ensure greater pricing transparency.
Vodafone was the first provider to scrap line rental charges in August, however TalkTalk claims to be the first to do so across all its packages. ®