ISP Sky Broadband Confirms Modest Annual UK Price Rises UPDATE
Customers of Sky Broadband’s (Sky plc) various UK broadband, phone and Pay TV products are being told to brace for an average annual price hike of 8.1% (£5.60), which is to be introduced from 1st April 2023. But crucially, this is less than the 14-15% of their main competitors and below the current level of inflation.
Admittedly, there’s rarely such a thing as a welcome price hike, but in Sky’s case it could certainly have been much worse – not that this is how customers will react when their bills start going up. But we should point out that the figure of 8.1% is just an average, thus some packages may go up by more than that, while others may see a smaller increase.
The fact that the latest increase is below the current level of CPI inflation (10.5%) doesn’t mean that customers won’t be able to exit their contracts penalty free, they will, once notified (you get 30 days to make a decision after being notified). Ofcom’s rule on this can be found here.
Advertisement
Consumer who are hit by mid-contract hikes could alternatively try haggling for a lower price when the notification drops (Retentions – Tips for Cutting Your Broadband Bill), although your mileage may vary. Meanwhile, those on benefits (Universal Credit etc.) also have the option of taking a cheaper Social Tariff – see our Quick Guide to UK Social Tariffs (Sky have these too).
Sky notes that its average increase over the past two years has been c.13%, which compares well with competitors that have seen a c.25% average increase over the same period. Sky also has no plans to change their approach and pin their increases to CPI or RPI (inflation) – they’re the only major broadband provider to NOT do this. Mind you, inflation will be much lower by this time next year, so that may not matter.
A Sky Spokesperson said:
“This is not a decision we have taken lightly. We have tried to minimise the impact to customers with an average price increase across all our broadband and TV customers of 8.1%, which is below levels of inflation again this year. Competitors’ average increase over the last two years has been nearly double Sky’s average increase over the same period.”
At this point, it’s worth remembering that broadband providers are NOT immune to cost increases. Providers, much like consumers, are also suffering under the burden of rising supplier and lease costs, surging inflation, high energy prices, the ever-rising levels of consumer demand for data, as well as the cost of adding all sorts of new services (e.g. FTTP) and catering for new regulations etc.
We have asked Sky if they can provide more details on which specific services are being increased and by how much, although it’s possible they may not be able to confirm that yet. Take note, Sky’s increases are usually also applied to by their NOW Broadband (NOW TV) sub-brand too.
Advertisement
Finally, Sky said they want to continue to support their most vulnerable customers, which is why they have made a commitment to freeze the price of their broadband and mobile social tariff in 2023. On top of that, they’ve also committed to pass on any wholesale savings from Openreach, should they introduce a social tariff wholesale price (they haven’t done so, yet).
UPDATE 10th Feb 2023 @ 8:47am
We’ve managed to get some details on the price changes for a few of Sky’s most popular products, which helps to highlight the impact of yesterday’s news.
Sky’s Products and Price Changes
Sky Signature – £32 (current price) to £34 (new price)
Sky Sports Complete pack – £32 to £34
Sky HD – £8 to £9
Sky Broadband Essential Plus – £35 to £38.25
Sky Broadband Superfast – £35.50 to £39.50
Sky Broadband Ultrafast – £40 to £43
Sky Talk Evenings & Weekends Extra – £5 to £5.75
Sky Talk Anytime Extra – £12 to £13.50
Sky Talk International Extra – £14 to £15.50Sky Stream / Glass Changes (some of these only impact older customers)
Entertainment – £26 to £29
Sky Cinema – £11 to £13
Sky Sports – £25 to £27
UHD (4K) and Dolby Atmos – £5 to £6
Sky Kids – £5 to £6
Whole Home – £10 to £12
The good news is that BT Sport, Multiscreen and the Skippable Ads service / features are unchanged. But there are some other negative changes coming for Sky Broadband customers (here).
Advertisement
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.
« EE Expand 5G Mobile to 500 Smaller UK Rural Towns and Villages
Sky Broadband UK May Weaken Speed and WiFi Guarantees »
Nah, it’s a material detriment. Try paying only 92% of a bill, and see how a company would respond. The fact that inflation is crazy high isn’t relevant, because the contract was denoted in cash terms.
@Iain
It’s not a material detriment if the contract terms include provision for price rises.
@New_Londoner, Sky are applying section 5(b) of their terms, which engages Section 10(c), the customer’s right to cancel without penalty. https://static.skyassets.com/contentstack/assets/blt7f2b03fd02c7fe60/bltfaabe3c471c484b9/628ca6d2d31030576a34b0fb/download?disposition=inline
The word modest needs to be replaced with greedy/scum
Everyones costs are going up as are Sky’s. They have to pay wages and infrastructure costs. Do you think nurses are greedy scum for wanting an inflation busting pay rise?
Fibre opex is negligible, it is not electricity which needs to be produced and procured and suffers at the whims of incompetent green politics
I’m fine with nurses or any other job having a payrise, if the money they receive does not come directly from my pocket without my consent. Private companies that can give nurses better pay already exist. But to answer your question, yes, members of parliament are greedy scum for voting themselves to get a big payrise out of taxpayer money for all the economic damage they’ve caused.
Consent is the keyword. I do not consent for telecoms companies to bring financial pain due to their own incompetence
you do not have to buy their services that’s your choice, I can tell you do not understand how the telecoms regs work, so here is a free lesson.. Ofcom every 5 years set the price with which Openreach can increase the price and this is linked to CPI, and as 90% of providers aka Sky have to use openreach, they have no choice but to pass on the increase. FYI openreach increased the pricing 14%.
