Telecom takes on Vodafone at its own business game

The gloves are well and truly off as Telecom and Vodafone vie for the business market.

Telecom has launched a counter-offensive aimed at taking the wind out of Vodafone's Nothing campaign, which offers business users the chance to pay nothing for calls to other team-members' mobile phones on the TalkZoneZero plan.

Telecom's Everything campaign begins today and the general manager for mobile, Kevin Kenrick, is spoiling for a fight.

"I'd always back myself when I've got everything and the other guy's got nothing," he said.

Telecom's counter-offer allows business customers to make free calls to other team-members' cellphones and to one landline number as well.

Both plans allow customers to nominate"frequently called numbers" to receive a lower calling rate.

Vodafone's plans offer such calls at 15c a minute, while Telecom allows users to nominate up to 10 Telecom numbers, pay $8.95 a month per number, and make free calls up to a "reasonable usage" level.

Kenrick said this was not a knee-jerk reaction to Vodafone's offer.

"Essentially, we're always looking at integration between fixed and mobile when that makes sense, but our fundamental commitment is that no customer will be disadvantaged on price by being with Telecom."

Kenrick's division has also stolen a march on Vodafone by launching its high-speed, third-generation mobile network, T3G, several months before Vodafone launches its 3G network.

Kenrick sees T3G as another selling point.

"The differentiators in the market shouldn't be about price, they should be about innovation and the future services."

Vodafone said this month that it had increased customer numbers to 1.75 million, roughly 56 per cent of the market.

But average revenue from business customers - those on contracts rather than prepay plans - was down from $1855 to $1817.