Many UPC customers will see the cost of their broadband, television and phone services jump by almost €100 over the next 12 months after the company rolled out a fresh round of price increases of more than 10 per cent.

It is the third time the company has imposed price increases in less than two years and comes on the back of price increases of up to 14 per cent it announced at the end of January last year. The price of the three services from UPC are now set to rise at almost 50 times the rate of general inflation, with the price increase kicking in from the beginning of February.

When asked why it was imposing price increases of such magnitude, a spokeswoman said it was to “allow us to invest in giving our customers more entertainment than ever before and providing unbeatable superfast broadband services”. She said that the cost increases “arise mainly from increased operational costs and revised content and copyright charges from channel and content providers”.

All told, more than half a million subscribers will be hit by the charge which will take the monthly cost of television, broadband and phone packages to close to €100 a month. Given that the price increases amount to a significant change in the terms of the contracts people have with the company, they can opt to discontinue the service or switch to another provider within the next 30 days without attracting any financial penalty.

The company has also sidestepped criticism that its customers have seen their viewing choices restricted since the introduction of UTV Ireland on New Year’s Day. While customers of Sky can now access both UTV Ireland and UTV – which screens different programmes – UPC customers can only access the former channel.