Three backtracks on mid-contract price hikes
With all-you-can-eat data tariffs, 4G connectivity as standard and free roaming in popular travel destinations, Three's often applauded for being a carrier of the people. Whenever a new service is announced or a new country added to the free roaming roster, you can bet Three's going to make sure everyone knows about it. One thing you can also count on, however, is the network provider keeping mum when something might damage its pro-consumer reputation. Case in point: Three's stance on mid-contract price increases.
Last year, Ofcom introduced new rules to stop carriers increasing the price of mobile contracts during the agreed term. Anyone stung by rising costs could exit their contract without penalty: a decree that effectively killed mid-term price hikes. One slight loophole to the new regulation was that providers could up the cost of contracts in line with inflation, as long as all relevant paperwork mentioned this explicitly. EE and O2 took advantage of this by adding the appropriate clauses to their contracts, but at the time, Vodafone and Three committed to completely static pricing models.
A few days ago, however, Three quietly changed its terms and conditions to include the inflation clause -- any contract signed on or after May 29th 2015 will be subject to a small yearly price increase in line with inflation, with the first bump occurring this time next year. It's not like this makes Three any different from O2 or EE, of course, but it does make us question the provider's definition of "commitment." Meanwhile, Vodafone's sticking to its guns, at least for now. A couple of months ago, the carrier took to its blog to yet again reaffirm its promise to keep contract pricing completely fixed, thereby "keeping with the spirit of the regulations."
