Sky contemplating triple play

SKY TV, which offers satellite TV in the UK, is seriously contemplating offering a triple play to its customerbase. It wants to add broadband Internet access to the TV and voice services it already offers.

Rumours are circulating that Sky is hurting for several different reasons. The cost of a receiver for the Freeview digital TV service has dropped to as low as £30 and a source close to one of Freeview's suppliers claimed the installed base for Freeview will soon overtake Sky.

On top of this, Sky is facing fierce competition from rivals such as HomeChoice. The latter is offering broadband Internet access, digital TV, movies-on-demand and low cost telephony for as little as £13.75 per month (for the first three months).

Against this, Sky TV can only offer Sky Talk which enables its subscribers to get lower cost calls over a standard BT line. Sky therefore needs to offer broadband to retain its customers. The question is … how?

Its arch enemies are the cable companies so doing a deal with one of them just to be able to offer broadband doesn't make any sense. However, Chase Carey, CEO with DirectTV in the USA has given us a clue.

DirectTV, like Sky TV, is part of the News Corporation. Chase has declared that DirectTV is "actively engaged" in finding ways to offer wireless broadband. Now there's an idea. Rather than worry about cables, why not simply offer Sky customers Internet access via a wireless connexion?

Presently the options open to Sky TV aren't that great. One of the few wireless broadband suppliers is Metranet - which operates the first commercial WiMAX network in the UK in Brighton.

Metranet operates at the higher 5.7 to 5.8 GHz frequency - for which you can obtain a licence relatively cheaply. However, Intel's recently demonstrated a WiMAX network operating at 3.8 GHz - spectrum which is licensed to PCCW in the UK.

The WiMAX gear used by Intel is already commercially available from Alvarion. So Sky could either build its own network or do some sort of deal with PCCW. It's an interesting scenario. µ