New JV to flog phone service to the UK

Market getting crowded

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Telecoms, 17th January 2005 12:34 GMT

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A new company is to employ a 1,000-strong telesales workforce to flog its phone service to residential customers in the UK.

Applicahome - a JV between IT and outsourcing services company Allserve Systems plc, UK telco applica and ex-NTL MD Mike Bandeira - will target 450,000 customers a month by calling them direct.

On offer is a residential phone service which the company claims is between 40 and 60 per cent cheaper than BT. The start-up telco is also offeringbroadband. And thanks to the adoption of Wholesale Line Rental (WLR), all this will be contained on one bill.

At the moment, punters ditching BT for rivals such as The Carphone Warehouse, Tele2 or Tesco - still receive a bill from BT for line rental. The introduction of WLR means that telcos own the whole billing relationship with the customer.

ApplicaHome is gunning for 200,000 punters within two years - which would enable it to generate £80m in revenue.

Said MD Simon Smith: "Our aim is to be the fastest growing player in this market space within the first 12 months, and one of the top three triple play resellers in the UK within two years. The scale and synergy created by uniting Allserve?s huge, cost effective, sales force with applica?s exceptional back office skills makes this possible.?

The company's salesforce will be spread between the UK, US and India with its UK HQ based at Camberley in Surrey. ®