Slashdot Mirror
UK Broadcaster Sky To Launch Mobile Service
An anonymous reader sends word that British pay-TV company Sky will launch mobile services next year. UK pay-TV firm Sky is launching a mobile phone service next year in partnership with O2's Spanish parent Telefonica. Sky will use Telefonica UK's wireless network, enabling the satellite broadcaster to offer mobile voice and data services for the first time. It takes Sky into the battle for "quad play", adding mobile to its existing services of internet, landline and TV. Offering all four services is seen as the next big UK growth area for telecoms firms and broadcasters.
frosty
Basically it is the same as with many other businesses, they will try to leverage their customer relationships to include more areas(so they get more money from the same customer)
Luckily at least currently the competition in the UK market seems to work fairly well so you still have the competition and choice,
There have been some worrying signs of lesser number of providers lately though so the question is how long will the good situation last.
This has always been a competitive and lucrative market, how is this *new*?
So we took your favorite TV provider, and made them an MVNO, too!
With a heavy hitter-partner we'll keep your 4G video streaming quality high, while your bill is on the down-low.
So now you can watch Sky on Sky, as it comes to you through the sky!
Sky will use Telefonica UK's wireless network
Really, the one they're about to sell to Hutchinson (owners of '3'')?
...anyone else notice the increased font size of titles and more padding in certain areas?
The next battle is not quad play. This is already "has been".
The next battle is fifth play: integrating home automation services attached to the home Internet gateway.
It might prove quite entertaining, given their patently criminal track record.
OTOH, I wouldn't want to be one of their customers/partners/whatnot. Not with a 6 meter pole. Even if it had condoms on both ends.
Given the number of mobile providers in the UK has been shrinking fairly dramatically recently, having another big player with big pockets and likely aggressive pricing enter the market is a good thing.
but if its on O2 network, i might as well go direct, why would i use a 3rd party who owns no infrastructure at all ?
what am i paying for ?
http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/th... ... as when three and O2 merge it'll be the biggest cell phone service provider here.. as i doubt the sky deal will do anything with the 50 billion hole Telefonica finds itself with O2
I am aware that the competition commission bods will want assurances as they did when Three bought out O2's Irish business however........ it seems to me that perhaps Sky is betting on Three
Its gonna be interesting to see if Sky will cause other cell phone providers in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to lower their prices.
I personally see Sky as anti-internet. They are a media company, and to me they stand for a commercialised internet with centralised control of everything. Murdoch's newspapers were partly responsible for encouraging the government to require porn filtering by default. There's no way I'd believe you if you told me that Sky isn't motivated by the same ideologies. I'd rather support an independent ISP that's in the business of providing a solid, good quality internet connection than subscribe to Murdoch's pet project to kill off the internet as we know it and reshape it in the model of his old media empire.
If it is the next big thing, they are already well behind.
Most of the large media companies were already there years ago.
TalkTalk is there.
Virgin is there.
BT is there.
Not sure if anyone else is there, those are the only ones I can think of.
Sky sure were behind the curve there. I assume their new package they did recently also never went well either. I remember doing surveys for them and it was pretty good getting to tell Sky how shit they were and how lax they were in the industry.
Those packages were awful. Abusively small bandwidth caps for a high price. NOPE.
Be used to run O2's Service.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2013/may/04/sky-o2-broadband-deal-transfer
I'm a Sky customer. Their customer service has been pretty good compared to some of the competitors I have had to deal with. Virgin. BT. TalkTalk. All crap. BT (Openreach) and Virgin own most of the fibre in the country.
Sky's customer service is still not as good as Telus' or Shaw Cable's from when I used live in Vancouver.
Hide your kids, hide your wives. And hide your husbands, too.