Sky Mobile Allows UK 4G Customers to Cash-in Unused Data

Customers of Sky Mobile (Sky Broadband) have now been given the rather unique ability to “cash in” any unused 4G Mobile data (Mobile Broadband) allowances they may have and instead receive savings on a range of Smartphones, Tablets and mobile accessories (aka – Piggybank Rewards).

At present existing Sky TV customers can take any one of the Sky Mobile plans, which are based off an MVNO platform from O2 UK, and also benefit from free unlimited UK calls + texts (non-Sky TV customers have to pay an extra +£10 per month for this). Otherwise the plans cost £6 a month for 600MB of data, £12 for 2GB, £15 for 5GB and £20 for 10GB.

The data allowances aren’t exactly inspiring but Sky Mobile has always offered the ability to roll-over unused data into their online Sky Piggybank each month (in 1GB increments), which can be used whenever they need for up to 3 years (some rivals take a similar approach, but the data roll-over usually expires quite quickly). You can also share your data with up to 5 SIMs on the same account.

Some users have now accumulated quite a big piggybank and in order to solve that the ISP has come up with the Piggybank Rewards feature. Customers can get up to £50 off any device or accessory when they cash in their Sky Piggybank data (done via Sky.com, over the phone and soon via the My Sky app). The rewards available will change each month. For example in July, customers can cash in from 5GB of unused data for a range of iPhones cases or 20GB for a JBL GO 2 Portable Speaker.

Sophia Ahmad, Director of Sky Mobile, said:

“When we launched Sky Mobile, we wanted to offer the best possible deal to our customers. Automatically saving their unused data with Roll was a big part of this. Our customers have saved over £50 million worth of data so far, which would have been lost with other networks.

Now we’re improving Roll even more with Piggybank Rewards – turning customer’s unused data into savings on new phones, tablets and accessories.”

The economic model of some mobile operators relies, at least in part, on customers not consuming all of their allowances each month. But if an operator then allows for more efficient use of unused data, as Sky have done, then that could put a strain on this model (e.g. users are less likely to take a more expensive plan to get a bigger allowance etc.). This may be how we get to Piggybank Rewards, as a less costly long-term balancing solution.

In any case it’s an interesting new twist on the already unique approach that Sky has been adopting with their mobile plans.