Former BT customers who wish to hold on to their BT email address will have to start paying £7.50 a month, the telecoms giant has confirmed. BT will hike the current £5 a month charge by 50 per cent from August 22nd. Existing customers who use a BT email address will not have to pay the fee, and former customers who return to BT will not have to pay it either. The last rise in April 2016 was a 300 per cent hike from £1.60 a month to £5. People are often loathe to change their email address over fears it will disrupt contact with friends and other contacts, or result in them losing their old emails. However, BT customers who don’t want to ditch their email address now face paying £90 a year if they change provider. The alternative is to stay with BT for broadband whether or not it offers them the best value and service. Those affected are being contacted by BT with reassurance that ‘If you want to keep your service unchanged, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll simply start paying the new amount from 22 August 2018’.

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