Mobile phone service provider Vodafone Hutchison Australia is tossing off unlimited calls offering to Australian subscribers in its attempt to chip away a sizeable portion of the fixed-line market currently dominated by Telstra Corporation and Optus.

Vodafone's unlimited call package to all phones within its service coverage could potentially edge out the two telcos' monthly landline charges, with the company's starting plan price of $45 per billing cycle.

The price tag effectively undermines the landline fees of Telstra, which offers the same service by more than $80 each month while Optus carries its fixed-line services with a monthly charge that is $50 over than that of Vodafone's.

Their unlimited price packaging should give Australian customers enough reason to ditch their present landline subscriptions, according to Vodafone marketing director John Casey.

At present, both Telstra and Optus offer an almost similar package for their fixed line services, which are way expensive when compared to the promotional packages being utilised by Vodafone to lure away the two firms' existing clients.

Also, packages of mobile data services and unlimited calls and texts are part of offerings by both Telstra and Optus, with partial or full subsidies on phone handsets as customers are presented with a host of mobile phone packages to choose from.

The marketing ploy being employed by Vodafone could prove successful in attracting customers from its competitors, according to analysts, but it could backfire too by luring away the company's present stable of high-yielding clients into switching to the lower value plans it aggressively peddles.

However, analysts also agreed that Vodafone could easily offset the anticipated losses by imposing handset charges on customers opting for its lower value plans, which they said pretty much comprise of the company's fighting back strategy following the losses it incurred when Telstra adjusted its mobile service packages to allow for better performance in the increasingly competitive mobile industry.

Vodafone may be gaining some edge by establishing a new pricing scheme but Telstra, through a spokeswoman, maintained its composure by stressing that it was "confident of the value we offer, the range of plans to suit all budgets, and an unbeatable network."

Yet with Vodafone's attractive price offerings for smartphones such as iPhone4 and HTC Desire, which can be had for an average additional cost of $500, analysts are banking on the imminent possibility that hordes of customers would eventually junk their existing landlines, which is already on a global decline due to the proliferation of affordable mobile services.