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| Company type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Internet |
| Founded | 2006 |
| Headquarters | London, UK |
Area served | United Kingdom |
| Products | Internet service |
| Services | Internet service provider |
| Parent | Sky UK |
| Website | www |
Sky Broadband is the consumer internet service offered by Sky UK in the United Kingdom.
In October 2005, Sky UK agreed to purchase the ISP Easynet for £211 million. [1] At the time, Easynet were one of two companies in the UK that had made major investments in local-loop unbundling (LLU), providing Sky with access to 232 unbundled telephone exchanges. [2] The purchased company was placed under a new Sky division, Sky Broadband. In October 2007, Sky reached the one million mark in terms of customer numbers, and claim to be adding one new customer every 40 seconds. [3] By September 2009, it had 2.3 million customers. [4] By July 2012 Sky had reached four million customers, and unbundled exchanges covering over 70% of the United Kingdom. [5] By January 2017, Sky said it had 6.1 million customers. [6]
Sky agreed on 1 March 2013 to buy the fixed telephone line and broadband business of Telefónica UK, trading under the O2 and BE brands. The company agreed to pay £180 million initially, followed by a further £20 million after all customers have been transferred to Sky's existing Broadband and telephone business. [7] and customers were transferred during 2014.
Sky Broadband provides customers with download speeds of up to 900 Mbps via the Openreach network. [ citation needed ]
Sky launched Sky Broadband in the Republic of Ireland in February 2013. [8]
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As with all DSL connections, the further the distance from the DSLAM (usually located at the telephone exchange) the customer site is, the slower the line speed will be. Sky uses DLM (dynamic line management) over the first ten days of a new connection to set the line at an acceptable downstream and upstream speed in order for the connection to remain stable. Lines are initially connected at 4 Mbit/s and gradually increased over the ten-day "training period" until the line shows signs of instability, this allows Sky to know what speeds the line can handle whilst remaining stable. [ citation needed ]
In April 2012, Sky Fibre was launched almost two and a half years after British Telecom launched BT Infinity in January 2010. [9]
In April 2014 it was announced they are to roll out 1 gigabit fibre-to-the-premises connections in the city of York in partnership with rival TalkTalk. [10]
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The Sky Wireless Hub is a wireless router distributed to all Sky Broadband customers when they order their Sky Broadband packages.
During 2006, Netgear were the only manufacturer of Sky Broadband routers, which were made in white. From 2008, Netgear and Sagem were the manufacturers of the Sky Broadband routers, made in black and shaped to match the Sky+ HD box. Both routers are also distributed in smaller boxes (The boxes are now the size of the routers) as part of Sky UK’s low carbon scheme in turn reducing postage costs. The Sagem router unlike the Netgear router has added restrictions to features such as the built in inbound firewall settings and outbound and inbound VPN connections. However a firmware upgrade is available upon request, for users wishing to connect to an outbound VPN connection using Sky Broadband, while maintaining restrictions on the inbound firewall and inbound VPN connection.
Towards the end of 2010, D-Link started producing routers for Sky. The D-Link router is the DSL-2640S. [ excessive detail? ]
Sky have created On Demand, which will combine Sky Broadband and Sky+ HD to offer a true on-demand service using the Ethernet socket of the Sky+ HD box and the Sky Broadband router. Sky Customers will be able to connect their Sky router to their Sky+ HD box via an Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi adapter, and stream content directly to their television. Unlike other VOD services, On Demand video will count towards a users data usage. [11]
 | This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (April 2020) |
Now Broadband (stylised as NOW Broadband) is a brand name of contract-free pricing plans that offer broadband internet and telephone service on a budget. It was launched in Summer 2016 as Now TV Combo, [12] and was rebranded in early 2018 as Now Broadband. [13] It is a brand extension of Sky's Now, an over-the-top internet television service which offers multichannel television and video-on-demand content on a budget.
On 21 September 2010, the website of ACS:Law was subjected to a DDoS attack as part of Operation Payback. After the site came back online a 350 MB file was uploaded containing spreadsheets listing more than 8,000 Sky broadband customers accused of making unauthorized downloads of adult films. This raised issues concerning Sky not following Data Protection Act guidelines. [14]
In March 2014 Samuel L. Jackson and the other stars of Captain America: The Winter Soldier appeared in advertisements for the 'Sky Broadband Shield' web blocking product. [15]
In June 2017 Sky launched a free nuisance call blocking service as an optional extra for their landline customers. [16] The service screens calls automatically before the phone rings, preventing robot callers. Customers are played a recording of the caller's name and given the option to either accept the call, reject it or send to voicemail.
As was common for Sky Broadband marketing campaigns during the 2010s, the launch was promoted with an advert featuring a tie in with a film franchise, in this case, Despicable Me 3. [17]
Local loop unbundling is the regulatory process of allowing multiple telecommunications operators to use connections from the telephone exchange to the customer's premises. The physical wire connection between the local exchange and the customer is known as a "local loop", and is owned by the incumbent local exchange carrier. To increase competition, other providers are granted unbundled access.
Sky UK Limited, doing business as Sky is a British broadcaster and telecommunications company that provides television, internet, fixed line and mobile telephone services to consumers and businesses in the United Kingdom. It is a subsidiary of Sky Group and, from 2018 onwards, part of Comcast. It is the UK's largest pay-TV broadcaster, with 12.7 million customers as of the end of 2019 for its digital satellite TV platform. Sky's flagship products are Sky Q and the internet-based Sky Glass, and its flagship channels are Sky Showcase, Sky Max, and Sky Atlantic.
