Sky is expected to debut in October with an Internet plus voice offering for the home phone subscription. Here’s what it’s all about
Not just a satellite broadcaster. Sky is ready to become a telephone operator and offer its customers all-inclusive packages that include the home phone subscription and the package of satellite channels. The company is completing in recent months all the procedures to become a telephone operator and has signed an agreement with Open Fiber for the rental of network infrastructure.
For the Italian market this is a real novelty: a television broadcaster had never made investments in the telephone sector. Until now they had limited themselves to offering their customers “all inclusive” packages together with other telephone operators (Sky itself has done this several times with Fastweb). In Great Britain, Sky already presents in its bouquet offers packages that include content (Sky channels) and the home telephone subscription, thanks to the agreement signed with O2. Making a comparison between the British offers and those that it could bring to Italy, however, is very complicated, as the two markets are completely different.
Sky phone operator: when will the first offers arrive
According to what is written by Repubblica, Sky will start proposing the first offers from October 2019. In this period of time, the company must complete the procedures to be accredited as a telephone operator and think of offers that are truly competitive in a sector that is now saturated.
In addition, Sky will have to decide how to connect users to the Internet through its network. The satellite broadcaster already has proprietary devices available (let’s think of the new Sky Q decoder), but it must come to terms with the AGCOM rule that obliges telephone operators to give users the possibility of using a modem that is not their own.
Sky telephone operator: the offers
It’s difficult to make predictions about the type of offers that Sky could make as a telephone operator. Surely it will push on bundles that include both the subscription to the home telephone network and satellite channels. At the moment in Italy, telephone operators are betting heavily on fiber and it is no coincidence that Sky has signed a commercial agreement with Open Fiber. We will have to see, however, the maximum download speed that can be achieved. For example, in Britain each package offer is associated with a different download speed (from a minimum of 9.5 Mb/s to a maximum of 42.2 Mb/s).
It can be assumed that in the launch period the offer is very advantageous, with a price for the phone line plus Sky content around 40-50 euros.
The new content challenge
Sky’s decision to become a telephone operator in Italy is part of a wider strategy that also involves Comcast, the largest Internet provider in the United States and a cable TV provider. In fact, a few months ago Sky was purchased by the U.S. company that has decided to invest several billion dollars in Sky and expand the company’s business. Becoming a telephone operator is just the beginning.
In addition, Sky will have to defend itself in the coming years from the attack of the other Italian telephone operators that are beginning to invest in the production of content by creating ah hoc video streaming platform. An example is TIM Vision, but also Iliad could in the future offer the viewing of multimedia contents together with its own phone offers.