SamKnows

Sky is reducing the monthly bandwidth allowance on the “mid” product to 10GB from 40GB.

Sky has launched a scathing attack on the BBC and the BBC Trust over the proposed Project Canvas which would see BBC, ITV and BT collaboration on a set top box which would bring online video content to the living room - essentially a Freeview box but with iPlayer-style functionality.
Sky’s response to the BBC Trust

First they were, then they weren’t, then everyone thought they might be again but they weren’t but now, finally, Carphone Warehouse is being reported to have made an informal offer of £275m for Tiscali’s UK assets.
This is believed to be way below the price Tiscali had been seeking – it turned down an offer for

Sky’s prediction it could persuade its television customer base to take up its triple play of satellite television, phone and broadband appear to be vindicated with strong growth figures released today for the nine months up to the end of March.
While the leading star of its financials was undoubtedly Sky+ HD boxes surpassing the 1m

TalkTalk has today announced a £50 incentive scheme to attract Tiscali customers concerned over the ISP’s future.
It would appear to be the final stage of a long battle for ownership of Tiscali’s customers which, earlier this month, saw TalkTalk linked once again with the ailing Italian ISP shortly after its shares had been delisted

Virgin Media is to follow in Sky’s footsteps by using Google’s email services for its broadband customers.
Up to 10 email addresses in the @virginmedia.com format will be available to each customer. Customers using @blueyonder.co.uk, @ntlworld.com or @virgin.net addresses will also be migrating onto the new platform.

The BBC and Sky are, perhaps unsurprisingly, at loggerheads as to how central the BBC should be in delivering the government’s vision for Digital Britain.
Last week Sky asserted the government should reconsider its call, through the interim Digital Britain report, for the BBC to play a role in marketing broadband Britain and helping to set

Sky is urging the government to drop the suggestion the BBC could play an important role in the roll out of high speed broadband, as outlined in Lord Carter’s Digital Britain report.
The Digital Britain report, published at the end of January, only made a couple of passing references to the BBC when it suggested that

TalkTalk is launching an ‘Emergency Plan’ today which gives existing customers six months internet connection and access to their TalkTalk home phone plan for free, leaving them to pay just the line rental each month.
The company claims it has been considering for the past couple of months how it can help customers who are having

Sky unveiled quarterly figures which it suggests makes it the country’s fastest growing broadband provider and warned rivals that it feels there is still much growth yet to come through converting more of its 9.4m satellite television customers to its broadband offering.
The company has maintained fourth place in the UK market (behind BT, Virgin Media

Sky customers are the least likely to switch their ISP, independent research from Strategy Analytics reveals.
The American research company found that, despite most UK consumers reporting satisfaction with their existing ISP, 70% would consider churning in favour of a rival supplier if the right deal were on offer. Crucially, speed is the most important factor

The Vat reduction was passed on by most major ISPs at the end of last year with the notable exceptions of TalkTalk and Sky, and it looks likely to stay that way for the time being.
TalkTalk initially told SamKnows it had not immediately passed on the reduction because it was working on increasing its £4

At the end of Q1 2008 OFCOM reported 16.2 million residential and SME broadband connections, a figure that probably exceeds 17 million today. This is about half the total number of fixed line telephone connections.
Sky report some 9 million subscribers to their TV service, and O2 are listed by OFCOM as having the largest number

A run of gloomy financial interim reports was brought to an end this week when Carphone Warehouse did not follow the trend in announcing job cuts but instead hinted at demerging its retail and teleco operations.
The move, which the City is known to favour, would see the two arms of the company parted because analysts

Sky, or to be precise British Sky Broadcasting Group plc, recently announced their first quarter results to September 30th. Sky broadband continues to grow with 1.792 million users but as this is only 20% of Sky homes there would appear to be a considerable opportunity for further growth.
One wonders why the figure is so low

Carphone Warehouse has confirmed to SamKnows it is no longer pursuing a purchase of Tiscali, leaving Sky as the sole suitor for the Anglo-Italian ISP that has been for sale throughout most of 2008.
Although Carphone Warehouse believes it will be ‘nip and tuck’ whether it will continue to occupy third place in the UK ISP

Carphone Warehouse is reported to still be in talks to buy Tiscali. The Italian-owned ISP had been hoping to set up an auction between Vodafone and Carphone Warehouse this summer but Vodafone pulled out of the process, believing Tiscali had valued itself too highly.
Tiscali is believed to still be talking to Sky about a possible

I am pleased to announce that our first Performance Monitoring report is ready (finally!).
The report is available in PDF format using the link below. Apologies for the relatively large file size - many of the images are at a higher resolution, so you can zoom in for a better look. A one page “executive summary”

After conceding to SamKnows that the property slump was having an impact on its broadband sales Carphone Warehouse has now roughly halved the number of new customers it expects to connect this year, from 400,000 to between 200,000 to 250,000.
However the latest figures from the group also revealed what it is admitting as ‘disruption’ causing

The ice cold relationship between the music industry and the ISPs it expects to police the internet is showing signs of thawing, but only a little and only after the threat of government legislation.
The six leading ISPs have agreed to send out educational letters to subscribers the BPI believes have been downloading music illegally. BT,