UK ISP Sky Broadband Confirms Annual UK Price Increases
Customers of Sky UK’s (Sky Broadband, Comcast etc.) internet, phone and Pay TV products have today been told to brace for an average annual price hike of 6.7% (down from 8.1% last year), which is planned to be introduced from 1st April 2024. But this is mercifully lower than the rises of almost 8% (here) being introduced by their main competitors.
In case anybody has forgotten, Sky has traditionally shunned the inflationary (CPI/RPI) linked price hike policies of their rivals, which in recent years has resulted in their annual rises being a fair bit milder. Admittedly there’s rarely such a thing as a welcome price rise, but in Sky’s case it could certainly have been worse, even if this year’s rise is much closer to that of their rivals than last year’s.
The fact that the latest annual increase is above the current level of CPI inflation (4%) also means that customers will be able to exit their contracts penalty free. So once notified, you’ll have 30 days to make a decision about that.
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In addition, Sky has once again moved to protect their most vulnerable users by “freezing the price of our broadband and mobile social tariff again this year.”
Devesh Raj, Sky’s Chief Operating Officer, said:
“It’s never welcome news that the cost of products and services are increasing, especially at a time when many households continue to face tightened budgets. As we announce some changes to our prices today, I want to be transparent about why these increases are needed and what they mean.
We’re always listening to our customers, so we know that delivering the best Sky experience, whether that’s the technology we create, the content we deliver, or the customer service we provide, is what matters most to them.
To continue to do this, from April 1, most of our TV and broadband customers will see a monthly increase to the cost of their package, with the average increase across our products being 6.7%. We have worked hard to keep our prices as low as possible.”
However, 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.
Consumer who are hit by mid-contract hikes like this 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).
Finally, it’s worth noting that Ofcom’s recent move to ban inflation linked price hikes (here) – due to be enforced from later this year (not soon enough to change the latest rises) – may also impact Sky’s future approach. The move won’t stop mid-contract hikes completely, but it will require providers to tell customers precisely what any such hikes will be when they sign up (in pounds and pence), which rules out changes linked to unknown future inflation values or percentages.
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We have asked Sky if they can provide further details on how today’s price increases will affect their various products and services, which we’ll paste below once it arrives.
UPDATE 4:03pm
Sky has declined to provide a more detailed table of this year’s price changes. But they did note that for Pay As You Talk customers and non-inclusive calls on other packages (including calls that go over 1 hour), calls to UK landlines, UK mobiles and 03 numbers will increase by 2p to 27p per minute.
Elsewhere, Sky Mobile announced a price increase last month, with customers seeing an average 3% increase to their monthly bill, which is lower than inflation.
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Finally, Sky added that they’ve invested to grow their broadband network capacity by 24% since 2022, with customers using 21% more broadband than the year before.
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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A “mild” annual price increase is 6.7% – well over the rate of inflation – while a severe one is 7.9% ?
Absolutely. Inflation is high, and this is higher than inflation.
The silver lining is folks have the chance to cancel. But whatever happened to an advertised cost and contract length meaning something?
An increase 60% higher than inflation is hard to justify.
Never mind, Rishi I has halved inflation so things can only get better, can’t they ?
Why “UK ISP” in the headline? This whole site is about UK ISPs and Sky Broadband is one of the most well-known.
Sky offer a basket of best-in-class digital services across Europe now. Sometimes this site reports about stuff happening in Germany for example.
@ Mark: Sky Mobile prices are changing by £1 from 14th February, if you are outside the minimum term.
@Mark: Just to be clear, if you are on Sky Mobiles lowest tariff, which I believe is £7, then an increase of £1 outside the minimum period, turns out to be a whopping 14.3% hike. Sky are well known for this, giving a discount and a few months later taking it away again with a price rise, off course higher than your original promised discount.
My Sky Stream contact ends on 4/4/24………….I’ll have to see what deals they’ll offer.
Mid contract rises should be banned (not just on broadband but all services) altogether. What you pay at start should be same all way through during contract period.
I agree and if this was the case you would see a lot of these companies offering shorter lengths contracts.
They offer these long contracts on purpose they know full well they are going to be making money every year with these made up increases.
It used to be you went with long contracts because it benefited the customer lets say you received a phone which cost multi hundred but now you end up paying over retail price for that anyway no point having long contracts.
Sky have always been super greedy anyway people need to wise up and stop accepting it
In theory as the Fibre Rollout completes costs should fall significantly. I doubt the cost savings will be passed on though. The old copper network is shut down. much of the copper can be recovered and sold and most of the BY exchanges are shut down and the sites sold off
thats many years away yet but yes in theory thats what should be happening. a previous article said maybe 1 billion in copper sales, when its recovered!
I think the article is overly kind on Sky here.
The below is from thinkbroadband
‘
One headline is that the average price rise is said to 6.7% and is lower than the rise at BT and others. We won’t know the size of the price rise at Virgin Media until 14th February.
The bad news is that the price rise varies according to the product, with some having a much higher rise than others.
Sky Broadband superfast price will increase by £3.50 a month, i.e. 13.4% current offer £26/m
Sky Full Fibre 100 price will increase by £1 a month, i.e. 3.5% current offer £28.50/m
Sky Broadband Ultrafast price will increase by £3 a month, i.e. 10.3% current offer £29/m
Sky Broadband Ultrafast+ price will increase by £4 a month, i.e. 11.4% current offer £35/m
Sky Broadband Gigabit price will increase by £4 a month, i.e. 8.3% current offer £48/m
It is difficult to see where Ispreview are getting ‘mild’ price rises from when most of the Sky broadband rises far exceed the CPI+3.9% benchmark
When are the notifications meant to complete going out? My parents have received theirs, I can see future bills on my sky showing the price rise but no email yet.
I can get 1Gbps symmetrical here for £25 a month now so clearly want out