RACHEL RICKARD STRAUS: You wouldn't pay extra to have bread in a cheese sandwich, but that's exactly how broadband advertising has worked...until now

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Imagine buying a cheese sandwich for a pound, but being told at the counter it’ll cost you another £3 to cover the cost of the bread.

It would be ludicrous – I doubt you’d stand for it. But that is exactly how broadband advertising has worked until now.

Broadband providers have been able to have these flashy ads with eye-catching prices – only to admit in the small print that households will have to fork out the best part of £20 a month on top of that for the line rental.

Dazzle: Broadband providers are known for their flashy ads 

We’ve been pointing out how bonkers this is for some time – how can a compulsory cost be excluded from the headline price?

Telecoms pricing is already complicated enough, what with calls packages and data allowances and evening tariffs.

But it is about to become even more convoluted. Providers are trying to push us towards ‘quadplay’ – getting our broadband, mobile phone, TV and line rental from a single provider.

They’re already laying the groundwork through mergers and takeovers to ensure that they own the full suite – the content as well as the means of provision. Once they’ve got them, be prepared for an advertising onslaught.

It will all be about getting in new customers – after all, suppliers know that once we’re locked in we’re unlikely to leave. Just eight per cent of us switched broadband supplier last year.

If they get their way, soon we’ll all have just a single direct debit coming out of our accounts every month covering all of these services.

Many argue it’ll mean better prices for consumers – and that it’ll simpler just to deal with one provider and have everything bundled up.

But what worries me is how much more difficult it’ll get to untangle exactly what we’re paying for and whether we’re getting a good deal.

How do you work out which comes out cheaper overall when they each have different prices for landline rental, extra channels, landline calls, data on mobiles, sending text messages, watching movies, data roaming…the list goes on.

It shouldn’t have taken so long for a crackdown on ridiculous broadband advertising. It mustn’t take so long next time – the stakes will be much higher.