The revolution in home telecoms services is gathering pace as mobile phone companies step up their efforts to offer internet, television and telephone services in one package.
Orange has become the latest operator to unveil plans for a quadruple play offer which provides fixed and mobile calls alongside digital TV and internet access on one bill.
It followed similar moves by NTL and BT and sets the scene for a price war in the industry.
At the heart of the battle is the cost of internet access for customers with both Orange and Carphone Warehouse now offering "free" broadband to users who spend a certain amount of money on telephone contracts.
Telecoms research group Ovum said the intense competition could drive the price of broadband down for millions of households across the UK.
Broadband analyst Jonathan Coham said: "It is quite clear that the customer is going to get quite significantly discounted rates.
"Broadband is almost being offered for free which is a fairly major change in the way broadband is priced.
"There will be a critical level at which the price will not go any lower, although we may get independent providers going under that level and offering extremely budget services."
While Orange, NTL and BT are set to provide quadruple play offers, Vodafone has unveiled plans for triple play with mobile, fixed line and broadband services.
And last year BSkyB threw itself into direct competition with established internet providers when it bought Easynet for £211 million.
The deal meant the broadcaster could offer a triple play package of high-speed internet access, pay-TV and phone calls to its 8.1 million customers.
Broadband is seen as a launchpad for future services - including the voice over inter-net protocol calls planned by Orange - and industry experts expect the broadband market to expand rapidly in the next few years as a third of internet connections in the UK are still dial up.
Telecoms firms are also looking to provide landline tariffs for mobile calls made at home, such as BT's Fusion product.
NTL kicked started the latest round of developments in April with a £962.4 million takeover of Virgin Mobile which created the first company in the UK able to promote the quadruple play offer for its 9.5 million customers.
BT responded with plans to launch its own TV service this autumn to run alongside its mobile, landline and internet offerings.
And Orange has entered the fray by offering free broadband access to customers who spend more than £30 a month on mobile contracts through a plug-in modem called a Livebox.
It followed a tie-up with internet provider Wanadoo - both firms are owned by France Telecom - which Orange hopes will lead to the introduction of a TV package through the Livebox next year so that it offers access to all services.
The broadband offer from Orange comes as France Telecom looks to stop Wanadoo's two million customers defecting to the free broad-band service offered by Car-phone Warehouse through its Talk Talk landline service, which costs £21 a month.
Other telecoms and media firms are also battling to improve their product.
Last week Vodafone - the world's biggest mobile phone operator with 170 million customers globally - announced plans to expand into broadband.
It came as the company looked to offset stiff competition in its core mobile phone operations with increased revenues from new areas of business, which could include adverts being sent to mobile phones.
But industry expert Robert Hearn said the developments across the industry were "defensive" as telecoms companies looked to hold on to their customers in the face of increased competition.
Mr Hearn said: "The Orange play is defensive and the Vodafone play is as defensive as you can get.
"It is defensive in that Vodafone never believed in the need to do anything fixed before.
"The companies are trying to get hold of customers now because it is unlikely that customers will switch once they have a bundled service."
