Whilst not really Windows Mobile news this needs covering as it signals a massive change in the way you connect to the internet. UK TV giants Sky are today launching free broadband for all 8 million Sky TV customers. All customers, regardless of package type, will get up to 2Mb download on the Sky Broadband service and they’ll be giving a free wireless Netgear router plus 12 months free McAfee security too.
Three offerings will be rolled out – Sky Broadband Base, Mid and Max. Professional installation will be offered on all of these with free installation on the Max product. The products range in speed and usage with “Base” giving up to 2Mb and 2GB monthly usage, “Mid” – which costs £5 a month – will give up to 8Mb and 40GB of usage. “Max” will set you back £10 a month and will give speeds of up to 16Mb with unlimited downloads subject to a fair usage policy.
All of this has been made possible following Skys’ acquisition of an ISP which doing LLU (Local Loop Unbundling – this allows companies other than BT to use the copper line from the telephone exchange to your house). Sky Talk also comes as an added bonus giving the user reduced phone costs. At present Sky Broadband will only be available to 28% of households including London, Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. Ignore this at your peril though – Sky have pumped £250 Million into this with the network rolling out extremely quickly across the UK. It’s expected to pass more homes than the entire cable industry by early next year… yes, you heard right – more than the entire cable industry. That’s huge, really huge.
You may have also noticed that the new Sky+ boxes have a reserved area on the hard drive that you can’t record to – this will be used in future with their Broadband package to drip-feed programmes to the box for on-demand watching later (hence lots of offers of professional installation). VoD (Video On Demand) also gives you the opportunity to watch Sky channels across their wireless router on various different devices – including your Windows Mobile. One login across all platforms will give you access to shows and entertainment.
Links – Sky PR Announcements — Sky Broadband Sign-up / Info
Free Broadband for all Sky Customers
July 18, 2006