Tesco will enter the UK telecom market and slash prices, it was announced today (27 January 2003) as the UK supermarket confirmed a deal with Cable & Wireless, Servista, and Vertex Customer Management to introduce a new telecom service in early summer 2003.
The fixed line service, dubbed Tesco Telecom, will give households across the UK their first chance to gain easy access to supermarket-style offers for their phone calls.
The service will use state of the art Cable & Wireless Carrier Pre-Selection (CPS) technology that abolishes the need for callers to use PIN codes and prefixes, or install special boxes in order to use a new telecom service.
Callers’ pleas have also been answered by Tesco assurances that there will be no lock-in contracts for the service.
Tesco is working with Cable & Wireless to be its primary telecoms supplier; Servista to provide billing support; and Vertex Customer Management for customer support service.
The telecom business will be the third retail service offered by Tesco. Tesco.com is already the largest online grocery retailer in the world, and Tesco Personal Finance has signed up over 3 million customers in just 4 years.
Tesco CEO Sir Terry Leahy said "Customers tell us they want a more convenient way to lower their phone bills. Because we think like retailers, not like a utility company, we will give customers supermarket-style offers; and a simple alternative to the ‘lock-in’ contracts and complex billing systems that they hate."
"Building a new Telecoms business is the latest stage of our strategy to develop popular new retail services with expert partners, to give customers great value."
