Gary Barton, a Principal Analyst at GlobalData says, however, that Sky should not be too cautious, noting that Sky Connect has played to Sky’s broadband strengths but it needs to do more to stand out in the market.
“Comcast offers advanced WiFi services that Sky should consider adding to its portfolio as soon as possible. GlobalData’s research indicates that poor WiFi performance is a major concern for home workers,” says Barton.
“Sky should also be bolder with its promise of ‘flexibility’. Its contract terms are similar to many other providers. What businesses want is reliability and to avoid being locked in to contracts.”
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Barton notes that Sky, formerly owned by Fox, is now owned by US media and communications giant Comcast which boasts 15 years of experience in the US B2B telecoms market, two million enterprise customers and group annual revenues of $103.6bn of annual revenues.
“The combination of Sky’s brand and Comcast’s experience and financial muscle gives Sky Connect a great chance to succeed despite the already high levels of competition in the UK SME market,” says Barton.
“Sky’s consumer-facing Sky Broadband division already has six million customers making it second only to BT. This presence gives Sky a huge internal market to which to sell. GlobalData’s research highlights a strong crossover between the consumer market and the small enterprise market when SMEs decide on their broadband provider.”
GlobalData says the launch also comes amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the emergence of large numbers of people working from home.
“COVID-19 has made people and businesses think extra hard about their home broadband provider and the reliability of their service,” Barton observes.
“More people will opt for higher grade, business class services. Sky Connect has intelligently added 4G backup to its higher tier broadband services in the event that the fixed broadband connection is interrupted. It can also use its existing customer service engineers to offer higher levels of support to business customers.”
