BSkyB is latest to offer free broadband in the home: Free needs an asterisk, as the Sky Broadband service requires a subscription to the satellite television service (about £17/$31 per month), a £40 ($73.50) activation fee, and may involve some installation fees. The service is ADSL with 2 Mbps downstream, and will include a free wireless router. A 16 Mbps downstream service is just £10 ($18) per month. And a landline VoIP-like service will add £5 ($9) per month for unlimited calls to landline numbers in the UK. BSkyB will put £400m ($735m) into its broadband service over the next three years, expecting profitability in 2010. (A reader notes that this isn't VoIP per se: It's Carrier Pre Select (CPS), in which wireline calls are terminated via Sky's network. This is similar, I believe, to US providers like Speakeasy which use VoIP as a carrying mechanism over the local loop.)
BSkyB isn't alone, which sounds odd to those of us outside the UK. Television service and mobile phone offerings are in such a high state of competition, that broadband-included packages are not unusual. Carphone Warehouse offers 8 Mbps ADSL with a £20 ($38) per month unlimited UK landline voice package (that's the £11 line fee plus their service), a £30 ($54) activation fee, and an 18-month contract. An extra £1 per month gets you unlimited landline calling in 28 countries. (The British advertising watchdog ruled that Carphone can't call this service "free" because the broadband service is integral to the voice offering, but Carphone has finessed this and can advertise free by adding the broadband to previous calling plans at no charge.)
Orange offers the same 8Mbps speed with a £30/$55-per-month, 18-month contract, and has no activation fee.