Customers who subscribe to Virgin Media face a rise in their bills this autumn.
The cable and TV company has just announced it’s hiking prices by between £2 and £4 per month – up to £48 per year.
The average rise will be £2.20.
Virgin says it will be writing those affected by the hike in the coming weeks with the changes expected to hit monthly fees in October and November.
Speaking about the rise, a Virgin spokesperson said: “Increasing prices is not a decision which we take lightly.
“We work hard to keep our prices competitive while continuing to invest in our network and improve the services we offer our customers.
“This year’s price increase is lower than last year while broadband usage on our network has increased by almost 40% in that time, with approximately 60% of total traffic now due to more streaming of video.
“At the same time the impact on us of a 300% increase in business rates on broadband networks has started to take effect, hiking up the costs associated with building and running our network.
“Over the past year we’ve invested around a billion pounds in our network and upgraded many of our customers to faster broadband while introducing a new top speed of 362Mbps – the fastest widely-available speed in the market.”
The news of this price bump comes as Virgin has just revealed a swathe of new features including an update to its TV Go app which now allows more programmes to be downloaded and watched on the move.
The upgrade for Full House and VIP customers offers more than 2,000 episodes of entertainment from the likes of Fox, ABC and Comedy Central, as well as Virgin TV’s collection of exclusive box sets, such as Kingdom and Ash Vs Evil Dead.
Extra 4K content is also arriving on the platform and Virgin has recently confirmed the return of the popular UKTV channels.
“Our significant investment continues to bring real benefits to Virgin Media customers – under new rules introduced this year to bring greater transparency to broadband advertising we were the only major provider to see our advertised speeds increase.
“On top of speed improvements, we’ve also accelerated the rollout of our latest technology such as the popular V6 TV box and Hub 3.0 router to millions of our customers.
“Giving our customers an amazing service with the best connectivity, great programming – from exclusive entertainment to 4K UHD sport – and innovative new upgrades is something we’re committed to – and we’ll be delivering even more of this during the coming year,” the spokesperson added.
Despite the new features, the price rise is unlikely to be popular with customers.
Some have already taken to social media to complain, with one user saying: “AGAIN! #virginmedia announces inflation-busting price rise for TV and broadband customers, disgraceful.”