BT Basic passes 600k
24 May 2010
The Consumer Panel has consistently tracked the progress of BT Basic, the new low user scheme launched by the company at the beginning of October 2008 to replace the previous Low User Scheme (LUS) and In Contact Plus (ICP).
BT agreed with Ofcom in the review of the universal service obligation published in March 2006 that, once the new scheme reached 600,000 customers, it could formally close the other two schemes. We are advised that BT Basic now has 602,000 users.
Therefore the In Contact Plus (ICP) scheme has now been closed. BT intends to close the Light User Scheme (LUS) once the last few customers have been moved onto BT Basic or another calls package.
So it's taken four years but at last there is a single, new, more targeted low user scheme in operation. When the idea of BT Basic was first conceived, BT's previous low user schemes had over 1M users between them. So the introduction of BT Basic has almost halved the number.