Posted: 29th May, 2009 By: MarkJ
UK ISP Sky Broadband (BSkyB) has, for the past six months, been hinting in its quarterly financial results about plans to migrate its shared unbundled/BT platform onto a more cost effective fully unbundled service. This would give Sky full control over its telephone line and broadband services.
Now DigitalSpy has quoted from a new letter being issued to customers that explains precisely what will be happening, although as a new Sky subscriber myself I'm still waiting to receive a full copy of this newsletter:
"We have built a new state-of-the art network which uses Local Loop Unbundling (LLU) to give us end-to-end control of your broadband and phone service, instead of 'renting' the connection from another provider," explained Sky in a notification about the changes sent to customers.
"We're using the latest technology to offer you a great experience and to offer you new features in the future, such as managing your voicemail through Sky.com. Carrying voice and internet signals over our own network also means we can offer unbeatable value for money.
You don't have to do a thing - we're transferring Sky Talk and Sky Broadband customers to our new network automatically, with minimal disruption to your connection. Your account details, including your home phone number, email address and username will all stay the same. Your Sky TV service will not be affected."
It's understood that new customers who choose to take both Sky's line rental and broadband services will be placed on their fully unbundled network. Meanwhile existing users wishing to transfer will be given the option to do so before the end of this year.
Typically not all of Sky's broadband subscribers have taken their line rental package, preferring to remain with BT - often due to a contractual obligation, and may have only chosen to adopt the free calls service instead.
We suspect that adoption of a fully unbundled platform will not be perceived as good news by everybody. It's easier to migrate away when your line rental is still with BT, but at least Sky are giving users a choice.. unlike some.