BT to Consolidate Mobile and Home Broadband Services with Single Billing and Free Data if Your Wifi is Down

Telecoms operator BT has announced a series of changes to its service offerings in a bid to rescue a customer base increasingly slipping away. 

A number of new packages are becoming available that blend broadband, mobile, and paid TV services into a single bill. The package isnown as BT Plus, and is launching in late May 2018.

Among other benefits, subscribers to the new package would receive access to Amazon’s Prime streaming service, while competing deals from Sky and Virgin Media who so far have such an arrangement with Netflix instead. BT’s package would also feature sports and drama from Sky’s premium channels. BT has also announced that all of their call centres will be located in the UK and Ireland by 2020, after EE’s similar move resulted in a jump in customer satisfaction.

A major benefit of the new package will be that if the customer ever experiences broadband issues, they will automatically gain access to unlimited data on their BT Mobile plan and receive access to an EE 4G Wi-Fi Mini Hub with unlimited data for the duration of the outage. This is a benefit of the ongoing incorporation of EE services into the BT structure.  Initially available to EE customers only, this would thread connections from BT’s fixed broadband network and EE’s 4G national coverage into a single device. The end result would theoretically be that customers would have access to a combination of both BT’s and EE’s networks. Computer Weekly provided the example that if a consumer received a connection of 30Mbps via BT’s broadband and 28.6Mbps from EE’s 4G phone signal, they would have access to internet speeds of up to 58.6Mbps.

Mark Allera, CEO of BT’s Consumer wing, said: “Customers are using more data in more places than ever before.  They need faster, more reliable networks in more places to make that happen. That’s why we need to change the fact of networks in the UK. Convergence for us is all about bringing the best of everything we do in one place together. We’ve already brought our teams together, now we’re going to bring our networks together.”

He continued: “BT runs the UK’s most advanced mobile and broadband networks, but our customers demand better connections, and the best service no matter where they are. We’re beginning our journey to create one converged, smart network built on our world-leading fixed and mobile networks – going beyond 4G, 5G, Wi-Fi and ultrafast broadband to seamlessly connect our customers wherever they are to the things that matter most to them.”

Full details are yet to be revealed of the exact pricing structure of the package, but it is expected to cost between £55 and £75 for broadband and mobile coverage.

Ben Rich

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