BT Communicator

BT press release
DC05-625 September 27, 2005
BT Communicator offers international calls for half the price of Skype

BT today has demonstrated its commitment to providing low cost calls over the internet by introducing another offer, slashing many rates for international destinations to half the rates of other operators like Skype.

The offer, which runs until December 31, continues BT’s commitment to take advantage of the lower costs of providing calls over the internet in order to offer much cheaper rates. Currently, the company offers calls to Australia with no call charges for up to one hour with BT Communicator with Yahoo! Messenger.

BT is also offering customers the chance to make BT Communicator calls from their laptops at our 7,800 BT Openzone Wi-Fi hotspots without paying any access subscription or per-minute charges.

Gavin Patterson, BT group managing director, Consumer, said: “We were the first telecoms company to offer voice over internet two years ago and we intend to keep ahead of the game. There’s been a lot of hype about Skype, but these international calls are half their price. .

“We are not going to sit back while competitors lure our customers with cheap internet calls. We will fight for every customer by offering our own attractive prices for these calls. And with BT Communicator you can make the same call at a BT Openzone hotspot when you are out and about.

“Unlike traditional telephony, where we are heavily regulated, for internet telephony we can compete on an equal basis and offer customers the same advantages of low cost calls over the internet, but from a global, trusted brand.

“But customers need more than just cheap prices and we are confident that we can provide them with top quality calls with excellent customer service.”

From October 3, calls to 30 popular international destinations with BT Communicator, such as the United States, Australia, Spain and France will cost just 0.5p a minute. A 60 minute call to a US landline, which would cost 72p with Skype, would cost only 30p with BT.

With BT Communicator the cost is charged to your usual BT phonebill, whereas you would have to buy pre-paid credit with Skype. And BT use their telephony experience to prioritise internet calls and ensure they are top quality.

Patterson added: “We believe voice calls over the internet are going to become much more prevalent in the future. There’s been a lot written about this being a threat to BT, but actually we see it as a great opportunity to offer customers a range of exciting new services in the future, like video calls and combining voice with text at the same time.

“This latest offer will be going out on email to millions of BT customers to try to encourage them to download the free BT Communicator with Yahoo! Messenger software and start making high quality cheap and easy calls.”

ends

Calls may deplete a customer’s broadband usage allowance. Pence per minute rate applies to fixed line Direct Dialled calls made using ‘Clic2call’ and ‘Clic2connect’ on BT Communicator. All calls will be terminated after 60 minutes and you will nee to redial. You need a BT residential telephone line to which calls are billed, a 16 bit windows compatible audio card, a microphone and speakers or a headset. The quality of the reception of the phone line may not match that of a normal landline and may vary depending on Internet traffic. Some international numbers, 999/112 emergency calls cannot be made. Other service restrictions apply. Terms and conditions apply.

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