BT Unveils Mobile Home Plan

LONDON -- BT today announced full details of BT Mobile Home Plan, its new mobile service. It has specifically designed the new package around meeting the needs of the modern family by offering free calls home and cheaper packages for families who sign up together.

With BT Mobile Home Plan customers won't have to pay for any calls to their home phone number which are under two minutes long. According to BT research, people phone home on average five times a week and most of those calls are for two minutes or less, making the new feature a real benefit.

Customers will also get savings by signing up more than one family member at a time. BT Mobile Home Plan costs £15 a month line rental for the first mobile handset and drops to £10 a month for up to five additional handsets for any more family members in the household who sign up.

Customers will be able to buy bundled, fixed price packages of call minutes which can be shared by the whole family. Fixed rate call prices mean customers know exactly how much they're paying for their service. Calls to local and national landlines will cost 10 pence a minute all day, every day. Calls to other BT Mobile Home Plan mobiles will cost exactly the same.

The bill-paying parents in the household can also keep an eye on how the minutes are being spent through a usage alert service that tells them how much is being spent and by whom. A single bill will cover all the familyfs mobile use and mean a lot less paper and hassle all round.

BT Mobile Home Plan will be available at more than 1,000 High Street branches of The Carphone Warehouse, The Link and Phones 4U by the end of October or soon after. BT has selected T-Mobile as its partner for the BT Mobile Home Plan venture. BT will act as a mobile service provider.

Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, said: "We believe BT is the first company to recognise that customers are not just individuals, but parts of families. Family members who are likely to already have an existing relationship with BT can now also get all their mobiles from us on the same contract, taking the hassle out of managing different call charges and line rentals. This is a perfect solution for any modern family."

Brian McBride, managing director of T-Mobile UK, said: "To achieve continued success in the UK mobile market, you have to create new ways to increase revenues and to acquire and keep the right customers.

"I believe our new relationship with BT represents the best opportunities to achieve in these areas, as we combine a strong network with an outstanding consumer brand. This is a win-win situation."

Looking to the future, BT is also beginning trials of a revolutionary new mobile solution. Triallists will be able to use their mobile normally when they are out and about, but when in a 'ebluetooth' site, calls will be routed over the fixed network rather than the GSM mobile network. So it means customers can benefit from cheaper and clearer calls. BT has worked with Ericsson to implement an initial trial, for which Sony Ericsson will supply trial handsets.

British Telecommunications plc (BT)