Broadband

Three has backtracked on a promise it made to customers last year not to hike prices mid-contract.

Students heading home from university for the summer could be able to claim a £36 refund for the unused part of their TV licence. They should also diarise to close or switch any energy or broadband accounts.

TalkTalk broadband, TV and home phone customers are to be hit with price hikes from 1 June, and the provider is scrapping free local calls for 200,000 users from 1 July.

Update: 14 April 2015: EE has today told us the power bars will be available from Thursday 16 April. At the time of writing it had yet to release the launch date.

BT has re-entered the mobile market this week with a range of Sim-only mobile deals, but the tariffs are only available on a 12 month contract and only its 7.6 million broadband customers will benefit from the cheapest prices.

BT has today announced that it has bought mobile and broadband provider EE, subject to approval, but it has confirmed customer contracts will remain the same for now.

Consumers could have access to more bundled phone, broadband and TV deals from next year after Sky confirmed today that it will launch its own mobile phone network next year.

Tesco broadband and home phone customers will be transferred to TalkTalk over the coming months, while the pay-per-view Blinkbox movie service is now owned by the provider.

Virgin Media home phone and broadband customers who aren't on the provider's cable network will start to receive letters from this week telling them that unless they object, they'll be transferred to TalkTalk.