Broadband News

Zen Internet launches competitive home phone bundles

Monday, 09 August 2010

By Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

Best Buy broadband provider Zen Internet (www.Zen.co.uk) has launched two new home phone packages to complement its award-winning broadband.

The new packages come with simple one-month rolling contracts and Zen said: “Unlike most other providers, Zen does not have a minimum call set up or call connection fee for any calls to UK landline, mobile or international telephone numbers - Zen believes customers should only be charged for the time they are talking.”

Zen’s Home Talk package costs £10.99 a month, making it cheaper than BT broadband's (www.BT.com) line rental - which currently costs £11.54 a month and will rise to £12.04 in October.

Home Talk doesn’t offer any inclusive calls on this package but charges 4p per minute (ppm) for daytime landline calls or just 1ppm for evening calls - which start from 6pm.

Customers wanting to save more on their calls can upgrade to the Home Talk Plus package, which costs £16.99 a month. It comes with 1,000 UK landline minutes to be used any time of day or night. After that, calls are charged at the standard rate. Home Talk Plus customers can also enjoy cheaper international calls from just 3ppm.

Zen also operates per second billing instead of by the minute.

Zen offers a range of up to 20Mb broadband packages, starting from £17.99 a month. The provider has won nine Which? Best Buy awards over the past five years and is also set to launch even faster 40Mb broadband packages later this year.

“Zen's Home Talk services aim to provide calls packages that would see our customers save considerable amounts on their phone bill quickly and easily. They also provide our customers with the confidence that these services come with the same high level of service and support as Zen's award winning broadband,” said Andrew Saunders, head of product management and marketing