Comment: The Sky has fallen, or at least the price has.
If you’re a broadband devotee in the UK you’ll have done well to miss the launch of Sky’s new broadband package. But Sky is more than just a Satellite TV, and now Internet provider, as for years they have been providing discounted calls to their subscribers but with a 10% churn rate how can they keep customers and make more money - one possible way is the Sky box offering VoIP.
Currently there’s not much stopping a Sky subscriber from leaving, other than the 6 months half price offer that they routinely offer when you phone to cancel. However, come the day when all of your household communications can be routed via the set top box this could be a different prospect.
If your telephone calls are made through the VoIP service on a set top box, which routes calls through the bradband connection provided by the same set top box, which ends up being the only device plugged into your phone socket, would you really want to leave the provider?
Intertia is currently keeping a large number of banking clients with the big 4 high street banks, despite their high charges and low interest. VoIP News can see a day coming quickly when Sky offer such a tightly integrated package that they too will be able to leverage this inertia to prevent users from leaving to go to other providers.
Wholesale line rental and LLU will provide them with the method for single billing and cheap broadband. VoIP will provide a mechanism to haul calls over a lower cost network than BT’s and it will allow Sky to offer services that BT currently can’t. But most of all it provides them with the low price point that BT can’t match runtil they have a TV offering up and running.
TV, Phone, Broadband with the full speed of ADSL and the full range of Sky’s available programming is an instant winner in the choice stakes and at the right price and with Sky’s usual agressive marketing may be too tempting for many consumers to resist.