Vodafone offers fixed-line broadband via BT

Vodafone has signed up with BT Wholesale to provide a Vodafone-branded fixed-line broadband service for consumers.

Vodafone UK’s chief executive, Nick Read, said, “Choosing BT as our partner enables us to provide high quality fixed-line broadband services to customers quickly and cost-efficiently right across the UK.”

Ernst & Young’s head of telecoms analyst, Richard Ireland, said, "A wholesale deal with BT involves less risk for Vodafone than [using unbundled local loop systems] but reduces its ability to differentiate service offerings.”

The new service is expected to be available before the end of the year and is seen by industry analysts as an attempt to offer a competitive fixed-line broadband package to reduce the number of customers moving to rival operators.

BT and Vodafone already partner in BT’s fixed-mobile convergence (FMC) system, BT Fusion, and in 2005 Vodafone signed a five-year managed service contract with BT to backhaul half its UK base stations.