Tesco is launching an internet phone and hopes to bring broadband calls to a mass market.

The phones plug into computers with a broadband connection and work like standard handsets.

Users pay a fixed price for the phone and a pay as you go rate for all calls made, plus their usual broadband charge.

Retailer DSG international plc, the parent company of Dixons, Currys, The Link and PC World, launched its own internet call service called Freetalk last year and both companies have claimed it is the beginning of the end for the traditional landline.

Tesco Telecoms chief executive Andy Dewhurst said the supermarket chain’s new product would push Voice over Internet Protocol (VoiP) into the mainstream.

He said: “Tesco internet phone is the future for fixed line calls. It is so easy to use that people will see this as a pay as you go landline. It will become a service rather than a gizmo.”

The handset and start-up pack costs £19.97, including £5 of free airtime. Users then register online and choose a non-geographic phone number.

This means they may pick an area code from any part of the UK, regardless of where they live, and take it with them if they move house.

Customers pre-pay online using their credit or debit account details. Calls to UK landlines cost 2p per minute at all times and 10p per minute to UK mobiles at any time to any network.

International calls cost upwards of 2p per minute and calls to other Tesco internet phone users are free.

Tesco Telecoms said the quality of its new calls service was equivalent to that of traditional landlines.

It will compete with other internet calls services such as Skype, now owned by online auction site eBay.

BT already has an internet call service called Broadband Voice.

The Tesco internet phones are available in some stores from today and will be rolled out nationally over the coming months.

Around eight million households in the UK have broadband internet access.

The supermarket chain’s existing telephone services include Tesco mobile, Tesco home phone and Tesco broadband.