Virgin Media combines broadband, landline, TV and mobile all from £35

Virgin Media is the first British network to introduce "quad-play" contracts: a single deal combining broadband, landline, TV and mobile phone, starting at £35.

Richard Trenholm Former Movie and TV Senior Editor

Richard Trenholm was CNET's film and TV editor, covering the big screen, small screen and streaming. A member of the Film Critic's Circle, he's covered technology and culture from London's tech scene to Europe's refugee camps to the Sundance film festival.

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Richard Trenholm

May 6, 2014 4:33 a.m. PT

2 min read

Would you buy your broadband from these men? Virgin

One bill to rule them all: Virgin Media is the first British network to offer a single contract for your broadband, landline, TV and mobile phone, starting from £35.

Virgin's new Big Bundles combine TV service, broadband connection, a landline and a mobile contract into one 18-month deal. This four-part combination is known in the business as "quad-play". Virgin, BT and Sky offer triple-play deals for landline, TV and broadband, but Virgin is the first to add a mobile phone to the equation.

"Quad-play bundles are already popular on mainland Europe -- in Spain 1 in 7 people take mobile as part of a bundle -- so it was long overdue for UK providers to expand into this area," says Dominic Baliszewski, telecoms expert at broadbandchoices.co.uk. "Virgin Media have made the first move and it won't be long before others follow their lead." Indeed, Vodafone are reported to be talking to Sky about providing four-way contracts.

The most capacious of the new bundles is the £50 "Big Kahuna", which offers 152Mbps broadband, TiVo telly , and for your mobile 250MB of data with unlimited calls and texts. The other deal is the "Big Bang", which costs £35 per month for 100Mbps broadband. If you're not interested in the mobile element, you can knock off a fiver.

However, you do have to add £16 line rental on top of that, which brings the total to £66 for the Big Kahuna or £51 for the Big Bang.

"Virgin Media's quad-play offers are very tempting as the mobile phone aspect is just £5 extra per month," says Baliszewski. "There are a lot of customers already paying £30 per month or more just for their mobile phone, so to get mobile phone, broadband, TV and home phone for £35-£50 per month is a compelling offer."

Unlike other phone contracts however, Virgin's quad-play contracts don't bag you a phone. "Virgin Media's quad play deals offer SIM-only mobile services, so you will need a working handset to be able to take advantage of these packages," notes Baliszewski. "Anyone considering taking a quad-play bundle should do their homework and compare the stand-alone prices with the bundled cost before signing on to an 18-month contract."

The quad-play deals are only open to existing Virgin Media customers for the next few weeks, and will be available to everyone from the end of May.