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Sky is a household name as a premium TV provider thanks to its ubiquitous satellite TV dishes. Sky Broadband and Mobile are two other areas where the entertainment and telecoms group has been gaining a lot of ground and customers across the UK. Let's take a look at everything Sky deals with in terms of services for UK homes.

Sky Homepage

Sky offers a wide range of products and from the homepage you can dive into Sky TV, Sky Q, Broadband and Mobile deals with ease. In the sections below, you will find a short summary of what Sky have to offer across its deals. Additionally, there are dedicated pages that go further in-depth regarding specific Sky deals and services - all linked below.

Sky TV

Sky TV needs very little introduction. Whether you like it or not, it's a household name for premium TV vontent - Sky Sports, Sky Cinema, Sky Atlantic. Want to know how to get them? Let us fill you in.

In their words, Sky TV starts with Sky Entertainment. This is its base package, coming with over 300 channels including Sky Atlantic, Sky One and Comedy Central to name a few. From here you can customise your deal according to your preference. Here’s a list of add-ons Sky offers - some of them will be familiar to you:

  • Ultimate On Demand (500 Sky box sets + Netflix (in HD))
  • Sky Cinema (over 1,000 movies on demand in HD + a new premier every day)
  • Sky Sports (7 dedicated channels including Premier League, F1, Cricket and Golf)
  • Kids (11 channels, 5,000 episodes of kids’ shows on demand + Sky Kids app)
  • HD
  • Sky Q experience (watch everything from your main box on TVs and tablets around your home)

For full details of Sky TV deals+, go to our dedicated page and find out everything there is to know. You can also find details about the Sky Q box and the My Sky and Sky Go apps.

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Sky TV Packages

As we’ve mentioned, Sky TV packages are pretty flexible. Starting with the Entertainment package, which will set you back £26 per month, you can add all the extras you want - but it will cost you. Here’s what all of Sky’s TV add-ons will set you back individually:

Sky TV Package Breakdown
HD +£7/month
Ultra HD + HD +£11/month
Sky Cinema +£11/month
Sky Sports +£20/month
BT Sport +£27/month
Kids +£5/month
Multiscreen +£15/month

Yes, adding each of these will add the corresponding amount to your bill. Adding up all of them (we’ve tallied it up) will bring your TV bill up to an eye watering £108 per month. In fact, given the structure of their bundles, it won't quite come to this. If you want all of Sky’s great content, however, you’ll need to pay top dollar. This said, you may only want one or two of these add-ons - Sky TV and Kids, for example, which would come to a more reasonable £31 per month.

For the full picture of what you get for your money, see our dedicated Sky TV channels page. If what you’re looking for is Sky TV for your business, you can get in touch with a sales agent at the following number: 03337 594 740

Sky Bundles

Sky has three bundles to choose from, but customers largely have a lot of freedom to make their own deals, especially around a TV package. Here are your options:

  1. All-Together Bundle
  2. TV and Superfast Broadband Offer
  3. Home Cinema Bundle

All Together Bundle

The All-Together Bundle offers customers discounted prices if they sign up to an 18-month contract with certain TV packages. Here are the packages you need to sign up to and how much they would cost each within the bundle:

  1. Sky TV + Netflix - £26/month
  2. Sky TV + Sky Sports - £41/month
  3. Sky TV + Netflix + Cinema - £37/month
  4. Sky TV + Sky Sports + BT Sport - £65/month
  5. Sky TV + Kids - £31/month

Taken together the bundle offers a significant saving, and if these deals appeal to you we’d say it’s a good offer. Remember that you have to keep all four packs for 18 months to continue receiving the discount - if not you’ll end up paying the standard price. Take a look at Sky’s website for full terms and conditions.

Home Cinema Bundle

If all you really care for from Sky is films, you can ditch the Complete Sports Pack and just get yourself the Home Cinema Bundle. Here’s what you get with that deal and how much you’d pay for each pack:

  1. Sky Entertainment - £26/month
  2. HD pack - £7/month
  3. Sky Cinema - £11/month

You’ll notice that Sky has sneakily upped the price of Sky Cinema by more than double compared to how much you pay for it in the All-Together Bundle. This doesn’t seem particularly fair to us, but it does still come in quite a bit cheaper than if you put these packages together at the standard price - beggars can’t be choosers!

