O2 have revealed home phone products today which see the operator move in to the triple-play business. Packages start at £9.50 per month which includes line rental and unlimited evening and weekend phone calls. An Anytime package at £12.50 is also available which gives unlimited calls to UK landline numbers and also includes 0845 and 0870 numbers (although these are subject to fair usage). Both options require customers to also take a broadband service from O2.
"At O2, we've been listening to our customers and we've realised that many of them want great value, an end to hidden costs and the convenience of being able to pay their home phone and broadband bills together. That is exactly what they will get from us now we have launched Home Phone - truly transparent and flexible pricing plans and convenient consolidated billing. O2 is committed to providing the same quality of service with Home Phone that we have established with our broadband over the years."
Sally Cowdry, (Marketing Director) O2
O2's cheapest broadband costs £7.50 if you have an O2 mobile contract. With landline rental and calls bundled in, this increases to £17, a cheap offering and may encourage customers to switch over to O2, boosting their number of broadband customers. BT's cheapest offering 'Talk and Surf' comes in at £26.03 a month, but does give you a 20Mbps connection, but with only 10GB a month usage. TalkTalk's cheapest comes in at £18.48 a month with a 40GB allowance and an up to 24Mbps broadband speed.
packages look good, but I don't like the fact they charge £1.75 for caller display when BT provide it for free. Makes the difference between the prices of the two companies not as great.