Sky Storm UK Broadband

With the UK suffering a continued economic downturn, it is interesting to see a success story in the growing market that is the broadband industry.

Since entering the broadband market two years ago Sky, full name British Sky Broadcasting, has taken on over one and a half million customers and rocketed into the top five in the UK broadband suppliers league.

Ahead of Sky is BT (British Telecom), Virgin Media – part of the Richard Branson empire – Carphone Warehouse and Tiscali, but the rate at which Sky has been taking
on customers sees it closing fast on the fourth placed rival.

While Sky may be fending problems elsewhere – broadcasting regulators have insisted Sky scale down a current stake of almost 18 percent in UK commercial broadcaster ITV and Ofcom, media and television watchdog, are looking into Sky dominance in the pay-TV arena – broadband sales have reached epic proportions with record sign-ups in recent months.

Package deal

Part of the appeal is the package offered to existing Sky TV customers, and to new subscribers, that offers a package deal providing pay TV, broadband and telephone services, and while only a small percentage of customers currently take all three an existing TV customer base of almost nine million viewers enables a forecast of three million broadband users by 2010 to look feasible with ease.

With the UK broadband market just reaching maturity, and far from saturated, the market growth of this area is attractive to the likes of Sky, and while Sky continues to recruit new users at an ever increasing rate, Italian provider Tiscali – currently fourth in the league- is losing customers at present.

With rival supplier Carphone Warehouse offering a stripped down economy service from a mobile phone retailer, and Virgin Media also able to offer a package involving TV and telephone services, Tiscali finds itself at the mercy of these two and the new boys on the block, as Sky asserts itself seemingly without effort.

Cable behind times

Virgin, it should be noted, have the disadvantage of only being able to supply their telephone and broadcasting package in areas of the UK covered by cable, a technology whose implementation has stalled in recent years in that country, leaving vast swathes of the populace without access to cable services and reliant on satellite, digital and traditional terrestrial broadcasts.

Meanwhile BT, the market leader, intends to begin a five year programme to introduce fibre optic cabling, enabling the UK to fall in line with faster download speeds experienced elsewhere in the world.

With the attractive telephone and pay TV package, of particular interest to those who follow premiership football, Sky looks set to continue to reap the rewards of a fast growing market sector in the UK.