Sky Broadband

Sky Broadband differs from most major internet service providers in only advertising three broadband speeds. So with Sky Broadband, you can either get basic broadband, superfast or ultrafast fibre broadband. Let’s take a look at them:

Sky Broadband Options
Sky Q & Superfast Broadband Ultimate TV & Superfast Broadband Ultimate TV & Ultrafast Broadband
59 Mbps downloads 59 Mbps downloads 145 Mbps downloads
16 Mbps uploads 16 Mbps uploads 60 Mbps uploads
Includes 250 free-to-air channels Includes 250 free-to-air channels, 100 extra channels, and Netflix Includes 250 free-to-air channels, 100 extra channels, and Netflix

With either of these deals, you can also add Sky Broadband Boost - an add-on which guarantees you a few handy extras:

  1. Flexible engineer visits
  2. Daily line checks
  3. Sky Broadband Buddy app

For more information on Sky broadband take a look at our dedicated page, where we go into more detail about speeds, upgrades, etc. If you’re thinking of switching and you’re currently with BT, TalkTalk, EE, Vodafone or Plusnet, Sky will contact your provider for you to make the switch. If you’re with Virgin Media, however, you’ll need to get in touch with them yourself.

Sky TV and Superfast Broadband Offer

This offer speaks for itself. With it, you get basic Sky TV (the Entertainment package) and Superfast broadband. It’s currently on offer for £39/month on an 18-month contract, though Sky admits that the price may change during your contract - this throws up a red flag for us. You will also be charged a setup fee of £40. If you want to add any TV packages on top of Sky Entertainment, normal add-on prices will apply.

Sky Broadband packages

With Sky’s three broadband packages you get unlimited downloads, line rental, Sky Pay as you Talk and the Sky Hub for your money. Despite being poles apart in terms of speed, there’s not a lot of difference in what you pay. Here’s what each would set you back:

Sky Broadband Package Pricing
Sky Q & Superfast Broadband Ultimate TV & Superfast Broadband Ultimate TV & Ultrafast Broadband
£31/month for 18 months £43/month for 18 months £50/month for 18 months
£49 setup fee £49 setup fee £49 setup fee

If you ask us, for the sake of £8 it’s worth going for Ultimate TV if you want access to the extra 100 channels not available on freeview. What you do need to take into consideration, however, is that when your 18-month contract ends your broadband bill will go up. This often takes customers by surprise and is important to know when you enter into your deal. For more information on Sky’s broadband packages, go to our Sky broadband page.

Sky Home Phone

When you sign up for Sky broadband, whether you like it or not, your deal comes with line rental and Sky Pay as you Talk as standard. This, as its name suggests, will cost you nothing unless you make a call. If you want to get yourself a calls package, here are your options:

  1. Sky Talk Evenings and Weekends Extra (evenings are defined as 7pm-7am)
  2. Sky Talk Anytime Extra
  3. Sky Talk International Extra

The names of these deals pretty much speak for themselves. It’s important to note that inclusive calls on all deals means calls to 01, 02 and 03 numbers, and can only last up to an hour - if you need to be on for longer you’ll need to hang up and redial! To see their full terms and conditions, including the countries included in the international package, head over to the Sky website (in the section titled “the legal bit”).

Sky home phone basic calls package comes as standard when you subscribe to Sky broadband. Sky Pay as you Talk will add nothing to your monthly bill, but should you make a call here’s what you can expect in terms of charges:

Sky Pay as you Talk tariffs

If you do want to add a Sky calls package to your deal, here’s what they would set you back:

Sky Home Phone Call Options
Sky Talk Evenings and Weekends Extra £5/month
Sky Talk Anytime Extra £10/month
Sky Talk International Extra £12/month

It’s important to remember what we said about calls only being inclusive up to an hour - this is true of all calls on all packages, so be sure to hang up and redial if you’re about to hit the hour mark! Calls to UK landlines will cost you the standard rate of 15.5p per minute after this, and calls to mobiles will be 19.35p per minute during the day and 18p per minute in the evening.

