BSkyB buys O2/BE Broadband and Fixed Line Business
wavejockglw
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British Sky Broadcasting is buying the UK broadband and fixed line businesses of Spain's Telefonica.
It will give Sky half a million customers who use the O2 and BE brands for their home phone or broadband.
It will pay an initial £180m to Telefonica, with up to another £20m being paid once the customers have been switched to Sky.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21627614
It will give Sky half a million customers who use the O2 and BE brands for their home phone or broadband.
It will pay an initial £180m to Telefonica, with up to another £20m being paid once the customers have been switched to Sky.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21627614
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Comments
Wonder if O2 are instead going to be pushing 4G technologies as a wireless home broadband product?
You really think so? There are over 200 ISP's in the UK at present. Fair enough there is now limited choice on a mass market scale but not over-all.
ISP's yes - but how many of them put equipment into cabinets.
Most of the ISP's are merely resellers of the services offered by the main ones.
If you want combined Phone and Broadband including line rental there is very few choices already
It's 39.1% of the declared dividends, a lot less than 39.1% of revenue!!
Possibly in rural areas where 800MHz can cover well but they don't have any 2600MHz which is suited to urban areas. They could buy some 2600MHz coverage from BT who won some in the auction or refarm 1800MHz, 900MHz or 2100MHz also.
I think it'll be a long while yet before any wireless operator can compete with fixed line for home broadband provision.
What will this takeover mean to me ? - will my package be forcibly changed now that a bigger power is in control ?
And I'm surprised I didn't know anything about this at all :mad:
That would depend on whether any changes were made to your contract. If they changed anything that left you in any way worse off than you are now (e.g, price increase or reduced service), then you could cancel.
Of course if you are not in a contract, then you can leave any time you wish.
It's a good strategic move for Sky and not something they could probably have done so easily if they had moved into the mobile market themselves.
I suspect TalkTalk's previous record of customer service would have encouraged a sale to Sky in preference to TalkTalk, everything else being equal. And Virgin doesn't seem to be interested in its Virgin National ADSL service, it seems to be parked in the "too difficult" pile.
Will I be forced to take on Sky's bundles (i.e. BB with Sky TV or telephone line) ? - or is it possible to have what I've got now which is just BB with 02 ?
I've looked on their website and I can't find any BB package just on it's own.
Wait and see, if there's enough people in your situation that Sky think would go elsewhere then they would probably be flexible so as not to lose their new customers. Personally, I don't get why people would want separate phone and broadband contracts. That was relevant when ISPs were separate from telephony companies but is no longer so. Life's complicated enough and with the ability to pay in advance for landline rental there's no real savings now.
I'm not sure they can force you, though no doubt they will start pestering you soon with one or more "amazing" offers. :rolleyes:
EE Broadband and Anytime Calls
Free wireless router (worth £95), unlimited anytime calls + free connection. Exclusive deal for Orange & T-mobile mobile customers. (£5+£14 for 6 months then £10+£14)
And unlimited downloads.
statement from sky:
would suggest not. fully unbundled is phone and broadband.
how quickly this will happen is debatable. i am also in the same situation and have no wish to have a sky phone line.
(Virgin Cable ends next door, they won't extend it - no FTTC either - that tends to be found in streets with VM in
I really hope not. I have the same package with 14 fixed ip. I do pay a lot for it but it does exactly what I want. The fact they use AnnexM and their support is excellent. You speak to a technical person who actually knows what they are talking about!! For example, they can change the upload speed on the fly as you are talking to them. You won't get that from $ky.
In my mind, they are, no, were the only ISP who can provide such a service to the more technically minded consumers.
I can only hope $ky wont mess about with the infrastructure that BE provides.
Prior to this I was with AOL and the switch over to Talk Talk was the worst experience ever! Lost connection completely!
Changing to O2 was the best thing I ever did, flawless good connection. Not read many good reports on Sky BB?
Does that mean we will have to alter all router settings etc and are we likely to get the same speeds?
Suppose it was good whilst it lasted or until it lasts :mad: