KEY POINTS:
The war between the country's two biggest phone companies is heating up as they battle for the home phonemarket.
In the past month, Vodafone has launched an aggressive marketing campaign for its Home Phone Plus plan, while Telecom is promising "strong" offers and services for residential landline customers - including a $10 for 10 countries special this weekend.
Other smaller players have also entered the home phone market, all of which Consumer New Zealand says is great news.
"The growing number of home phone line providers in New Zealand has lowered prices overall," spokesman Marc Wendelborn said.
Telecom yesterday announced a slump of almost 10 per cent in earnings for the nine months to the end of March, attributing the loss to a reduction in revenue from traditional services such as home phones, and a competitive marketplace.
David Craig, the company's general manager of consumer marketing, told the Weekend Herald that competition in the home services market had been heating up for some time.
"The competition is fierce butcertainly Telecom intends to be active in looking after our existing customers and delivering strong offers andservices to attract new customers."
Much of the competition is coming from Vodafone, which launched its home phone service in November.
Spokesman Paul Brislen said demand for the "Vodafone at home" box required to connect home phones to the company's network was "huge".
Mr Brislen would not reveal the number of customers who had signed up for Home Phone Plus, but said the company was anxious for more of the market share.
"The market alone is worth close to a billion dollars a year for Telecom in fixed line calling, so we'd quite like a piece of that."
To get a Vodafone home phone line, consumers buy the "at home box" and plug their home phone into it, using their existing landline number to make calls.
The drawback is that, unlike Telecom customers, they cannot get fixed-line broadband, but Vodafone hopes this will change in the next few months as Telecom unbundles more of its exchanges.
Vodafone's home phone plan costs $40 a month, compared with $44.85 at Telecom.
Consumers spoken to by the Weekend Herald who had changed to the Vodafone service said they were happy with the plan, and several had combined it with the mobile broadband offered by the company.
"It has halved my phoneline/broadband cost," said Aucklander Linus Merchant.
Mr Merchant said the bill was also straightforward and he liked the fact that he no longer had to deal with "the arrogance of Telecom".
But his biggest gripe with both Telecom and Vodafone was that they required consumers to take out fixed-term contracts.
Others recommended home phone services offered by internet providers such as Woosh, which charges $20 a month for a home phone in addition to broadband charges.
The service is available only in the company's Auckland and Southland coverage areas but one woman said she would recommend it to anyone looking for a bargain.
Consumer NZ warned people to check the terms and conditions of any phone plan carefully.
"Often the devil is in the detail," Mr Wendelborn said. "Consumers need to weigh up these options because there is a lot of money to be saved in picking the right plan."
PHONE WARS
Telecom
Homeline plan
Set-up fee: Varies. Depends on whether line already exists. Reconnection fee for existing line is $52.10 and connection fees for new lines vary depending on location.
Monthly charge: $44.85.
Includes unlimited local calls; charges apply for national, cellphone and international calls.
Vodafone
Home Phone Plus plan
Set-up fee: $99.
Covers cost of an "at home box" to plug phone into and allow calls.
Monthly charge: $40.
Includes unlimited local and national calls; charges apply for cellphone and international calls.
