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WQ.68/2021
WRITTEN QUESTION TO THE MINISTER FOR TREASURY AND RESOURCES BY DEPUTY K.F. MOREL OF ST. LAWRENCE
QUESTION SUBMITTED ON MONDAY 22nd FEBRUARY 2021 ANSWER TO BE TABLED ON MONDAY 1st MARCH 2021
Question
Will the Minister, as Shareholder Representative, provide an annual breakdown of the increases in telecom charges levied by JT for each year since 2015, providing also a comparison with R.P.I. Low Income for each year?
Answer
The majority of JT's customers purchase landline, broadband and mobile from JT and the most popular tariff is the JT One Unlimited and JT One Lite plan. In real terms over the 5 year period, the price of these services has fallen as is demonstrated in the table below:-
2015 | JT % | 2016 | JT % | 2017 | JT % | 2018 | JT % | 2019 | JT % | 2020 | ||||||||||||
Low Income RPI | 1.1% |
| 1.8% |
| 3.3% |
| 3.4% |
| 2.5% |
| 1.9% | |||||||||||
JT One (landline, broadband, mobile) bundle | £59.00 | 0% | £59.00 | 0% | £59.00 | 0% | £59.00 | 0% | £59.00 | 5% | £61.90 | |||||||||||
JT One Lite (landline, broadband, mobile) bundle | N/A |
| N/A |
| £39.00 | 0% | £39.00 | 13% | £44.00* | 7% | £47.14 | |||||||||||
* broadband made unlimited. Previously unlimited broadband was charged separately at £5 per month in addition to standard subscription fee
All prices exclude GST
In addition, JT has migrated all customers from a copper provided service (up to 20Mb) to a fibre service during the period and has increased the speed of its entry level broadband product to the 1Gb that is provided today which was upgraded in April 2020 due to COVID work from home restrictions.
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| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 |
Broadband Speed (Mb) | 20 | 50 | 100 | 100 | 250 | 500 * |
Broadband Only Price | £17.99 | £22.99 | £24.99 | £26.25 | £27.50 | £29.52 |
Cost per Mb | £0.90 | £0.46 | £0.25 | £0.26 | £0.11 | £0.06 |
* Speed upgraded to 1Gb during COVID |
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Further thoughts on the impact of telecoms deflation on national productivity can be found in the following articles: -
https://blog.ons.gov.uk/2018/01/19/measuring-the-digital-economy-is-history-about-to-be-rewritten/ https://www.escoe.ac.uk/publications/a-comparison-of-approaches-to-deflating-telecoms-services-output/ https://www.ft.com/content/108a35e5-2aa0-4b82-9410-bee0e86d54b9 https://www.ft.com/content/abc14c66-fb78-11e7-a492-2c9be7f3120a