P.s MPs do not vote on their pay rises, it is decided independently and they have no choice to refuse, but many do give the increase to charity.
John
Inflation is 10.5 % which is more than 2 % higher than what Sky will be charging which means Sky are taking a 2% hit approx. in their revenue instead of passing it on to customers, like everyone else is doing so get your facts straight.
Sorry to break this to you John but the universe doesn’t revolve around what you consent to. You’ve no idea what you’re writing about with regards to ‘fibre opex’ either.
BT simps/minions coming in defense of scum practices.
Sure ok, maybe you don’t like Thames Water so you don’t use water ??? insanely dumb argument. You have no choice but to sign, especially when there are no alternatives
Openreach is literally reducing prices
Maybe MPs have not voted for taking more money from us but strings got pulled so they got it anyway so moot point
If there is no change to the value of the service, the price should not increase. At the very least people should be allowed to leave the contract for companies that do not want to milk them as cashcows
The article and the discussion are about Sky, Wilson. No idea why you’re writing about BT simps/minions. Might be time to change the record.
Inflation itself is the biggest economic scam in order to steal from the average citizen.
I dont mean to rain on your parade Jeff but what economics qualifications do you have? For a growing economy inflation is part of it, and as far as I was taught a necessary part for the economy.
Thats not to say 10% is nothing. Economists like around 2%
If productivity and in turn pay rises outstrip inflation it’s fine.
You’ve no idea what you’re writing about, do you?
Inflation and taxation are the two ways the elites steal from the peasants
If you sign the contract for certain period of time this should be how much it costs throughout the contract. I always found mid-contract rises peculiar. In particular as the entire risk is shifted to the consumer. Neither consumer nor the company knows how much CPI/RPI will be yet they shift that entire unknown risk onto the customer.
Separate question is whether the cost of running the service is tied to CPI/RPI in real life. I am not so sure.
Which is why sky allow you to give 31 days notice and end the contract if they increase their price. (Not for standalone TV customers however but that is a whole other thing they’re arguing with Ofcom about). Customers are free to leave as per Sky T&Cs and Sky are free to increase their prices once a year again as per their T&Cs.
It is not tied. Once the fibre is installed there are barely any costs in comparison to the capex
Sky don’t own the fibre connecting the customer to the handover, they rent circuits on it. Sky don’t own the fibre connecting the handover to their datacentre, they rent circuits on it.
Sky have to pay the bills to power their hardware, cool their datacentres and install new hardware, the cost of which has gone through the roof on all sides. Power and kit are both way more expensive.
Sky have to pay for staff to maintain, operate and support their network. Sky have to pay administration, billing and marketing costs, including the technical side in provisioning and systems/services such as DNS and DHCP.
Sky have to pay the staff who handle this and those who support the end customers alongside rent and utilities for the buildings housing them.
Sky have to rent the connections between their datacentres and peering points, pay for collocation at those peering points, port charges and transit charges per Mbps per month.
Other than that, sure, barely any costs of running the service once the fibre that isn’t theirs is in for an ISP that connects directly to Openreach. The business pretty much runs itself.
So big wall of text to say that if you can’t figure out the cost of something in a 2 year period then do not allow 2 year contracts
Didn’t really discuss that at all, just addressed the multiple posts on fibre opex with, well, facts.
You’re right though. How that would happen I have no idea. It would make the business model many follow very difficult, see install charges becoming a thing again and new customer prices changing regularly.
My argument was not addressed, the cost of opex is almost insignificant in regards to the capex. It is also nowhere near the opex for any other utility such as water or electricity
Your argument was irrelevant given this article and discussion is about a retailer’s pricing. Nothing to do with Openreach or any other wholesaler’s pricing at all.
Of course it’s cheaper to run a network than build it: makes no odds when you rent access to that network.
The opex of getting people from that fibre at their home to the Internet is not insignificant. That’s where most of the cost for Sky is. Just concentrating on the cost of laying and lighting fibre is crazy when you’re talking about an ISP.
Openreach is literally reducing their cost so your argument is totally moot
Most of Sky’s customers are on FTTC not P so Equinox discounts irrelevant, most FTTC prices are going up.
Even ignoring that way more to supplying Internet service than the connection between the customer and the OLT.
Great that the price for that part is lower for a, shame about basically everything else in the chain going up and more than offsetting the Equinox saving.
Yes Sam, it was easy to predict russia invading ukraine. It is easy to predict a new Government losing the country £1bn in 45 days.
Sky should have done better instead of reacting to market forces!!
Ah the leftist propaganda that announcing a tax cut somehow lost money and company can’t be blamed for a completely unrelated event so has a free pass to pull whatever greedy BS
So Openreach REDUCING wholesale costs to ISP’s, yet they ramp up the cost to customer?
hmm, another company with questionable milking practices in my opinion.
Not everyone has access to FTTP which is discounted via Equinox…
With those TV price increases they are killing themselves off.
People just change to monthly contracts with a streamer where they can and go without for other things.
Is 2023 and Sky still want an HD premium when its cheaper for them to get rid of SD services anyway.
Just a RIP off. Lets hope people realise and vote with their wallets.
Or maybe, just maybe it’s a ploy to reduce costs by trying to FORCE people off Sat TV? After all Glass/Stream is 30 day contracts and neither are getting price rises.
So think about that..
nah, was right first time. RIP OFF…
At the start of lockdown I finally realized after 15+ years that I really don’t need Sky as I rarely use it in preference to other streaming services.
Informed my adult sons, who love EPL and F1, that if they want Sky, they can pay for it!
Well they really should be moving out if they are adults..
For anyone interested, in the ‘future bills’ section of their website they’ve updated them with the new prices.