Sky wants to become a phone operator to differentiate its offer: here’s when the launch will take place
There continues to be, with increasing insistence, news about a Sky debut in the telephony sector. Some rumors even claim that by the first quarter of 2020 Sky will present its combined offer for Internet connection and content.
The competition for Sky is increasing (there are more and more services that offer on-demand content at a lower price than Sky) and for the satellite broadcaster is necessary to find new markets to attack. All inclusive offers that include telephony and exclusive content could be the ideal solution. Sky has always bet everything (and recently “almost everything”, with the first offers of online content) on satellite. But now the time has come to diversify the offer and launch into the world of telephony. Sky, however, must resolve as soon as possible problems of no small importance: it does not have a telephone network, how will it become a telephone operator? The options in the field are at least two, but only one is viable in the short term.
We start from the Sky-Open Fiber agreement
Sky does not have a network, but has an agreement with those who own the best network: Open Fiber. The company born in 2015 with an equal participation between Enel S.p.A. and Cdp Equity S.p.A. (i.e. Cassa depositi e prestiti, i.e. the Italian state). Open Fiber in the last two years has laid thousands of kilometers of fiber in the main Italian cities, but it does not sell Internet subscriptions directly: it rents its network to other operators, who then propose FTTH (Fiber to the Home, i.e. the fastest fiber at the moment of all) offers to customers. Also Sky has made a pact with Open Fiber, so it is almost certain that it will start from the Open Fiber network to make the first offers.
Sky-Iliad agreement?
If the first hypothesis is absolutely credible, the second one is instead still to be confirmed: Sky could ally itself with Iliad, the French operator that in the last months has been growing dramatically in Italy and now has over 4 million customers. Through Iliad Sky could convey its content also on mobile, but we need to see when, how and how much will grow the 5G network of Iliad (which at the moment there is not).
The Internet offers of Sky
It is likely, therefore, a two-step strategy: first Sky will offer only fixed connection, then also mobile. But combining the connection with the content it already has. The offers of Sky, therefore, will be all subscription TV + Internet subscription and, consequently, at least for the fixed hardly descend below 50 euros per month. Today TIM, for example, sells FTTH subscriptions at 30 euros per month with TIMVISION included in the price (which from the second year rises to 35 euros). But TIMVISION doesn’t have soccer, with the exception of women’s Serie A.