Martin Lewis Drops Bombshell Warning for Broadband Customers

Martin Lewis is sounding the alarm for broadband customers across the UK, and his message is clear: Brace yourselves for bigger price hikes than you might be expecting — and don’t assume your provider’s playing fair.

On the latest episode of The Martin Lewis Podcast, the Money Saving Expert founder shared a stark warning about recent changes to broadband and mobile contract rules. While new Ofcom regulations were meant to make things clearer for customers, Martin reckons they might actually leave many worse off, especially if you’re not keeping a close eye on your contract, as reported by the Mirror.

He explained that the new rules, introduced in January, ban providers from sneaking in mid-contract price hikes based on inflation. Instead, they now have to spell out in pounds and pence exactly how much your bill could go up during the contract. Sounds good in theory — but here’s the catch.

Martin revealed that Sky has decided not to follow this new pounds-and-pence model. Instead, it’s sticking to its percentage-based increases, which means customers can actually leave mid-contract without paying a penalty — but only if they do it within 30 days of being told about the price hike, reports the Express.

“Sky isn’t telling you this,” Martin said, pointing out that the company benefits from lower-looking headline prices on comparison sites, which could skew how deals appear to customers shopping around. “It might distort the market and they might need to look at it.”

And even for those on contracts with the new “clearer” pricing model, Martin says the changes aren’t always working out for the better. In fact, some are ending up with higher increases than before. If you’re paying £20 a month and your price jumps by £3, that’s a 15% rise — well above the 5–7% typical under the old inflation-linked system.

“My problem is, they’re still allowed to increase the price mid-contract, they’re still allowed to increase it above inflation, they just can’t link it to inflation,” he said. “A fair contract would be that you can put it up by inflation. But that’s not what they’ve chosen to do.”

Sky, meanwhile, has said prices for TV and broadband packages will rise by an average of 6.2% from April, and highlighted its investment in content, sports, and infrastructure as the reason behind the increase. Customers impacted by the broadband price hike will have the option to leave penalty-free within 30 days — but this doesn’t apply to TV packages (unless you’re on the Essential TV package).

So if you’re a Sky customer, or with any provider for that matter, now’s the time to double-check your deal — because your next bill might be higher than you bargained for.