Post Office to launch consumer broadband

The Post Office will be offering a broadband service to the public later this year. The broadband offering will be merged with its existing telephone service, HomePhone.

The Post Office will be rebranding a BT Wholesale package, but exact pricing and bandwidth details of the service have not been revealed, ahead of the autumn launch.

It is moving into an already crowded market, but the Post Office says it needs to generate new revenues to balance the decline in its traditional businesses. It has already branched out into car and home insurance, foreign currency and travel insurance.

Furthermore, the broadband market has evolved to include quad-play offerings – or four-play as Virgin’s Richard Branson terms them – which combine mobile phone, landline, broadband and television deals. Sky and Virgin Media are among the providers offering such services.

‘We’re convinced there is a real demand in the telephony and broadband markets for a value-for-money service from a trusted provider and this deal puts the Post Office in a very strong position to compete,’ says the Post Office’s Managing Director, Alan Cook.

‘The Post Office’s reputation for trust, its instantly recognisable brand and its nationwide branch network with 24 million customers a week will be key assets in our drive to win and retain customers,’ he adds.

The announcement comes as the Post Office faces the possible closure of 2,500 of its branches.

For its part BT welcomed the deal: ‘This is a landmark agreement between two of the UK’s leading and best established businesses,’ said BT Wholesale’s Paul Reynolds. The four-year deal sees the telco netting £750 million, the largest single contract ever signed by BT Wholesale.