Britain‘s biggest fixed line and broadband provider BT, is arming itself for a war on two fronts.
In an attempt to stop customers being lured away by other internet providers such as Virgin, Sky and TalkTalk, the company spent billions on brand new broadcasting studios in East London and invested in airing Premier League and Champions League matches to keep control of the broadband market.
After an absence of 13 years from the consumer mobile service industry, BT is back. The broadband provider giant previously owned O2 before it was demerged via a share floatation in 2001. Now the telecoms giant is hoping to win approval of its £12.5bn acquisition of EE, owned by Orange and Deutsche Telekom.
In the meantime, as a stopgap, BT has launched an unrivalled and highly desirable ‘bring your own phone‘ SIM-only deal, providing a combination of EE‘s fast 4G network and unlimited access to the UK‘s largest wifi network of over 5m BT Wifi hotspots.
The cheapest offer is for 500mb of 4G data, unlimited texts and 200 minutes. Customers who live in a BT Broadband home will be able to save up to 50% on BT Mobile‘s best value 4G tariff, costing only £5, instead of the normal £10. Each account holder can have up to five discounted £5 SIMs on their account.
As well as the ‘bring your own phone‘ deals, which means keeping an existing phone number, much-loved photos, music and apps as well as contacts and archived messages, the former state-owned telecoms company also offers customers the choice of buying a 4G phone from their BT shop from as little as £99.
In addition, customers can keep tabs on monthly caps and on-going usage by downloading the BT Mobile App. This includes a monthly spend cap which can be set to avoid surprise bills. Here customers can control how much they spend and if requirements changes, they have the flexibility of moving to another plan without extending the length of your contract. This applies even if customers change to a cheaper plan.
BT Mobile customers will also be able to enjoy free BT Sport via the BT Sport App, even if they don‘t have BT Broadband, and get access to live and exclusive Barclays Premier League football matches.
John Petter, Chief Executive of BT consumer, said in a statement: “Offering BT customers the UK‘s best value 4G data deal is a great way to start our journey towards re-establishing ourselves as a major player in consumer mobile.
Our customers are consuming increasing amounts of data and they want the best possible connection wherever they are. It‘s our ambition to meet this demand by combining the power of our fixed fibre service with wifi and the convenience of mobile.”
