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BBC iPlayer and YouTube Added to EE’s 4G and 5G Video Data Pass

Tuesday, Jun 18th, 2019 (1:10 pm) - Score 5,971

Mobile operator EE has announced that their Video Data Pass add-on, which allows UK customers of their 4G and 5G based mobile broadband network to stream online video without it reducing their monthly data allowance, has now added support for both the BBC’s iPlayer service and YouTube.

The Video Data Pass, which only launched a few months ago, costs an additional £8.99 per month and for that you’ll now be able to stream internet video content from Netflix, Amazon (Prime Video), BT Sport, MTV Play, iPlayer (BBC), YouTube and TVPlayer without impacting on your data allowance (only available on Pay Monthly plans, although it can optionally be added at no extra cost as a swappable benefit on their new “Smart Plans“).

The pass is available on a 30-day (monthly) rolling contract term (text VIDEO to 150 in order to get it) and it should also work while roaming around other EU countries. One caveat here is that it doesn’t cover data that’s required for things like accessing or browsing the content provider’s app or for any adverts and images within the app (an additional 200MB of data is supplied to help cover such things).

Remember, you will still need a separate subscription for each of the video streaming services in order to access their content. All the pass does is stop the video content from consuming your mobile data allowance.

Tags: 4G , 5G , EE , Internet Video Streaming , IPTV , Mobile Broadband

By Mark Jackson
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.

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Mobile giant Vodafone UK and Sky (Comcast) have reportedly two among several "groups" that have approached budget conscious fixed broadband ISP TalkTalk about a potential deal (most likely an acquisition), which in theory could create a much larger provider with more influence over the industry. Just to recap. In 2020 TalkTalk became the subject of a £1.1bn takeover by Toscafund - controlled by hedge fund tycoon Martin Hughes (here), which including debt valued the broadband provider at around £1.8bn. The deal took the ISP private and gave them more financial flexibility for their future plans. Since then, they've backed Freedom Fibre (here) and this week made the notable acquisition of Ethernet provider Virtual1 (here). According to the FT (paywall) and Sky News, TalkTalk is now said to have asked investment bank Lazard to review its options after allegedly being approach by several groups, including Vodafone and Sky (Sky Broadband). Lazard is a logical choice as they recently acted as Financial Advisor to TalkTalk on the Virtual1 transaction. Some industry analysts have reportedly suggested that TalkTalk itself could now be worth "at least" £3bn. But this seems rather optimistic for an ISP that doesn't have any significant fixed line broadband infrastructure to call its own (excluding their old unbundled LLU network) and largely just piggybacks off Openreach (BT), CityFibre and Freedom Fibre. But TalkTalk do have a strong business and wholesale side. Funnily enough, Sky Broadband are in a similar position with their own fixed line base, while Vodafone also likes to piggyback off Openreach and CityFibre. At present, Vodafone has a fixed broadband base of 991,000 customers, while Sky Broadband is estimated to be home to around 6.7 million and TalkTalk has approximately 4.2 million. Suffice to say, anybody gobbling up TalkTalk would instantly become a much larger provider, giving them a greater say in how the UK broadband market develops and more opportunities for convergence (Vodafone with mobile, and Sky with mobile and TV). Crucially, TalkTalk's consumer base is mostly made up of those on older copper and hybrid fibre lines (i.e. ADSL and FTTC / VDSL2), which are ripe for a future migration to FTTP. At the time of writing, all of the aforementioned operators have decline to comment on the reports, and TalkTalk has yet to receive any serious formal offers. In other words, we strongly suspect that this is largely just an exercise in spin to help TalkTalk drum up some more productive interest in the idea. But at the same time, it's not unreasonable to suspect that they might succeed, as the interest seems genuine. On the other hand, we see reports like this every year or so and only a very few ever convert into a serious offer. Time will tell. Much may depend upon whether or not TalkTalk’s new owners are more flexible and pragmatic about doing a deal than the previous lot. Arguably, TalkTalk might have gone much further by now had they taken some different decisions a few years ago (e.g. co-investing in FTTP instead of Pay TV).

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Comments

6 Responses

kaptainkandikat says:

June 18, 2019 at 6:27 pm

ee, a bt company

nuff said
AnotherTim says:

June 18, 2019 at 9:16 pm

This still isn’t as attractive as Three’s AYCE deals, even though where I live EE is a bit faster than Three.
Sajid Barkat says:

June 19, 2019 at 7:19 am

EE data runs out so Quickly despite I had 100GB plan.
I love three unlimited data plans £20 Vs £30 EE only 100GB
1. Leeman says:
  
  June 22, 2019 at 4:05 pm
  
  Where are you seeing the £30 100gb ee offer please?
Guy Cashmore says:

June 19, 2019 at 7:29 pm

Another vote for Three unlimited, OK 22 Mbps down instead of 30 Mbps we were getting from EE, but upload is faster with Three at typically 8 Mbps and we are now paying £22 a month for unlimited data instead of £40 for only 100 GB with EE – it’s a no brainer for us!
useless says:

June 20, 2019 at 2:52 pm

£8.99 to watch iplayer…. *ouch my sides*