Onetel - the Centrica-owned telco currently up for sale - has become the latest outfit to cut the ribbon on a VoIP service.

And it has lost no time in having a pop at rival operators, while claiming its Just Dial service is head and shoulders above the competition.

"Unlike Dixons' new Freetalk offering, customers will be pleased to hear that they do not need to pay £79.99 up front in order to benefit from cheap calls," said Onetel deputy MD Ray Leclercq.

"Furthermore our low prices are permanent unlike our rivals such as BT who are only committing to cheap deals until the end of the year."

The cost of OneTel's service - which can be used by anyone with a broadband connection - varies depending on which package they choose and whether punters buy or rent their VoIP adaptor.

Separately, PlusNet has today confirmed the launch of its PlusTalk VoIP service. Available to its own users, the broadband voice service starts from £2.99 a month. ®

Related stories

• Carphone swallows Onetel, Tele2 (19 December 2005)
• Onetel still looking for a buyer (16 December 2005)
• OneTel sale in doubt (5 December 2005)
• Wanadoo 'UK's number one' VoIP outfit, says Wanadoo (17 November 2005)
• Wanadoo claims 40k VoIP users (28 September 2005)
• BT in VoIP price cut cull (27 September 2005)
• Dixons hails birth of 'Son of Freeserve' (27 September 2005)
• PlusNet exposes VoIP plans (27 September 2005)
• BT disses Dixons' 'Freetalk' (26 September 2005)
• VoIP's gonna be huge (23 September 2005)
• Dixons to launch net phone service (23 September 2005)
• World+dog sniffing round OneTel (19 September 2005)
• OneTel for sale (15 September 2005)