Sky and GTC have announced a partnership to deliver your Sky TV through fibre optic networks in the future.
You could soon get Sky TV, broadband and phone services via fibre optic cabling thanks to a new partnership with GTC.
The partnership entails GTC integrating Sky’s services into new-build homes, which will mean 300Mbps broadband speeds.
“This relationship with GTC will give owners of new homes across the UK a simple way to get great TV from Sky alongside GTC’s superfast broadband and home phone services”, said Brendan Hegarty, Head of Homes and Independent Retail at Sky. “We look forward to making Sky TV available to even more home through this innovative co-promotion.”
Currently, Sky relies on satellite dishes to bring its Sky TV service into your home and has done for the past 20 years.
By making the move to fibre optic, Sky begins to tread on Virgin Media’s toes. However, initially Sky’s fibre optic footprint will be relatively small as it focuses on new-builds at first.
Currently, Sky utilises the fibre optic structure offered by BT to deliver super-speedy broadband and phone lines to homes, but TV services available via this method is limited to Sky Go and Sky Now TV.
“The partnership with Sky means the UK’s house builders can be confident that GTC’s fibre networks will offer best-in-class services long into the future for the buyers of their new homes,” said Andrew Robinson, Commercial Operations Director at GTC. “GTC has led the way in providing new gas and electricity networks to house builders for many years and this agreement affirms our commitment to providing new telecommunications networks also.”
This partnership could see Sky eventually abandon its reliance on satellite dishes, but the current plan is to feed the new-build homes TV via a Fibre Integrated Reception System (FIRS).
This still feeds TV signals to homes through a central satellite receiver and aerial array.
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