Eircom has increased the charge on line rental by 95p per month, excluding VAT - an average increase of 3 per cent on residential bills and 2 per cent on business customer bills.

The company has defended the increases claiming that reductions on call charges introduced over the past year have resulted in net reductions on the average residential bill of 11 per cent and on the average business bill of 15 per cent, despite the increases.

Eircom said the line rental charge was a contribution to the cost of providing and maintaining the infrastructure connecting each customer to their local telephone exchange.

The company also announced a £15.79 cut in connection fees to £13.13 from April 2nd for all customers moving to a premises which already has a phone line. The charge for transferring a telephone account into another name has also been reduced from £14.87 to £7.88.