Contact Sky

There are several ways to contact Sky depending on what your reason for contacting them is. Let us start with info for new customers and then we’ll get to what options there are for existing subscribers. New customers can give calling 0800 151 2747 a try to reach Sky Customer Support.

Help for Sky Customers

If you’re already a Sky customer, there are several ways to get in touch with them. We’ve outlined all these methods in our Sky contact page, so head there for the full details, but here are some important support features you should be aware of first:

My Sky Support

For any issues you’re experiencing with your Sky TV, broadband or your My Sky account, Sky has a help centre with all sorts of useful guides and info to help you through without going to the hassle of calling them up, waiting around and explaining things to an agent. In the help centre, you’ll find guides to help you with everything from on-screen messages that pop up when you’re watching TV, a loss of internet connection, to dealing with nuisance calls. You may not need to go to the trouble of calling after all!

Sky Customers Moving Home

Sky has a specific guide to help customers who are moving home and want to take Sky with them to their new place. Here you’ll find everything you need to know to make the process as easy as possible.

Sky Reviews

Sky generally receives abysmal ratings from the vast majority of reviewers on the review site Trustpilot. Of 3,857 ratings, 79% gave Sky the worst possible score of 1 star. A theme common to much of these reviews is that if they could score them worse they would - ouch!

Oddly, despite performing reasonably well in the latest Ofcom study into service quality for speeds and reliability, it’s precisely these factors that reviewers point to as most disappointing. Several reviewers refer to slow speeds or regular drops in connection - one reviewer described his service as “horrendous,” and another states that “regular browsing is a pain” and “a video of 20 mins changes into 2h watching.”

All reviewers agree on the issue of pricing: Sky is expensive, they say, having a reputation for taking advantage and ramping up costs whenever it can. As one reviewer put it: “all that for £33!!! What the hell Sky?!

Sky Pros and cons

  • Broadband prices compare well with the market average.
  • TV deals offer flexibility.
  • Broadband service is often criticised.
  • Price rises (subtly admitted on their website) cited as being common.
  • TV packages can be very expensive depending on your chosen combination of packages.

How expensive is Sky?

Sky is a tricky one to compare with the average, given that it has no middle-of-the-road package and we usually compare with a provider’s middle-range speeds. So let’s see how its fastest package compares with the average 35 Mbps broadband deal:

As you can see, Sky Superfast, as well as being significantly faster than the average 35 Mbps deal, is a full £4 a month cheaper. On the face of it, it offers exceptional value. With Sky you could be getting superfast speeds for the price of good value medium speed deal.

And if we compare the price of Sky Superfast against the market average for speeds close to its own (around 60 Mbps), the difference is obviously even more marked:

Here you’d save £13 a month, so if you were going to get a superfast fibre deal anyway we’d say it’s definitely worth your while. The problem with Sky, however, comes when you begin to add TV to your deal, as we’ve seen earlier. If it’s just broadband you’re after, however, we may have found a winner!

About Sky

Initially a simple satellite TV provider, Sky made the transition to digital and was an early pioneer of several of the televisual features we now take for granted. It broadened its focus in the mid-2000s with the launch of (link coming soon)Sky Broadband and later Sky Talk, and as early as 2012 it was pioneering superfast broadband - offering speeds of up to 58 Mbps.

In 2010, Sky reached 10 million customers, and it has continued to grow its customer base. In the last decade, it has expanded into several European countries while also continuing to launch new projects - premiering its first original television programme in 2015, and since then launching Sky Q, Sky VR, and Sky Mobile.

Let’s take a closer look at the company’s history up to the present day.

Sky History

Sky launched in 1989 as the UK’s first satellite television service. Retrospectively terming itself in those early years as a West London startup, its modest offer of four TV channels included Sky News - Europe’s first 24-hour news channel. In the years that followed, Sky Sports was introduced, and later Sky Digital added over 140 live channels to their offer.

Moving into the new millennium, Sky focused not only on widening its selection of channels but on improving its customers’ experience. In 2001 the provider revolutionised the industry with the introduction of Sky+, which for the first time allowed subscribers to record, pause and rewind live TV as they liked. It was also an early proponent of streaming, with the addition of Sky Mobile TV in 2005, and of HD, with Sky+ HD being rolled out in 2006.

