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The Post Office has entered the mobile market with the launch of a pay-as-you-go service.
The mobile offering - called Post Office Mobile - uses EE's network and is designed to offer an alternative for the 44% of mobile users who don’t have a contract.
Calls to both landlines and mobiles will be 8p per minute while it will cost 10p per text - which is up to 77% cheaper than other networks - although customers will only be able to access 3G networks, not the faster 4G speeds.
Vodafone and EE, for example, charge up to 30p per minute to UK mobiles or landlines, while O2 charges 35p per minute.
The Post Office's offering is more in line with budget, community run virtual mobile network GiffGaff, which offers calls for 10p per minute and texts for 6p.
Customer top-ups will also be doubled, so if you buy £10 in any 30 day period, you’ll get an £20 worth of credit. The Post Office will do this once each month.
There are also bundles on offer, starting at £5 for 250 minutes, 3,000 texts and 500MB of data.
Customers can already top-up their mobile phone at the Post Office - with around 11 million such transactions taking place every year - so this is a “natural step”, says commercial director Martin George.
“Many pay -as-you-go customers are paying really high call charges and shouldn't be. The Post Office Mobile service provides great value and simple prices all supported by our dedicated Post Office Mobile customer service team,” he added.
The Post Office already provides home phone and broadband serves. A spokeswoman told Mirror Online that mobile customers will be able to access 4G services from November.
You can sign up by visiting postoffice.co.uk/mobile or going into a branch. It will be initially available in 213 branches in the North West, but will roll out nationally in the coming months.