UK mobile phone operators Orange and Vodafone have announced price hikes for their PAYG services.

Orange customers will see calls going up from 20p to 25p per minute, and texts from 10p to 12p apiece, starting Friday.

Vodafone customers will see standard calls jumping by 4p to 25p per minute and texts by 2p to 12p, starting July 14.

But, there will be no disparity, as the price hikes by Orange and Vodafone will bring those carriers' pricing more or less in line with that of their rivals. Major rival carriers, viz. T-Mobile, O2 and 3UK, have confirmed that they had not plans to raise their PAYG prices in the near future.

Vodafone held the Ofcom-mandated cut in mobile termination rates (MTRs) responsible for its decision to increase the PAYG prices.

Announcing the price hikes, the Ofcom said, "During our discussions with Ofcom over mobile termination rates, we stressed that if the rates came down rapidly and dramatically, the cost of Pay As You Go was likely to rise as a consequence."

The Ofcom-mandated in MTR, which is the charge a network provider levies on another network provider to have the second network provider’s customers connect a call to the first network provider’s customer, took effect in April this year.

The main objective behind the cut in MTRs was to hack the cost of calls to a mobile phone from any phone.