Sky Mobile: 5 reasons you'll want it

published 29 November 2016

Sky Mobile has launched, so here are a bunch of reasons why you may well want to shift across to the new network, especially if you're already a Sky customer.

1. You can roll over your unused data

…And not just for use the following month. If you're one of those people who has a data plan with too much data on it, this is the tariff you've been waiting for.

All those unused gigabytes can be stored in a 'piggy bank' and used at any point in the next three years. Interestingly, with Sky Mobile's family plan, that also means you can gift it to your spouse, same sex partner, flatmates or children.

The pricing is on the cheap side. There are lower-priced deals around, but given what Sky throws in on top of the headline costs, it's very competitive. It's also simple, and it's based on data, which, let's face it, is the key factor for most of us.

• 1GB = £10 per month

• 3GB = £15 per month

• 5GB = £20 per month.

All plans are on 12-month contracts, and you can purchase additional data for a slightly distressing £10 per GB.

Roaming charges we assume will be in line with the usual O2 piggyback charges, ie: perfectly acceptable in Europe, at least until Brexit, and fairly horrific outside of it.

You CAN tether.

2. Sky customers get unlimited free calls and texts

True, most of us no longer text anyone, using Whatsapp, iMessage, Facebook Messenger and the like instead. And making calls is about the 19th most popular thing to do with a phone, somewhere behind Pokémon Go, checking the weather, and sexting.

Nonetheless, free texts and calls to everyone, forever, is a good incentive.

Well, actually it's up to £600 worth of texts and calls per year. But even so, a strong deal.

Sky TV customers get this benefit for nowt, while non-Sky customers can have it for £10 per month on top of the usual charges, if they wish, or pay 10p per minute and 10p per text.

3. It lets you watch anything on your Sky box, anywhere

With the new Sky Go+ app bundled with Sky Mobile, you can create playlists of your favourite shows from your front room Sky+ box and either download them to your phone via Wi-Fi or stream them over Wi-Fi or 4G.

This service is also available to Sky customers who don't have Sky Mobile, but it'll cost you a fiver a month.

The service – which Sky is calling Sync – is specifically targeted at Apple and Samsung handsets for the time being, although theoretically other Android handsets could be unofficially supported.

4. It's easy to switch plans

Feeling like you won't be in a very data intensive mood next month? Switch down to the £10 plan.

Planning to attend your daughter's wedding with only your mobile for a camera? You can switch to the £20, 5GB plan.

No, you can't move between plans within any given month, because obviously you can't.

5. It will lead to Sky owning everything

Okay, so putting on my Business Insider, "I know what I'm talking about" hat for a moment…

Sky Mobile is piggy backing on O2 for the time being, but it seems inevitable that Sky will at some point in the future start using its own network.

By offering free calls and texts to Sky users, Sky Mobile will surely grab a decent chunk of the mobile market, whilst drawing a healthy number of punters to its TV service.

Although for now Sky Mobile is SIM-only, it will start selling handsets next year, with the concentration being on Apple and Samsung.

This mirrors what BT/EE has done with its TV/broadband/mobile bundles, and I feel this could easily lead to the consumer mobile market being almost totally dominated by BT and Sky within a decade.

• Check it OUT.

Duncan is the former lifestyle editor of T3 and has been writing about tech for almost 15 years. He has covered everything from smartphones to headphones, TV to AC and air fryers to the movies of James Bond and obscure anime. His current brief is everything to do with the home and kitchen, which is good because he is an excellent cook, if he says so himself. He also covers cycling and ebikes – like over-using italics, this is another passion of his. In his long and varied lifestyle-tech career he is one of the few people to have been a fitness editor despite being unfit and a cars editor for not one but two websites, despite being unable to drive. He also has about 400 vacuum cleaners, and is possibly the UK's leading expert on cordless vacuum cleaners, despite being decidedly messy. A cricket fan for over 30 years, he also recently become T3's cricket editor, writing about how to stream obscure T20 tournaments, and turning out some typically no-nonsense opinions on the world's top teams and players.

Before T3, Duncan was a music and film reviewer, worked for a magazine about gambling that employed a surprisingly large number of convicted criminals, and then a magazine called Bizarre that was essentially like a cross between Reddit and DeviantArt, before the invention of the internet. There was also a lengthy period where he essentially wrote all of T3 magazine every month for about 3 years.

A broadcaster, raconteur and public speaker, Duncan used to be on telly loads, but an unfortunate incident put a stop to that, so he now largely contents himself with telling people, "I used to be on the TV, you know."