Sky Ireland launches fibre broadband

Sky Ireland will introduce a fibre broadband product in January, almost two years after it first began offering DSL broadband in the Irish market.

Sky said the fibre product, which offers speeds of up to 100mb per second compared to up to 24mb on the DSL service, would be available in a million homes from next year.

There will be a six-month introductory offer in which customers will pay only line rental of €30, while the cost of a triple play unlimited fibre broadband, home phone and television package will start from €59 a month during the offer period. Triple play prices that include Sky Fibre Unlimited will begin from €79 thereafter.

Price change

The cost of Sky’s basic television packages will also increase by about one euro per month from next February. The company has begun writing to existing customers to inform them of the price change. Sky’s fibre product uses Eircom’s fibre-to-the-cabinet eFibre network, while its DSL service is delivered via its wholesale partnership with BT Ireland.

Sky Ireland has not revealed how many subscribers it has attracted to the DSL product to date but says it is the fastest-growing internet service provider in Ireland.

High demand

Sky Ireland managing director JD Buckley said the Sky fibre product was “an important part of Sky’s continued commitment to invest in Ireland”, while Sky Ireland’s new director of products, Ann-Marie MacKay, said the company anticipated that “demand will be very high from the outset”.

Competition in the broadband market is expected to increase in the coming years. The Eircom eFibre network being used by Sky will eventually be available to 1.6 million homes by the end of 2015. Eircom is separately developing a higher-end fibre service with speeds of up to 1,000mb per second.