Sky marches into fibre broadband pricing war as BT proves most expensive

Multiplay operator Sky has thrown its hat into the superfast fibre broadband ring, throwing down a 76 Mbps challenge to bitter rival BT, as well as Virgin Media and Vodafone.

Sky’s “Fibre Max” bundle will jolt its fibre speeds from 50 Mbps up to 76 Mbps to compete with BT, against whom it continues to lobby in favour of a separation from Openreach. Sky is the only player of the four to also rely on BT’s Openreach infrastructure, while Virgin Media manages its own fibre network, as does Vodafone following its acquisition of Cable & Wireless and recent expansion into consumer broadband.

Sky seems pretty determined, despite its reliance on Openreach, to keep pace with its competitors in the premium fibre broadband market, as illustrated by comments made by Lyssa McGowan, Director of Communication Products at Sky.

“We’ve introduced Sky Fibre Max to give new and existing customers more choice to access our fastest broadband product at a competitive price,” she said. “The new product represents Sky’s continued commitment to develop our broadband and fibre offering with fantastic customer service.”

It looks as though there’s a war emerging between four of the UK’s biggest broadband providers, with Sky, BT, Virgin and Vodafone all offering vastly contrasting deals to entice customers over from rival ISPs.

Telecoms.com did a bit of digging to find out how the total cost of ownership compares for each of the four major providers, and their various offerings. The good news for Sky and its Fibre Max service is that it prices fairly competitively against Vodafone and BT, although introductory offers from Virgin see it sit ahead of the pack at roughly 10% cheaper than Sky and nearly 25% cheaper than BT.

The bad news for BT is that it is, by some distance, the most expensive of the lot, although it will point to the inclusion of “free” basic TV and its sport channels as a reason for the hike in prices compared to its competitors. Since Sky is leasing its fibre line from BT, one has to wonder how it’s been able to come in at such a considerably cheaper price point.