Sky Broadband
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| Sky Broadband | |
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| Type | Broadband Internet Provider |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Headquarters | London, UK |
| Area served | United Kingdom |
| Key people | James Murdoch |
| Industry | Internet |
| Products | Internet service |
| Parent | British Sky Broadcasting |
| Website | http://broadband.sky.com/ |
Sky Broadband is an internet service provider for Sky Digital customers. As of March 2008 Sky claims to have reached 1.428 million customers, and unbundled 1,179 exchanges, covering 70% of the United Kingdom.[1] In October 2007, Sky reached the 1 million mark in terms of customer numbers, and claim to be adding one new customer every 40 seconds.[citation needed][2]. From a marketing perspective, Sky Broadband is an example of converged service.
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[edit] Networking
Sky Broadband provides Sky Digital customers with Internet download speeds of up to 16Mbit/s (from Easynet enabled exchanges, by means of LLU), using ADSL and ADSL2+ technologies via an Openreach copper landline (often still referred to as a BT line).
Sky also introduced a free Broadband pack for its digital TV subscribers within its LLU coverage. This means anyone on Sky Digital can get Broadband (with a 2GB usage cap) for free, as long as they live in a covered area and pay the connection fees.
Alternative plans providing up to 8Mbit/s (Mid) or 16Mbit/s (Max) are also available. The Mid package has a 40GB usage cap, while the Max service is listed as unlimited, though does include a common 'fair use policy'. Like the free (Base) service, Mid and Max are also only available to customers who are connected to an EasyNet enabled exchange.[3]
For customers whose local exchange has not been Easynet enabled, the Connect service is available using the BT Wholesale network.
Unlike many other ISP's, Sky currently do not offer a dial-up alternative connection, to their broadband services.
[edit] Problems
Customers complaining of having to wait for weeks even months for activation due to sky's customer management system failing.
In November 2007, Sky Broadband began migration of its email services to the Google Apps platform. This did not go smoothly and caused many customers a lot of difficulty, with the user experience being described as "terrible".[4]
[edit] Future Plans
According to James Murdoch (current chief non-executive chairman of BSkyB), Sky intend to combine Broadband with SkyHD to offer a true on-demand service using the ethernet socket of the SkyHD box.[5]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Andrew Ferguson (2007-07-11). Sky adds 259,000 broadband customers in quarter. think broadband.
- ^ James Welsh (2007-10-29). Sky now has 1m broadband customers. Digital Spy.
- ^ Julia Kukiewicz (2008-02-12). Is Sky Broadband Any Good?. ChooseISP.co.uk.
- ^ K Dawson (2007-11-25). Sky's Botched Google Migration. Slashdot.
- ^ Product innovation video.
[edit] External links
- Sky Broadband at sky.com
- Up-to-date comparison table of all available Sky Broadband packages
- SkyUser - The Unofficial Sky Broadband Forum - Help with setting up and email etc
- Is Sky Broadband any good?
- An insiders view on Sky Broadband
- BBC article
- A UK Blog about Free Broadband Providers including Sky Broadband
- A consumer's (and former ISP manager/systems administrator) experience of Sky Broadband
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