Sky Mobile UK Launch Unlimited Video Streaming with Sky Watch
Customers of Sky’s (Sky Broadband, Sky TV etc.) 4G mobile plans can already benefit from things like like data roll-over (unused data is saved for future usage or cashed in) and now they’ve upgraded their Sky Watch feature to add unlimited video streaming via any Sky app (i.e. without using up your mobile data allowance).
In other words users of Sky Mobile will be able to stream as much TV, Sport or Movie content as they like while using either the Sky Go, Sky Kids, Sky Sports or Sky Cinema app on their Smartphones. Previously the Sky Watch feature only allowed customers to download shows to their mobile in order to watch then off-line with Sky Go Extra.
Sky Watch is available to all Sky Mobile customers, although what you can access will of course depend upon whether you have a Sky TV subscription. However it’s worth noting that Sky News allows even non-Sky TV customers to stream news content/video without using up their data. Otherwise Sky Watch is available on all of the Sky Mobile plans.
Sophia Ahmad, Director of Sky Mobile, said:
“We launched Sky Mobile to connect our customers to more of what they love. Streaming films and TV shows on-the-go is now one of the most popular ways to pass time while travelling or commuting – and our new Watch offer makes it easier for our customers to stay up to date with the unmissable must-watch television, from Game of Thrones to F1 races, that we know our customers love.”
The Sky Mobile plans are based off a Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) platform provided by O2 UK.
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 X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Do you think Sky could buy o2 at some point?
It’s not beyond the bounds of reason, but it’s also not something they’ve expressed a desire to do. Comcast will want to spend awhile getting Sky re-organised before they consider any major moves into the deeper market.
Makes sense, forgetting Comcast took them over.
Hopefully someone does eventually, at the moment O2 is just a walking corpse.
The affects of Comcast taking over have already started… Sky’s support is now in India… they tried to advise me that my routers sync speed was affected by how many devices were connected to my router.
What time/day did you call their support?
I think they’ve always used India for out of hours support.
About 3pm on a Tuesday
They’ve always used overseas support as an overflow when the UK teams are busy. Nothing has changed.
Network neutrality any one ?
What has that got to do with this? Are you saying they are disobeying neutrality rules because they are allowing people to do more not less?
This is no different to deals like EE had at one time which included netflix streaming without affecting your data allowance or BT and content on BT Sport app not counted towards data allowance.
If you are so outraged and think things like that are bad you best report every mobile operator to Ofcom as they have all done similar at some point.
Seems to be a classic case of the anti net neutrality style.
This sort of zero rating of video traffic also makes a mockery of telco’s artificial scarcity bandwidth caps.
Exactly, the fact they’re giving priority to their own service alone makes competing services less attractive.
Its no different to BT and how BT Mobile customers get the BT Sport App free.
They are far from the first to do something like this.
Anti Net Neutrality is when you treat traffic different, slow it down, give it priority, or block it. This is not being treated different. There is nothing about it being “prioritised” traffic or similar. Where does it state that?
These services are available to non Sky Mobile customers, you just have to pay for them much like the BT Sport App and that costing £5 per month for non BT Mobile customers.
Breaking of Net neutrality would be if a company had a product like this and only their customers could access it. Thats why you can also get things like NOWTV (even though they are also an ISP) on other ISP platforms. If you could not then that would be a violation.
Ah, the old bandwagon fallacy.
Zero rating one music/video/sport/whatever service is massively prioritising that service over others!
In this case, say I’m on a Sky plan, every other video site is immediately less attractive. Now I’m sure you’ll argue that it is better for people because they can get the cheaper bargain basement 1GB plan and be able to stream, but that ignores the fact that that locks out all of Sky’s video streaming competition. Alan’s startup, the Online TV Emporium, can never get running.
If you don’t like what an ISP is doing then go elsewhere, don’t use government tyranny to force yourself on them.
“Zero rating one music/video/sport/whatever service is massively prioritising that service over others!”
Except its not zero rated because to get the content you have to pay for Sky TV and what package you have from sky TV dictates what content you can download on your sky mobile (If you had read the news you would know that). Its like Netflix where you do not get Ultra HD content unless you pay MORE for it. Or any other streaming service where the content has various pay tiers.
“In this case, say I’m on a Sky plan, every other video site is immediately less attractive.”
Id have thought the most attractive service would be the one with the content you want to watch. Since when did Sky have Netflix original content or Amazon original content (example The grand tour which has recently started back on Amazon). So i do not understand your logic there.
“Now I’m sure you’ll argue that it is better for people because they can get the cheaper bargain basement 1GB plan and be able to stream, but that ignores the fact that that locks out all of Sky’s video streaming competition.”
What??? Are you on something. How do they lock out the competition which all charge for their content no matter which ISP you are with? You want them to provide you with limitless video/music streaming from every service on your 1GB plan?
“Alan’s startup, the Online TV Emporium, can never get running.”
I doubt any startup would be able to get going if they just gave away there content which cost them money to make. Me thinks you need to go learn what Net Neutrality actually is. Or the more likely outcome continue to just hate with no logical reason.
“Zero rating one music/video/sport/whatever service is massively prioritising that service over others!”
NO that is not how Net Neutrality works. Prioritising traffic on a network when it comes to net neutrality means a provider makes certain traffic perform better in some way than others. Just because this is free traffic does not mean it is going to perform any better or worse than other traffic from youtube/netflix/amazon/iplayer or other numerous free and paid for video services.
“….Me thinks you need to go learn what Net Neutrality actually is.”
Yes it appears he does need to as based on his comments he does not understand what its is.
I wonder whether this works when tethering to a tablet watching Sky Go.
Not sure why you would need or want to tether to/from a tablet. To get the free data on Sky Mobile you have to have a Sky TV sub and if you have one of them, then at home you can watch everything on your sky box to what your could on the sky watch/sky mobile app/package.
For those that travel and want a bigger screen…
Er buy a cheap tablet which takes a sim card maybe? Though frankly speaking if you are travelling and staying in a hotel/holiday home its likely to have streaming services and/or free wifi to watch on a PROPER big screen anyway.
If you are travelling and constantly on the move then good luck you will need to stop and find somewhere to charge the phone/tablet every 5 hours or so of watching content.
I’m also thinking of joining sky mobile already with sky like the person asked can you tether from sky mobile to tablet.
Like you can get a travel charger for the tablet so it wait need charging and is it only the devices that are linked to skygo u can only use to tether and how many devices can tether using the sky data at the same time ?