Vodafone scraps home broadband rental fees

Vodafone has become the first UK internet provider to scrap separate line rental charges for home broadband.

Customers committing to an 18-month contract will no longer be billed the £18 monthly charge, it announces.

The mobile firm is the first to respond to calls from consumer groups, the government and regulators to abandon separate line rental charges.

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There has been "concern broadband providers use the traditional landline pricing structure to bury price rises in small print", says the Daily Telegraph.

Vodafone's announcement will "lay down the gauntlet" to more-established rivals, adds the paper.

"As a relatively small player [in the broadband market] that has struggled to make much headway with residential customers, it makes sense for the mobile operator to go first and garner the best PR," says the BBC.

In March, The Sun revealed that then culture minister Ed Vaizey was in talks with big telecoms firms over line rental charges, which relate to the cost levied by BT for using its infrastructure and are often not included in headline prices advertised to customers.

Two months later, the Advertising Standards Agency announced that from October, firms would be banned from marketing prices to customers that do not include the line rental cost.

Analyst Paolo Pescatore, from CCS Insight, said it was a "bold move" from Vodafone but that the firm's lack of content "still represents a huge headache for the company as all of its rivals are bundling entertainment, movies and sports with their broadband deals".