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Sky and TalkTalk launch 80Mbps fibre broadband on the quiet

Hush, hush…Sky has soft-launched an up-to-80Mbps fibre broadband service, while TalkTalk’s well-publicised service quietly went live today.

A BT streetside cabinetSky Fibre Unlimited Pro is being offered to some new Sky broadband customers by its telesales teams, despite recent assurances that Sky had ‘no plans’ for 80Mbps broadband.

TalkTalk tweeted the live rollout of its 80Mbps service to customers, who have been able to register since April 12.

Both services will use BT Openreach’s enhanced fibre-to-the-cabinet infrastructure, which lets IPSs offer up-to-80Mbps connections with up-to-20Mbps upstream.

The new services will be advertised as up-to-76/16Mbps to meet new advertising rules that say speeds must be available to at least 10 per cent of users.

Sky Fibre Pro

The new Sky broadband tariff comes with unlimited downloads at £30/month, plus Sky Line Rental at £12.25/month, and includes Sky Talk Freetime with inclusive evening and weekend UK landline calls.

The service is only available to customers who do not already have Sky Broadband or Sky Fibre, and there’s a £50 installation charge.

The service only shows up online if Sky’s broadband postcode checker finds they’re in an 80Mbps-ready area.
It’s likely that Sky is creating a beta trial to test the effect of 80Mbps customers on its network before it launches it fully.

Talk Superfast Fibre Optic Broadband

The TalkTalk 80Mbps service costs £15/month on top of TalkTalk Essentials (or Plus), plus line rental, and there’s a £30 installation charge.

That makes a minimum cost of £31 a month if you pay for a year’s line rental in advance; standard line rental is £14.50, so you’d pay £36 a month.

Images: adrienneserra/Flickr & Mike Cattell/Flickr

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