Topic: BT's Voice Line & ADSL VoIP Price Cuts

[Clive]

ISPr

BT has today announced a series of price cuts to its fixed-line voice and broadband VoIP (Voice over IP) packages. The move follows a comprehensive review of the operators pricing:

BT Together Option 2 and 3 customers will see prices slashed by almost a third. From tomorrow, the monthly price for the evening and weekend call package (Option 2) will fall by 28% to £3.95 and anytime calling package customers (Option 3) will see a 31% cut to £9.95.

Meanwhile, BT is also introducing price changes that will be offered to all its customers. From 15th August, BT will be offering a year?s free UK evening and weekend calls if they sign-up to BT for 18 months.

Also, from the end of the year, all BT?s 16 million customers will be offered a 25p discount to their monthly line rental, if they opt to receive bills online.

From October the cost of calling many non-geographic numbers is also being cut. 0845 and 0870 numbers now account for a quarter of call time and the changes make BT less than half the price for these calls than some competitors.

BT is also encouraging the adoption of new technology by cutting the cost of voice calls made over the internet (VoIP). From tomorrow, customers who have their phone plugged into their BT broadband connection with Broadband Talk will be able to make anytime UK* calls for just £4.95 a month ? a 29% saving on the previous price.

The price cuts follow a number of other initiatives in recent months. In June, BT introduced free UK* evening and weekend voice over internet calls and reduced the price of wifi calls, generating an estimated £152 million of savings for all its consumer broadband customers. Also this year, BT reduced international direct dial rates and introduced Friends & Family Auto-Update, an initiative which could save customers around £50 million.

BT is also aiming to make life easier for customers by simplifying some of its tariffs. From October, it will introduce just three rates for calls from landlines to mobiles, replacing the previous twenty. Rates will be 13p per minute during the daytime, 8p during the evenings, and 5p during the weekend, including VAT.**

* Call to numbers beginning 01 and 02, excluding Channel Islands

** excluding Hutchinson 3G

Other updates to the tariffs include charging by the minute for residential customers from October and a 3p call set-up fee to replace the existing 5.5p minimum call charge.

All customers will be contacted about the changes in August?s Update magazine sent with the BT bill or via a personalised letter and there will be an extensive advertising campaign.

For more details on the savings and great value new offers at BT, please go to http://www.bt.com/callsave .

BT has been facing mounting pressure from increasingly cheap alternative providers and is keen to take advantage of softer price control regulation by Ofcom.

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