Tiscali, the broadband group, is planning to launch a mobile phone service this year.
The Italian group's UK arm is in talks with all of the four UK mobile phone operators about renting space on their networks to carry the service.
Chief executive Mary Turner said: "The assessment is not if, it is who and when. The business case has already been approved by the board."
The service is currently earmarked for launch in the last quarter of 2008. It would be SIM only, meaning Tiscali would not get involved in subsidising handsets and customers would have to use their existing phone or buy one themselves.
It will be spun out from a fledgling mobile business, ToucanMobile, that Tiscali acquired last summer when it bought the internet arm of Pipex, cementing its position as the UK's fourth largest broadband company.
Ms Turner plans to rebrand ToucanMobile - which launched two years ago and has just 7,000 customers and leases space on T-Mobile's network - under the Tiscali banner.
Tiscali will use its customer base as the nucleus of the new business.
The contract with T-Mobile has under a year left to run, but is not exclusive and Tiscali is already talking to other major network owners in search of the right terms.
The mobile section of the business is likely to be sold as part of a package of services by Tiscali, which already offers TV, voice calls and internet connections.
So far Virgin Media is the only British operator attempting to lure customers with a so-called "quadplay" offering, which gives discounts to those who sign up for four of its services - mobile, broadband, telephone and television.
Take-up has been slow, with just under 150,000 of Virgin's 4.4m mobile phone customers believed to have bought the telephone, TV and broadband services.
But Ms Turner believes that Sky, with its See Speak Surf campaign, has helped create consumer demand for buying pay TV, telephone and broadband from one supplier, and that consumer acceptance of mobile as part of that package will happen this year.
She said: "It's all about timing. The market will be ready, but you have to make it absolutely convenient for the customers to buy that fourth product."
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