Sky Broadband Is Here

BSkyB are stepping right into the ongoing broadbnad battle for business in the UK.

On offer are four levels of service for customers of their satellite TV service.

Three in one catagory and the fourth on it’s own. The fourth one is a “make shift” service which will basically use BT equipment until they have all of their own in the exchanges, much like what Talk Talk are doing at the moment until they also have all of their own equipment in place.

The important info is what they will offer once they have their own infrastructure in place. Three levels will be offered.

Option 1: Base: Up to 2Mb speed, 2Gb downloading a month, £40 setup fee, monthly subscrition is free.

Option 2: Mid: Up to 8Mb speed, 40Gb downloading a month, £20 setup fee, monthly subscrition is £5 monthly.

Option 3: Mid: Up to 16Mb speed, unlimited downloading a month, no setup fee, monthly subscrition is £10 monthly.

My first thoughts are “impressive”.

I registered my interest with Option 3. My reply email said they will be in touch in August as that is when they reckon they can offer me this service.

I hope they can.

Currently I’m with BT Option 4, which when you look on the BT site is no longer advertised. It matches Sky’s option 2 except it has a 50Gb monthly download limit, whereby before it was unlimited plus it is £27.99 a month. That would be a saving of £18 a month plus more speed. Unreal. BT have been charging way over the odds for broadband for a long time.

When I first got broadband in 2001 it was a 512k service costing £39.99 a month. Over time the price dropped and the speed increased but I still feel BT could offer this service for much less than they do.

Time for a rethink on your pricing policy BT. The Sky deal is way better than the others being offered at the moment by Orange and Talk Talk and I am going to try it out.