Sky is finally launching its mobile service nearly two years after it first signed a deal with Telefonica to use its O2 network capacity. Customers will be able to pre-register for the service from 31 October and the media company will reveal further details of the service at its investor event today. Sky has taken some time to launch Sky Mobile and offer so-called quad play services – TV, phone, broadband and mobile – with rivals Virgin Media and Talk Talk already offering all four when the deal was inked in January 2015. Read more: Sky plots Spain launch as online TV war escalates BT also has quad play services after snapping up the UK mobile network EE. City analysts have noted Sky's late entry into the mobile market, and have questioned the effectiveness and costs of adding an additional service to its package. "Sky mobile likely to be an extra customer cost and an ineffective retention tool. As it did with broadband, we think Sky will use cheap mobile to soften the blow of its ever increasing pay TV prices," said Haitong research analysts in a note last week. Read more: Channel 4 and Sky invest in startup selling British TV content overseas "But UK mobile prices are already very low yet Sky must earn a profit at least for O2, its host mobile network. In contrast, BT enjoys owner economics with EE. Also O2’s network quality has been markedly inferior to EE’s for a number of years." Liberum analyst Ian Whittaker noted that just 40 per cent of existing customers have three of Sky's services. Shares opened one per cent lower as markets opened at 847 pence per share.
Sky is to launch its mobile service, nearly two years after it signed a deal with Haitong to use its Virgin Media network, offering a quad play service (TV, phone, broadband and mobile) much later than rivals O2 , EE and BT , which owns mobile network EE. However, research analysts at Haitong believe Sky Mobile will be "an extra customer cost and an ineffective retention tool" that will be used to "soften the blow of its ever increasing pay TV prices." In addition, they said that O2 's network quality has been "markedly inferior to EE 's for nearly two years ".