TV and broadband player Sky will go live with a new Sky Fibre service in Ireland in January, offering speeds of up to 100Mbps with unlimited downloads and triple play TV and phone services.
Sky said that from January it will offer the service for free (except for €30 line rental) for the first six months after which it will charge €50 per month for Sky Fibre Unlimited broadband and €79 per month for a triple play service involving TV, voice calls and fibre broadband.
Another package with a 25GB usage limit will cost €40 per month and €69 with triple play.
The Sky Fibre service is being offered as part of a wholesale product from Eircom that Sky is accessing through a partnership with BT.
In September Eircom achieved its target of passing 1m homes across Ireland with fibre broadband as part of its €1.5bn investment programme that will see fibre become available to 1.6m homes by 2016.
Sky Ireland’s director of Products Ann-Marie MacKay explained that a key aspect of the service will be the impact the higher speeds will have on the Sky viewing experience.
As well as wirelessly supporting multiple devices in the home services like On Demand, Catch Up TV and Sky Store will be instantaneous.
“Whether you’re watching something on Sky’s Catch Up TV service in the living room, while the kids are browsing the internet or streaming music on their tablets or smartphones, Sky Fibre offers enough capacity for the whole household and we won’t manage traffic or slow you down,” MacKay said.
“It’s the perfect complement to Sky TV which offers thousands of hours of On Demand content including movies and box sets, as well as the Sky Go streaming app and Sky+ app.
“With tablet and smartphone penetration continuing to grow apace in Ireland, the need to access content instantly on demand is greater than ever. With Sky Fibre customers can start watching an episode of their favourite TV show or a movie within seconds without worrying about download limits.”
Sky is powering the digital home
MacKay said the fibre broadband service will come with a new wireless router that includes new Wireless N technology.
“It will provide a superior wireless reach in the home with optimum signals.”
MacKay said that more than one-third of Sky’s customer base in Ireland have connected their Sky+ box to their Wi-Fi routers.
As a result Sky is recording more than 280,000 Catch-up downloads per week as well as 300,000 downloads a week from TV box sets.
MacKay also pointed out that more than 85,000 movies per week are being downloaded by Irish consumers via Sky, equaling more than 1m movies per quarter.
Fibre entertainment image via Shutterstock
