BT returns to the mobile phone market with new 4G LTE plans

March 26, 2015

After a decade has passed since the company was involved in the mobile phone market, BT today announced new 4G LTE plans for the UK.

BT has re-entered the UK mobile phone market after the company announced plans to purchase EE for £12.5 billion. The comms giant will initially use spectrum provided by EE in a partnership, as well as spectrum BT owns itself. To entice customers, BT will offer those who sign up to the new 12-month contracts the ability to watch Premier League football matches via an app.

The company will also offer an aggressively-priced basic plan, which will include 200 minutes, 500MB of 4G data and will set customers back by £10 a month (£5 a month if you already hold a BT broadband subscription). Everything announced today so far is SIM-only too, enabling consumers from other networks to migrate across using handsets they already own. BT will also sell handsets from its online store.

The move is more of a holding plan, a temporary measure while talks continue regarding the £12.5 billion takeover of EE by BT. As noted above, BT was previously involved with the mobile market in the form of Cellnet, which the company sold to O2 who was subsequently picked up by Telefonica. It'll be interesting to see how the UK market shapes up should the EE acquisition go ahead.

Source: BT