KC CUSTOMERS are being hit by a price hike on broadband and phone services.
The telecom company is increasing the cost of its KC Local calls package by 50p per month, from £12.99 to £13.49.
Its Home broadband and phone line bundle costs are also going up by £1, to £30.99 per month.
Business and consumer director Gary Young said although prices were rising, the company was also offering more for its customers' money.
He said: "We're committed to giving our customers best value, which is why the small increases we're making to some of our prices are accompanied by extra free call minutes and bigger download allowances.
"The price of our most popular phone and broadband bundle and our Karoo broadband prices haven't changed since we introduced them five years ago, even though we've significantly increased the download allowances and speed during this time."
Although costs are going up, KC local customers will get an extra 30 free minutes of landline to mobile calls.
The monthly download allowance for its Home phone and broadband bundles is increasing from 33GB to 35GB.
Broadband-only customers will also see their costs go up by a pound.
But this rise will again be accompanied by download limit increases.
Mr Young said: "One of the reasons we're doing this is our costs have gone up.
"The cost of energy is going up and the cost of fuel has gone up.
"We've also reinvested quite significant sums in our network and our services."
The company also stressed its fixed call line package remained the cheapest in the country.
Mr Young said his business was focused on employing local people and developing faster internet speeds, including the Lightstream fibre-optic network.
KC hopes the upgrade will make its broadband 14 times quicker than average.
Mr Young said: "People can see that we're reinvesting, either in network services such as Lightstream or our services more generally.
"Our engineers are local and our call centre is local.
"We're probably one of the few companies in this business area who can say our employees are all our customers as well."
Prices will rise from April 1. Customers will be sent letters notifying them of the changes in the next few weeks.
