Sky Broadband launch Live blog
You have heard all the rumours and the goss about Sky offering free broadband to its customers. Well we are here at Vinopolis in London Bridge listening to the full announcement.
Read on for the details, but the main points.
* Sky Broadband launches in August
* Very competitive packages, including a free 2Meg basic service
* To get the good deals users need to on Sky’s broadband system – available to 28% of the population now. 50% by Xmas
* Top-end 16Meg connection
* Free wireless router thrown in
James Murdoch, Sky CEO and son of you know who, is saying that the UK market for broadband will double over the next few years. Hey he is bigging up blogging now, oh and not forgetting My Space
James is now saying that half of Sky’s customers have broadband already.
We have moved on to ther big convergence speech now, citing demand for bandwidth as the key for broadband growth. Interesting home of the future diagram pops up highlighting Sky’s existing offering. Boy does he speak quickly.
Over to Brian Sullivan now who is going to take us through Sky Broadband. He says it is an easy job as he feels it is a simple choice for Sky customers.
On to the details – three are three packages – 2Meg on the base level, 8Meg on the mid and 16Meg on the max. Whooa though. There’s a 2 gig cap on the base – which is pretty tight. The max one is unlimited.
They are also throwing in wireless. Smart move and they are going to set it up for you via their installation team if you go for the two two tiers. There’s also a small connection fee £20 or £40 – free for top-end.
The cost – base is free, mid costs £5 and the max is a £10 – that’s per month. That’s very very competitive. Only downer is deals are available to just 28 per cent of the population now. It will be 50-% by Christmas.
He is now comparing costs with rivals.
On to the content. You get the sky.com portal, email address, personalised home page. Just waiting for the link to My Spaces. You can also get Sky by Broadband, a photo service and nothing else. No My Space then and no blogs (phew).
Sky Talk – the Voip offering. Basically unlimted calls for a fiver a month. There’s BT Line rental, but Sky will be offering its own Sky line rental soon.
Just seen a vid comparing Sky broadband with Telewest, BT etc. We’ll have a good look at the figures later. Nevertheless Sky is making a huge deal out of the value for money of the service. Overall, Brian believes that Sky customers will save £1 billion within a year. Big talk.
Back to James – he’s speaking quickly again. It’s a landmark day for broadband Britain apparently. He wants to extend the reach of broadband in the UK. Better value, more flexible, transparent billing, quality content. You know the score by now, on to the questions.
Brian is talking about the possibility of video via broaband to a set top box by the end of 2007. Brian has just confirmed that from launch the top two tier services will be availalble to 50% of customers (which is 28% of the population).
We are getting clarification on the availability issue now. James takes this – today 28 per cent can have the service – 50% by end of year (this is more than cable apparently). That translates to one million Sky customers. Half can get the high speeds. I think we have it now.
James is talking about AOL’s UK portal which is up for sale and Sky is one of the bidders. He’s not saying a great deal, but it would be a good fit for Sky. He’s back on mesage again banging on about value for money.
James, has just outed himself as a Mac user. Apparently the service will be available to Mac users. Sky Movies and Sky Sports Broadband will be available to Mac users later this summer.
We’ll have a more detailed look at the Sky Broadband offering later.
One thought on “Sky Broadband launch Live blog”
Just wanted to know, will the free Sky broadband package work for Apple Mac users who have NOT got system 10 (OS X)? I.E will it work on the original Imacs which have system 9.2?
Could you please let me know – Thanks
Paul Stallard
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