BT is offering small businesses "corporate grade" IT support for around 50p a day.

The service has been under trial since last November with the full launch of "IT Support Manager from BT" delayed until now to ensure that the system was up and running properly.

"The new service provides a specialist helpdesk, made up of highly trained IT experts who are able to securely take control of a customer's PC and work on it remotely to solve IT headaches," said BT in a statement.

Support for the UK's SMEs costs £10 a month (min 12-month contract) or £25 for a one-off incident. The service is available Monday to Friday between 8am and 6pm.

A spokeswoman for BT told us that all the staff manning the service are BT employees based in the UK. The service (http://www.btbroadbandoffice.com/itsm) is not outsourced to another company or run from a centre overseas. ®

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