BT has recently raised charges for its telephone line rental and call rates for the third time in a year. At a time when household finances are at their tightest, BT have made the decision to increase costs, making the average phone bill jump from £183 to £217 a year.

BT's daytime landline call charges are going up 9 percent to 7.6 pence a minute, up from 5.4p just one year ago. The supplier's line rental costs are also going up by 30p a month, to £13.90. Customers still paying their bills by cash will also pay 60p a month more, with additional charges for services such as call waiting going from £2.70 a month to £3. BT have also trimmed their evening off-peak periods back an hour, to 7pm.

The most recent call cost changes will come into effect on April 28th. It is expected to affect the four million BT customers who are not on all-inclusive call packages. However, the higher line rental costs will affect all BT customers regardless of which service they are using.

Mike Wilson, mobile and broadband manager at moneysupermarket.com, said: "We have seen a lot of price movement in the landline market recently and unfortunately for consumers most of the moves have been to increase the cost of having and using a home phone line."

Virgin Media increased its prices by 6 percent last year, and Sky is set to raise its prices in June although it has not yet said how much. TalkTalk also plans to raise call charges by 16 percent and line rental by 2 percent.

"Other suppliers will inevitably follow BT, as we saw with repeated copycat price rises in 2010," said Wilson. "This latest price increase will do little to ease the rising cost of living that UK customers are facing."

Households could face further charges as a result of the provision of broadband to rural areas. "It's true that the telecoms industry is under pressure to invest in the roll-out of broadband to rural areas," said Ernest Doku, technology expert at uSwitch. "It seems though that home phone rather than broadband customers could be paying the price."

Household customers are going to have to take measures into their own hands in order to keep costs down. Customers will need to research the best price plan to suit their needs, possibly moving to a deal that offers free evening and weekend calls, or free 'anytime' calls for those at home during the day. Line rental costs can be saved by switching away from the big providers to a smaller company such as Primus which offers line rental for just £6.79 a month.