Carphone Warehouse has today released the details of its ‘free’ broadband package.

The move was heavily speculated about in the week leading up to today’s announcement, as competition steps up to remove BT from the top of the UK’s broadband league.

And by offering up to 8Mb broadband (with a 40Gb download limit) included at no extra cost with its £20.99-a-month Talk 3 International Call package, Carphone Warehouse has stepped up its campaign to break into the UK’s home phone and broadband market.

“For too long the British public has been charged costly fees for high-speed internet access, or has had to use slow internet connections. We are now bringing this to an end. First we launched free calls for all of our customers and today we are proud to launch free broadband,” said Charles Dunstone, chief executive of The Carphone Warehouse.

There are added costs to the Carphone deal however: there is a £29.99 connection fee, in addition to the £20.99 monthly payment, for customers in a local loop unbundling area.

For the 28 to 30 per cent of Britons not in an unbundled area, customers will have to pay an extra £10 a month for the broadband service, as well as a one-off £29.99 connection fee.

Additionally, customers need to sign an 18-month contract, compared with the usual 12-month contract, and customers have to dial a prefix code to get the inclusive international calls.

But this did not stop consumer groups singing the praise of the deal.

“This unprecedented deal is great news for consumers and makes broadband accessible to all. TalkTalk’s new offer is designed to get the 14 million homes that are yet to sign up to the benefits of broadband on board,” said Chris Williams, home telephone product manager at comparison service uSwitch.com.