In the same period, Sky broadened its focus from TV to broadband and calls with the launch of Sky Broadband and Sky Talk in 2006 and 2007 respectively. Having reached its target of 10 million customers by 2010, Sky went on to expand its TV offer, launch its TV anywhere service Sky Go and the streaming service NOW TV, launch Sky Fibre broadband, expand into Europe and start developing its own TV shows - all in the space of five years! It has since then even gone on to launch Sky VR - a virtual reality app released in 2016.

Sky has a history of keeping itself at the forefront of the technology behind the entertainment industry, and we see it maintaining its position as a market leader in the UK. Here’s a summary of the company’s most important landmarks to date:

Sky Timeline

  • 1989 - Launched as UK's first satellite TV service.
  • 1991 - Sky Sports starts broadcasting.
  • 1998 - Sky Digital is launched.
  • 2001 - Sky+ introduced, allowing customers to record, pause and rewind live TV.
  • 2005 - Sky Mobile TV, its first streaming service, is launched.
  • 2006 - Sky+ HD introduces the first 10 HD channels to the market; Sky Broadband launched.
  • 2007 - Sky Talk launched.
  • 2009 - Introduction of the Sky+ app..
  • 2011 - Launch of Sky Go, letting customers watch live and on-demand TV from their mobile devices.
  • 2012 - Sky Store introduced, offering pay-per-view films; Sky Fibre launched; NOW TV launched.
  • 2014 - Sky purchase Be Broadband.
  • 2015 - Premier of Sky’s first original programme, Fortitude.
  • 2016 - Sky Q introduced to the UK market; Sky Kids app created; Sky VR launched; Sky Mobile launched.

Present Day Sky

Now, aside from its 13 million UK TV subscribers, Sky also supplies 6 million customers across the UK with broadband services. It is, simply speaking, the UK’s largest TV provider and its second-largest ISP. Outside of the UK, Sky’s customer base is extended, as we’ve mentioned, to 23 million. This expansion into continental Europe has happened over the course of just five years, with the first acquisitions (Sky Italia and Sky Deutschland) taking place in 2014, and their venture into the Spanish and Swiss markets taking place in 2017.

Despite this, it has not ceased to move with the times - last year saw Sky embrace the rise of streaming giants like Netflix and Spotify by adding them to the Sky Q platform. We take this as a strong indication that Sky fears no up-and-comer in today’s market, and it would seem that it has done enough to position itself strongly enough not to worry about becoming obsolete in the coming years.

Sky in the News

  1. Sky Looking At Price Increases
  2. Sky To Boost Broadband Speeds
  3. Sky Driving 5G Network Expansion
  4. Sky Offering Unlimited Calls and Texts for Mobile

Sky buys Be There

Be There, also known as Be Unlimited and BE, was founded in 2004 as an independent Internet service provider. In 2006, it was bought by Spanish telecommunications giant Telefónica, however it continued to trade in the UK under its original Be There name. Under Telefónica ownership, Be There provided one of the fastest broadband services in Britain, with download speeds of 16 Mbps and upload speeds reaching 1.9 Mbps.

In 2013, Be There was bought by Sky, a move that saw the end of the Be There brand. Shortly after purchasing the successful internet provider, Sky rebranded the company to Sky Home Communications Limited and announced it would close the Be There network. As a result, all existing Be There customers were transferred on to a Sky broadband package. During this time, many customers actually chose to end their contracts as they did not want to become Sky customers!

Sky Careers

If you’re interested in a career at Sky, the first place you should head to is careers.sky.com. Sky is currently advertising for positions all over the UK - including a role as Network Design Engineer in London or as a Service Delivery Manager in Leeds. The site’s Life at Sky section can also give you an insight into what working there is like, and there’s a job search function for you to look for a role that suits you.

For those just getting their career off the ground, there’s an Early Careers section with information on work experience and graduate programs, apprenticeships and diversity placements, as well as (paid) summer internships and what Sky calls ‘insight days’ - one-day events to help you decide on what shape you’d like your career with Sky to take.

Read more articles about Sky

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