Peak hours change could ring up £450 bill

SKY and Talk Talk will follow BT's lead on 1 June by putting the start of their evening off-peak phone call periods back one hour to 7pm.

Customers with Sky and Talk Talk will now have to pay 5.9p a minute or 5.8p a minute respectively between the hours of 7am and 7pm, with both companies increasing their prices next week.

But with neither provider advertising the change widely there are concerns that some customers will continue making calls from 6pm in the evening under the assumption that they are free. BT changed its off-peak hours from 6pm to 6am to between 7pm and 7am in April.

Comparison site uSwitch estimates that the move will cost users an extra 450 a year unless they change call times.