BT offers fixed-mobile convergence to small firms

ZDNet UK News reports that BT has launched BT Business Plan with Mobile package that "combines fixed-line and mobile phone calls in a single bill." The BT offering "comes just weeks after Orange launched its own converged product."

Ovum analyst Jeremy Green predicted that "This will no doubt increase the pressure on other UK mobile operators, and perhaps UK fixed suppliers too, to prepare their own fixed-mobile bundles for business customers. This is also the first real sign of some proper initiative from BT on using its position as both a mobile virtual network operator and the leading fixed operator to create some value-added propositions for business customers."

According to the article, the "BT Business Plan with Mobile gives businesses a 5 percent discount on their landline and mobile calls," and "also includes a range of price-caps on landline calls up to an hour in length — calls to UK mobile phones will be capped at 25p, UK landline-to-landline calls will be capped at 10p, most landline calls to the US will also cost 10p, while landline calls to the European Union and Pacific Rim countries will cost 20p."

Green thought "BT's offer could be a "no-brainer" for firms who were simply looking to save money." He said, "That said, it looks to us like they will have to work that much harder to better the BT package than was the case for Orange's initial offering."