Watchdog to investigate BT price changes

Fears that price changes unveiled by telephone giant BT last week will leave consumers short-changed have sparked an industry watchdog probe.

Ofcom said it had started an "urgent" investigation into the planned price changes, which are introduced tomorrow, and has powers to reverse the new tariffs.

BT wants to increase its monthly line rental charge, but competitors such as Tesco and Centrica argue the changes will force them to push up prices for non-BT customers.

The changes will affect about half of BT's 19 million residential customers. Its rivals have only three million customers between them and have argued the changes amount to an abuse of BT's near-monopoly.

BT says the changes will benefit "millions of customers", but critics say occasional callers will be hard hit.