May launch for Sky HD

£300 for the box and £10 a month to subscribe

By Tech Digest HDTVUK • Get more from this author

Posted in Networks, 24th March 2006 11:07 GMT

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Sky has announced a May launch for its HD service. Its rather rather annoying HD website not only has the details of pricing but also says that installations for the service will begin in May. It seems very unlikely that Sky would begin installations without having launched the service.

It seems quite possible too that the announcement has been sparked by the BBC which yesterday confirmed that it would offer a trial HD transmission of the World Cup, Wimbledon and much else via both satellite and cable.

Sky has also announced the prices for the service. If you are an existing subscriber you’ll pay £299 for the HD box and £10 a month on top of your existing subscription. Viewers get installation and a Sky+ subscription if they haven’t already got one – free. There’s no mention of viewers getting any upgrade benefits to swap current SD boxes for HD ones. There’s also no mention of the size of the hard drive of the box which will almost certainly be either 160 or 300 Gigabytes.

New customers pay the same but they also get half price subscription to the main Sky channels for 3 months.

Viewers also have to put down a £30 deposit.

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