Analogue television in the United Kingdom includes terrestrial, satellite and cable services that were broadcast using analogue television signals. Following the termination of Virgin Media's analogue cable television service in Milton Keynes in November 2013, all television in the United Kingdom is broadcast in digital only.
Be Unlimited was an Internet service provider in the United Kingdom between 2004 and 2014. Initially founded as an independent company by Boris Ivanovic and Dana Tobak in 2005, it was bought by Spanish group Telefónica Europe in 2006 before being sold on to BSkyB in March 2013 in an agreement which saw BSkyB buy the fixed telephone line and broadband business of Telefónica Europe which at the time traded under the O2 and BE brands. The deal saw BSkyB agree to pay £180 million initially, followed by a further £20 million after all customers had been transferred to Sky's existing business. The sale was subject to regulatory approval in April 2013, and was subsequently approved by the Office of Fair Trading on 16 May 2013.
Now is a subscription over-the-top streaming television service operated by British satellite television provider Sky Group and American cable provider Xfinity. Launched in the United Kingdom in 2012, the service is also available in Ireland, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and the United States.
Virgin Media is a telecommunications company from Britain, founded in 2007, which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica.
Sky+ HD was the brand name of the HDTV service launched by Sky plc on 22 May 2006 in the United Kingdom and Ireland to enable high definition channels on Sky to be viewed. For the first two years after launch, the service was branded Sky HD. The service requires the user to have a Sky+ HD Digibox and an HD ready TV. A subscription to the original HD pack carries an extra fee of £10.25 a month in addition to the standard Sky subscription, allowing customers to view HD channels corresponding to the channel packs subscribed to. Additional Pay-Per-View events on Sky Box Office HD are not available to customers unless they subscribe to the Sky HD pack.
Easynet was a managed services provider and delivered integrated networks, hosting and unified communications services to organisations globally. The company was later renamed Easynet Global Services, and a sister company, Easynet Connect, was founded in 2008 which focused on providing internet access connectivity to small-to-medium size companies in the UK.
UK Online was a consumer Internet service provider that operated within the UK, and began as a dial-up provider in 1994. Network provider Easynet acquired the company in 1996, and were in turn acquired by BSkyB in 2005. The service was closed down in January 2011.
EE TV is a subscription IPTV service offered by EE; a brand of British telecommunications company BT Group. It requires the signing up to and use of the EE Broadband internet and phone service, with connection via EE's official router, the EE Smart Hub.
TalkTalk TV is a UK-based consumer television and video on demand service, operated by the TalkTalk Group. It originally launched in 2000. In September 2012, the current TalkTalk TV was launched in partnership with YouView. Its television and video on demand service is delivered over a BT phone line, using ADSL or VDSL. It provides IPTV, video on demand, telephony and broadband internet access.
The BT Smart Hub is a family of wireless residential gateway router modems distributed by BT for use with their own products and services and those of wholesale resellers but not with other Internet services. Since v 5 Home/Smart Hubs support the faster Wi-Fi 802.11ac standard, in addition to the 802.11b/g/n standards. All models of the Home Hub prior to Home Hub 3 support VoIP Internet telephony via BT's Broadband Talk service, and are compatible with DECT telephone handsets. Since the Home Hub 4, all models have been dual band.
Virgin TV is a digital pay cable television service in the United Kingdom, owned by Liberty Global (50%) and Telefónica (50%) after the merger its UK businesses to form Virgin Media O2. Its origins date from NTL and Telewest, formerly two of the UK's largest cable operators, which merged on 6 March 2006. All NTL:Telewest services were rebranded as Virgin Media in February 2007. Since the acquisition of Smallworld Cable in 2014, Virgin is the sole national cable TV provider in Great Britain. Currently about 51% of UK households have access to Virgin's network, which is independent from BT's Openreach network.
On Demand was the brand name of a range of video on demand services from Sky UK designed to compete with rival companies such as Virgin TV or EE TV as well as internet television services such as Amazon Prime Video and Netflix.
Sky Ireland Limited is a subsidiary of Comcast-owned Sky UK and supplies television, internet and telephony services in Ireland.
The United Kingdom has been involved with the Internet throughout its origins and development. The telecommunications infrastructure in the United Kingdom provides Internet access to homes and businesses mainly through fibre, cable, mobile and fixed wireless networks, with the UK's 140-year-old copper network, maintained by Openreach, set to be withdrawn by December 2025.
Andrews & Arnold Ltd is an Internet service provider based in Bracknell, England. The company was founded in 1997 and launched in 1998, serving businesses and "technical" home users.
Christopher Peter Townsend is a KPMG Senior Partner and Head of KPMG’s Infrastructure, Government, Defence and Healthcare (IGH) practice. He was previously the Commercial Director of Chelsea F.C. and London Resort. Since 2019, he has been an independent Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, London, where he chairs the gallery's Trading Company. In April 2020, during Phase 1 of the COVID-19 pandemic, he accepted the role of Chief Executive of the government's Shielding Programme on a voluntary basis for 4 months before joining KPMG.
CityFibre is an independent British telecommunications network provider, providing gigabit-capable FTTP broadband across the UK. They are the third-largest network provider in the UK, after Openreach and Virgin Media. It is considered one of the UK's "altnets", in reference to being an alternative to Openreach.
