Vodafone today added to the increasing cost of living burdening Britons after it announced plans to raise its minimum call charges, leaving customers paying higher mobile phone bills.

The Newbury-based group, which has 18.4 million UK customers, is raising its minimum call charges by 25 per cent from September 1.

The cost of calls that exceed customers' monthly bundle, or tariff, of calls will go up from 12p a minute to 15p. Calling premium rate and non-geographic numbers will also become 25 per cent more expensive.

The move follows similar price increases by rivals O2 and T-Mobile, which last month doubled the minimum connection charge for many of their pay-as-you-go customers.

Industry analysts say operators are slipping in price rises to combat lost revenue as the European Commission plans to cut termination rates — the price that mobile companies charge each other and fixed-line operators, such as BT, to connect calls to their networks.

Operators have also been forced to cut international roaming charges following pressure from Viviane Reding, the EU Telecoms Commissioner.

Vodafone is not changing its headline tariff rates and the increased charges apply to contract and pay-as-you-go customers.

A spokesman for Vodafone said the increases were the first for two years and were partly a response to “regulatory pressures”.

Last month, O2 raised the minimum call charge for pay-as-you-go customers, who have not upgraded to a new tariff, from 10p to 20p, while T-Mobile raised its prepaid minimum call charge from 10p to between 15p and 25p, depending on which tariff the customer takes.

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