BE landline service to offer cheaper line rental

BE customers will soon be able to reduce their broadband cost when they bundle the new landline service that the ISP proposes to launch this September.

High-speed broadband provider BE will offer three landline packages with monthly price starting from £9.50. This means the low cost rental plan can help BE customers to save up to £45 compared to BT line rental (minimum £11.54 a month).

Subscribers can add unlimited evening and weekend calls for just £10.50. Landline with unlimited anytime UK calls will cost £13.50 a month. This means, broadband & phone bundle will cost from £23.29 for BE Value customers.

BE says its landline service will free the consumers from ‘excessively long contracts, automatic contract renewals, and unnecessary bundling of features that increase the cost to the customer,’

“We want people to be able to get on with living their online lives with minimal disruption, and the launch of the new landline service will help us to achieve this” Tom Williams, MD of BE Broadband, said.

In May, O2, BE’s parent company launched its homephone service for its existing customers (both mobile and broadband consumers) who can sign up for its broadband, phone and mobile broadband for just £17 a month.

Meanwhile, the recently published Q2 results for the company showed that its broadband customer base grew by 43% comparing to Q2 2009. Two ISPs have together added more than 67,600 fixed line broadband connections during the 3 month period ended on 30 June 2010 helping the total broadband subscriptions to reach 700,000.

Total O2 mobile customer base reached 21.6 million with 4.5% year-on-year growth while nearly half of its mobile customers (47%) have taken its contract deals, O2 said.