1. What are bundles?

In the old days it was simple; you got your home phone from a phone company, broadband from a broadband company, your mobile phone from a mobile company and either watched terrestrial TV or splashed out on digital.

But “bundles” have changed all that. Essentially a bundle is two or more products for which you pay one monthly price. Now you can get some or all of your communications and entertainment products from one provider. You receive one bill for all the services included in the bundle and if anything goes wrong, there is just one customer service department to call.

The concept of bundling in the communications market has been around for more than ten years now. Back in the late ‘90s cable providers such as ntl and Telewest were the first to bundle and provided cable TV, phone and dial-up internet services down the same fibre optic cable.

Then in 2000 Ofcom predecessor Oftel forced BT to open up its telephone exchanges to competitors, giving them direct access to the final “loop” to customers’ houses. This enabled third parties, such as Orange and Sky, to offer more direct competition to BT’s broadband offering rather then 'selling on' products based on BT's own wholesale services.

In 2004 the telecoms and IT industries started to converge and use the same networks to carry data. This was also the first year that broadband started to become readily available to consumers. It was at this point that the infrastructure and technology was available to offer consumers bundled products more easily than before.

At first home phone calls and broadband were the typical components of a bundle but as technology developed it became possible to provide a digital TV service down a broadband connection; Homechoice (now Tiscali TV) Sky and BT (with its BT Vision product) all started to do this in the past few years. Virgin Media (formerly ntl) does the same thing via a cable connection.

Since then partnerships and acquisitions have led to some companies being able to bundle mobile phones alongside broadband and / or home phone services. For example, mobile phone company Orange took over broadband provider Wanadoo and ntl bought Virgin Mobile, meaning both Orange and Virgin Media can both offer bundles which include a mobile phone element. Vodafone also offers its existing mobile phone customers a broadband deal in partnership with BT.

Although many companies these days offer more than one product, not all of actively market combinations of their products as a bundle, meaning you have to sign up for each service separately. Arguably these aren’t ‘true’ bundles.

Which companies offer bundles also depends on what sort of bundle you are after. The most common bundle is broadband and phone calls. Competition in this sector is increasing rapidly which will benefit the consumer as prices are driven down even further.

Providers that currently offer bundled broadband and phone calls include AOL, Beaming, Biscit, BT, DirectSaveTelecom, Eclipse, Madasafish, Orange , Pipex, Plusnet, Supanet, TalkTalk, Tiscali, Toucan, Virgin Media, Vodafone (only available to Vodafone mobile customers) and Voicenet. In general, customers can choose between plans of different speed broadband and inclusive calls at certain times of day; for example, some calling plans are “anytime”, others are “evening and weekends”.

Some providers will be able to provide one bill for your line rental and calls while others will still require you to pay line rental for BT and use the “carrier pre-select” method to route calls over their network.

The next most common bundle is broadband, digital TV and phone calls. Providers that offer this kind of package include Sky, BT, Virgin Media and Tiscali TV (formerly Homechoice). Again, there are different options available depending on the broadband speed you require and the time of day you make most of your calls.

Another option if you want to get three products in a bundle is Orange which offers free broadband and landline calls if you have a Orange mobile contract costing £30 or more. TalkTalk also lets you bundle a mobile (or more than one) with your TalkTalk phone account.

If you want broadband, digital TV, home and mobile phone as a bundle, then currently Virgin Media is your only option. It also offers smaller bundles of TV and phone; phone and broadband; broadband and TV; or broadband, TV and mobile; broadband, phone and mobile; TV, phone and mobile.

Some providers advertise “free” broadband but you could argue that broadband is simply being bundled with another product and offered under one price. You can’t have the broadband alone and pay nothing - you have to buy another product from the same provider.

For example, on its “free broadband” offer TalkTalk insists on you taking the Talk3 calling plan which costs £19.99 a month and includes line rental and all-inclusive anytime landline calls.

Orange gives customers “free broadband” when they sign up for a mobile phone package costing £30 or more, and Sky offers “free broadband” when you sign up for a Sky TV package.

Some of these offers might be worth a look but bear in mind that you rarely get something for nothing.

Rate this insider’s guide