Mobile phone firm Vodafone is to take on BT, Sky and Virgin Media with its own range of fixed-line broadband tariffs.
The service will initially be offered to mobile customers in Manchester, Berkshire and parts of Hampshire and Surrey before being rolled out to the rest of the UK by the end of this summer.
Customers will have a choice of traditional copper-based broadband offering speeds of up to 17Mbps for £10 per month or two tiers of super-fast fibre broadband offering speeds of 38Mbps for £20 or 76Mbps for £25.
Vodafone says its service will allow parents to control when their kids can access the web, offer one-button guest access and include “beamforming technology” to send “a stronger Wi-Fi signal to compatible devices wherever they are in the home.”
Customers will also get inclusive evening and weekend calls.
The firm’s entry into the fixed-line broadband market comes ahead of BT’s £12.5bn purchase of EE, the expected merge of Three and O2 and Sky’s launch of an own-brand mobile service.
Cindy Rose, Consumer Director at Vodafone UK said: “We know our customers depend on us to stay connected, and now we can satisfy their needs both at home and on the go.
“As the only operator in the UK which owns both a fixed and mobile network, we’re in a great position to create innovative products and services that give our existing customers reasons to stay with us and new customers reasons to switch.”
Later this year the firm is expected to launch its own pay-TV service allowing to join rivals in offering ‘quad-play’ bundles of services.
