A credible source has informed ISPreview.co.uk that Vodafone UK may be gearing up to launch a quad play broadband, home phone, mobile and television service in the not too distant future. The move would be significant and place the operator, which has so far failed to offer much beyond its existing mobile services, directly back into contention with the likes of BT and Virgin Media UK.

The operator has tried to do something similar before and up until recently its website was still offering their old Vodafone At Home service. This was originally launched at the end of 2006 and combined a fixed line home phone service with an 'up to' 8Mbps broadband connection.

In recent months their 'At Home' service, which was initially based off a BT Wholesale product, has vanished. The page where it use to be has since been replaced by a Mobile Internet section, although a few vague FAQ entries still allude to it having once existed.


Indeed the 'At Home' service is still running (we know people who use it) and they can take orders by phone, although its web presence is now virtually none existent. Clearly the service hasn't had much luck keeping up with competition and while their rivals have been busy evolving, Vodafone UK has remained stationary.

However, all this could be about to change. The information we have received, which comes from a normally very reliable insider source, suggests that Vodafone is working with BT Wholesale on a new service. Details remain unclear but the product alluded to is a kind of quad play solution that will be similar to BT Retail's own offerings (i.e. BTVision style bundles).

It's worth pointing out that Vodafone Spain also recently announced their new Vodafone Internet TV service and any UK solution is expected to be very similar. Vodafone Portugal announced something similar back in 2009. Any UK and BT solution could conceivably adopt the YouView ( IPTV ) platform and possibly make use of BT's new Content Connect (content delivery network) service to ISPs.

At present it's important to stress that none of this is confirmed and Vodafone's press wing has so far not responded to any of our messages. Meanwhile O2 UK's parent, Telefonica, has also been mooting an IPTV solution for other countries but there's no word on whether or not this will come to the UK; if Vodafone enters the UK quad play market then that could easily change.