BT bundle lower prices
Thursday 11 March 2010 23:20:58 by John Hunt

With BT now allowed by Ofcom to sell bundled deals, they have come to market with a broadband and calls deal that matches their previous broadband only price. In a 'Spring Sale' BT have released a £15.99 a month product (£7.99 for the first 3 months) which offers unlimited UK phone calls and a 10GB monthly download allowance on an 'up-to' 20Mbps broadband package (BT Total Broadband Option 1). For those looking for more from their broadband, the unlimited version (with BT Total Broadband Option 3) is available for £27.99 per month (£19.99 for the first 3 months). In both cases, line rental does also apply at £11.54 per month, and the deals are expected to run until 23rd of March.

"We wanted to give our customers a great seasonal sale and to promote our all-in calls package.

Over the last 12 months, 3.6 million of our customers have moved to calls packages, where you don't pay for every call.

Offering a bundle of broadband and Anytime calls for this knockdown price will launch us into the bundles market as an unrestricted competitor for the first time. There will be many more bundled offers to come and customers can only benefit."

John Petter, (Managing Director) BT Consumer division

BT are now able to compete on a fairer playing field, we should start to see more interesting deals become available. It currently also offers triple play packages which include the BT Vision television service which starts from £21.99 a month. There is also potential for growth in BT Vision, and plans are already under way which could see it offer a service to help it compete with Virgin and Sky. Project Canvas, of which BT is a partner, is developing a set-top box which will bring the Internet to the television. The proposed solution will allow on-demand television to be delivered over a common open standard which should help increase the amount of content that is available.

Another development that will boost Vision is if Ofcom decide in their favour to force Sky to reduce wholesale costs of its premium channels such as Sky Sports and Sky Movies. With this additional content available over BT Vision, and potentially other providers such as TalkTalk, the television and therefore the bundles market will open up to more competition which should breed more choice and lower prices for the consumer.