British Telecommunications PLC today announced it is teaming up with operator T-Mobile International AG to make its move back into the mobile market, offering a new service for families.
Since the company sold off its mobile arm MMO2 back in 2001, it has been surrounded by rumours of a return to the mobile sector. Today’s venture, BT Mobile Home Plan, due to launch this autumn, will allow people to make quick calls from their mobiles to their landline number completely free of charge.
According to research from the telco, people phone home on average five times a week, with most of these calls lasting less than two minutes. It hopes that by targeting families who are currently landline customers it will encourage them to purchase mobile phones as an all-in-one solution.
“Our aim is convergence and for that we need a mobile operation but we don’t need to own a network,” said Pierre Danon, chief executive at BT Retail.
“Parents can have the piece of mind which comes from knowing your son or daughter can phone home any time for free, regardless of how much they have used the phone that month.”
BT has also begun trialling a scheme offering Bluetooth phone owners a cheap alternative to using GSM networks. The system works by automatically routing calls from Bluetooth phones over a fixed-line network when the caller is in a ‘Bluetooth site’.
