Yesterday, I was looking at new mobile phone contracts for the wife. O2 are offering a ridiculous number of minute and texts for very little, but on an 18 month contract. The concept of an 18 month contract scares me, to be honest. I don't want to be stuck with O2 for that long without at least the option of escape!

I looked at T-Mobile, I looked at Orange, I looked at Vodafone. I looked at independent retailers. They were all rubbish. In order to get anything like a good deal these days, you have to sign up for an 18 month contract. It's rubbish. However, this is where Virgin Media come in.

I discovered that they still do the 'no obligation' pay monthly schemes. Basically, they don't give you a handset so it costs them nothing to set up your account. Once you've got your SIM, you pay monthly and get minutes and texts inclusive like any other contract, except there is no minimum period. For 20 of your English pounds, I can get a no obligation tariff with 300 minutes and 300 text.

"Hold up," says I, "I'm already a Virgin Media customer, subscribing to TV, phone and cable internet. Surely they can do me some kind of a deal?" A quick look later indicates that they can, in fact, do a deal. The same TV package we're on, the same landline package we're on, and a mobile tariff (the 300/300 one) for £30/month. I'm already paying £24 for the TV and landline, so as you can see it's a fairly tempting offer. The only proviso is that, to retain the price, you need to be a customer for 12 months. In reality, that means that if I decide to drop the mobile tariff, the other two go to their normal prices again. No real hardship.

I'll call them tomorrow and see about setting that up, and sort out porting the number. If it all works out, it'll be marvellous.

Edit: Cor, that was better than expected. Got the whole shebang (TV, phone, 4Mb internet, mobile) for £47/month. Sweet. Virgin do need to sort out the attitude of their call centre staff though - the first two people I spoke to were very confrontational. In fact, both told me to shut up while they were talking ... not so sweet.