Sky to launch unlimited FTTC service for £20 a month

[.Griff.]

http://corporate.sky.com/investors/press_releases/2012/sky_builds_on_broadband_growth_with_increased_coverage_10000_wifi_hotspots_and_new_fibre_launch

£50 setup fee then £20 a month for "truly unlimited" FTTC broadband (I suspect via VULA GEA)

Adding choice with Sky Broadband Unlimited Fibre: Sky is to give customers even more choice by adding a fibre broadband product to its range from April. For £20 a month, customers will be able to access download speeds of up to 40 megabits with a totally unlimited product that has no usage caps. From launch the new product will be available to around 30% of UK homes, growing over time in line with BT's fibre roll-out programme.

[Bill]

According to the tbb news item it's only 2Mbps upstream though.

[.Griff.]

According to the tbb news item it's only 2Mbps upstream though.

I'd guess 95% of users don't care about upload speed to be honest Bill hence their decision to cap it at 2Mbps.

[pctech]

Let's see how long it remains unlimited when the freeloaders move there en masse.

Would be tempted myself but alas you have to have their bilge by satellite service so the cost isn't really 20 quid is it.

[.Griff.]

Let's see how long it remains unlimited when the freeloaders move there en masse.

Their LLU service which is available to a lot more of the population, and has a significant amount of customers, remains unlimited to this day.

After all their broadband service is heavily subsidised so why wouldn't it remain unlimited?!? They can afford it.

[pctech]

while it remains limited to Sky TV customers it'll keep the P2P crowd at bay as most of them download American stuff to bypass the need to pay Sky, I work with a few of them including one guy that was booted from three ISPs.

[mervl]

It seems not to be likeTalkTalk (so no Sky equipment in the cab) so similar to IDNet's FTTC service, though using the excellent Sky backhaul which is much more reliable than the BTw network in my experience.

So I fear a kiss of death to our smaller providers domestic market with Sky's unlimited offer and pricing!

And a slight selfish niggle, that us early adopters on a not-uncommon rubbish local loop will probably see speed reductions in the inevitable Sky stampede, until (some hope) OR introduce vectoring. Oh, but there'll be no money to invest in the local loop outside the final 10% or whatever when BT too start losing customers and paying for their match-funding obligations. Swings and roundabouts as always.

But great news for the consumer, and worth the wait. From my observations more than every other house exhibits a Sky dish!  I suspect those wicked old capitalists at Sky are more benefit to the consumer than Ofcom's meddling ever managed.

[pctech]

It's what I call bloody expensive Internet access as at the min you have to have their 20 quid dross package and then another 20 quid for the Internet access

To get any of the decent channels such as Discovery which I'd happily pay for it starts at 53 quid a month so escalated to £73.

Oh and that backbone wasn't built by Sky at all, it was built by another respected business ISP, easynet.

[.Griff.]

Mitch where do you get £53 for Discovery from!??!

I pay £31.75 a month and for that I get everything including all the HD channels with the exception of sports and movies.

I know it's fashionable to hate Sky but I can't really fault their service at all.

[pctech]

I stand corrected Griff, just found the customise option but still a lot.


Would still work out at 25 quid for me for TV alone and I just dont watch that much.

[.Griff.]

I stand corrected Griff, just found the customise option but still a lot.

Maybe that's where we disagree Mitch and I respect your opinion.

I pay £31 a month and for that I have a 1TB PVR (another 500GB for Anytime), Anytime+ and every channel available barring sports and movies. Even though I only really watch a few channels, Discovery HD, Nat Geo HD, History HD spring to mind, I think it's good value.

[mervl]

I think the calculation is how much would you pay IDNet for effectively "unlimited" use (including line rental and calls), then compare it with Sky (including a TV package) and I suspect the TV "premium" isn't bad VFM. But not of course if you won't watch any TV on Sky on principle.Yep Sky bought Easynet (then sold the rest of the Company bar the infrastructure back to the management) but I recall they've recently announced a major investment in the backhaul. So living in the present, not the past . . .

That said, it doesn't persuade me to move yet at the end of my fixed term (but on money-saving grounds that decision is hard to justify for me).

Murdoch-hating is priceless!

[Gary]

If you take their phone option as well it would work out really good, I have been with Sky ages now, 1TB box like .Griffs, I have movies though as I am at home most of the time, if FTTC came to this area I would probably go with the sky option, I would save, get the anytime + back catalogue available via internet to the box, tbh considering I watch a lot of History and Nat geo etc, and if bored there is always something on the normal 500GB anytime partition of the box I have to say it serves me well. Better than Freesat which my TV has built in.

[FritzBox]

Think you can now have BB without the TV

Personally I think it should be illegal for Pay TV to show adverts, I'll stick with Freeview and Freesat thanks

[klipp]

This is fantastic news.  Hopefully Sky will start offering more HD items on AT+ now that FTTC is available.

[Gary]

Think you can now have BB without the TV

Personally I think it should be illegal for Pay TV to show adverts, I'll stick with Freeview and Freesat thanks

Tha'ts why you record them and fast forward though them...

[pctech]

Think you can now have BB without the TV

Personally I think it should be illegal for Pay TV to show adverts, I'll stick with Freeview and Freesat thanks

Agree with that and then there's the whole media empire phone hacking stuff.