The basic copper telephone line has been around for over a century and for the most part it has served the world well. However, the telecommunications industry has moved on significantly since the 1800s and these days there is competition from both the mobile phone industry, which in the UK accounts for a huge share of the market, as well as the cable alternative offered by Virgin Media.

Cable home phone packages, unlike BT land lines, are not delivered by an overhead wire but instead by a network of underground cables, and at the time of writing a little over 50% of UK households are eligible for a cable home phone service. The cable solution is aimed not just at the home phone, but also at providing other services like digital TV and broadband internet, but we'll deal with the advantages of the all important home phone functionality of a cable connection first.

The most obvious advantage of having a cable telephone line as opposed to a BT landline is of course that because the cable is underground there is virtually nothing that will interfere with your connection. Whilst during adverse weather conditions telephone lines are liable to break and service interruptions are inevitable, a cable line will be snugly housed underground.

Also from an aesthetic point of view a cable line will enter your home discretely whilst a BT line will hang high up, anchoring your house to a wooden pole. Like BT, Virgin Media require a monthly line rental payment, which is £11 a month which is comparable to the BT charge, but then you can choose from a wide variety of calling plans that should suit everyone from the casual chatter right up to the master socialite.

There are six packages which fall into two main groups, the 'Talk' plans and the 'Talk Anywhere' plans. The former covers three different plans which incrementally increase the unlimited calling capabilities of a cable home phone deal, whilst the latter operates much like a mobile telephone contract. Broken up into M, L and XL, the Talk packages offer unlimited free calls to UK landline numbers in off peak hours during the evenings and weekends on the M deal, and with the XL you can call UK landlines for free anytime of the day and night 7 days a week.


Alternatively if you're going to be calling numbers which are either not based in the UK or are charged at a premium rate then Talk Anywhere is ideal. Depending on which package you choose you will be given a set number of free minutes a month, with which you can make calls to any number in the world. For each minute you're on the phone a minute will be subtracted from your account, it's simple.

The second advantage of cable home phone is that it's easy to upgrade your package to include bundle deals like digital TV and cable broadband. Because of the nature of the technology, broadband received using a cable line suffers no dip in speed if your house is a long way from the nearest telephone exchange, unlike broadband using a BT line, and speeds of up to 50Mbps are available if you're willing to pay for the privilege.

Often a cable home phone line will be able to expand to encompass many of your other telecommunications and entertainment outlays, and combining these into one monthly payment delivered via one discrete cable is something that millions have already taken advantage of.