Sky Broadband Quietly Add 52Mbps FTTC Sky Fibre Unlimited Plus Package
Blink and you’ll miss it. Yesterday we reported that Sky Broadband had cut the price of their top four broadband and phone bundles (here) but what everybody missed, ourselves included, is that Sky had technically launched a new ‘up to’ 52Mbps FTTC package called ‘Sky Fibre Unlimited Plus‘.
At present Sky offers three FTTC (VDSL2) based “fibre broadband” packages, two of which promote download speeds of ‘up to’ 38Mbps (34Mbps average) and of course the top Sky Fibre Max package that offers ‘up to’ 76Mbps (57Mbps average). However Sky has also introduced a fourth ‘up to’ 52Mbps tier (9.5Mbps upload), which is called Sky Fibre Unlimited Plus and it costs £2.50 per month less than Sky Fibre Max.
The new tier is based off Openreach’s 55Mbps (10Mbps upload) product but nobody spotted it because the package doesn’t appear on Sky’s official product packages and only shows up in one part of their small print. The reason for that is because Sky Fibre Max has been quietly enhanced to promote a “minimum download Speed Guarantee of 55Mb,” which requires a little explanation.
Customers who don’t receive at least 55Mbps from Sky Fibre Max within the first 30 days of service will be offered several options, they can either claim back any upfront setup costs and a pro-rata subscription credit for their broadband and talk products (i.e. refund and cancel without penalty) or downgrade “to the next best fibre product at no extra cost.”
The Sky Fibre Unlimited Plus tier is offered as the “next best fibre product“, even though the only place that this product seems to be mentioned is on the Sky Fibre Max Speed Guarantee page. Sadly that page doesn’t mention the price but one of ISPreview.co.uk’s sources has confirmed that it costs £2.50 less than Sky Fibre Max (i.e. £41.49 without discounts).
Sky has a habit of concealing some of their most interesting package options in the small print and this one is no exception, which is perhaps intentional in order to avoid confusing consumers with too many options.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.
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It’s a she the upload speed is 10 MBps again. It would be logical (and noce) if they introduced a mid-range tier of 15 MBps upload for this mid-range package.
I don’t think openreach do a 20Mbps or 15Mbps upload profile for the 55Mbps tier.
That’s why they should. One thing that stops me from upgrading my ADSL is that upload speed is 10 MBps max on every package but the dearest.
Openreach AFAIK do not have a 15/20Mb upload package/profile for 38/55Mb downloads. So Sky could not provide it.
So is this for downgraders only or can anyone ask for this?
At present it’s only presented as a downgrade option but you could try asking for it specifically, although the downside is that you probably wouldn’t benefit from the current price offers.
Just ordered it, can confirm it’s available for everyone (presuming your line estimate is good enough).
Thanks for the confirmation Mike – might be in the market for a new provider after the recent Virgin price rises, and this makes Sky more interesting to me.