Virgin Media to increase broadband and TV prices

The 2.4pc increase will mean the cost for those with broadband only from Virgin Media will go up by €48 a year.

It is understood the company has around 200,000 broadband customers.

It comes soon after telecoms giant Eir, satellite broadcaster Sky, mobile phone service provider Three and telecoms provider Vodafone all pushed up their prices.

Virgin Media defended its price hike, saying the percentage rise was much lower than the rate of inflation.

It is not raising the price of its phone or mobile phone services.

“While we understand that any price increase can be difficult for our customers, we want to assure you that we have kept the increase as low as possible at just 2.4pc across our entire base, which is vastly below the current rate of inflation of 8.5pc,” it said.

The provider said any discounts applied to accounts will be unaffected. It imposed a similar price rise in July last year.

Announcing the increase in an email to customers, Virgin Media told them they do not have to accept it, and can cancel their service without penalty before July 1.​

The country’s biggest telecoms provider, Eir, hit its residential customers with an 8pc rise. Some business customers face a 10pc hike.

Eir has moved to a controversial system of automatic 3pc plus inflation price increases every April.

As the annual consumer price index rate in January was 8.2pc, this should have meant an increase of 11.2pc. However, Eir has capped this year’s increase at 8pc of the standard monthly price of services, excluding any discounts for residential customers.

The hikes mean a broadband plan with a monthly price of €65.99 goes up by €5.21 to €71.20.

Sky Ireland said its average bill will increase by 5.1pc, or €4.51 a month, from this month. This works out at €54 a year in higher charges.

The company said it has not had a price increase on its TV service since 2021 and on broadband since 2018.

Depending on the package, the increases will be capped at €7 or 7pc, whichever is more favourable to the customer. Vodafone has increased prices by 11.2pc for some customers.

Affected mobile bill-pay customers will be hit with an average increase of around €5 a month.

Broadband customers will on average pay around €7 more a month.

The increases apply to mobile bill-pay customers with contracts since July 30, 2021 and fixed broadband customers with contracts since the end of January this year, including customers who renewed a contract from those dates.

Three Ireland is imposing an annual price increase for “all new and upgrading customers across all plans”. This annual price increase, from today, will be based on the annual rate of inflation plus 3pc.

The increase of 11.2pc is applicable to customers who have joined or upgraded between January 20 and the end of February this year.