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Sky has announced plans to challenge BT and Virgin Media with a new fibre broadband service, offering speeds of up to 40 megabits per second to a third of UK homes.

Launching in April, Sky Broadband Unlimited Fibre will be priced at £20 per month and its headline speed will be 40Mbps, the same as BT's 'Infinity' fibre product.

Sky said that the package will be "a totally unlimited product that has no usage caps" and will be available to around 30% of UK households from launch.

The fibre service has been made possible due to Ofcom's 2010 ruling that BT must make its fibre network infrastructure available to other providers such as Sky on a wholesale basis.

Sky said that the network reach of its new fibre product would grow "over time in line with BT's fibre roll-out programme".

Broadband delivered over fibre-optic cables is able to offer significantly higher speeds with a greater reliability of service compared with DSL over BT's copper telephone network.

Virgin Media remains the market leader in offering fibre broadband to customers, including a recent pledge to double its speeds and increase its headline rate to 120Mbps.

Sky started offering Sky Broadband in 2006 following the acquisition of internet service provider EasyNet, giving it access to a UK-wide network infrastructure.

Since then, Sky has grown its UK broadband market share to 17%, or 3.6 million customers, while 29% of all Sky homes now take a 'triple play' service of Sky TV, Sky Broadband and Sky Talk.

Alongside the fibre broadband service, Sky has confirmed plans to extend its broadband network to reach 88% of the UK by June 2013, meaning an additional 1m homes will be able to access Sky Broadband.

Following the company's acquisition of The Cloud in January 2011, Sky gained access to a nationwide estate of Wi-Fi hotspots in major British cities and locations.

Sky will now offer its Sky Broadband Unlimited subscribers access to more than 10,000 hotspots in venues such as Caffe Nero, Pizza Express and Wagamama, enabling them to access a range of web services on the move, such as the multi-platform TV platform Sky Go.

"I'm delighted that our existing home communication products are making such an impact with customers," said Stephen van Rooyen, the managing director of Sky's sales and marketing group.

"It's clear that customers are responding to the higher levels of value, quality and service we offer. This year sees a number of enhancements that will ensure we create even more choice.

"Whether it's the launch of free public Wi-Fi, extending our network into more parts of the UK, or adding fibre to our product mix, we are focused on meeting the demands of customers and on being their number one choice for home communications."

According to Sky's latest financial results, Sky Broadband added 166,000 new customers in the final three months of 2011, while Sky Talk added 159,000 and Sky line rental gained 214,000.

UK gadget retail site Ebuyer has been knocked offline as its £1 laptop deals caused an online stampede that flattened the site's servers.


Ebuyer failed to shore up its web systems ahead of the customer rush and the site was offline for several hours even before the offers officially opened at 11am today.
The tech site's "Cyber Monday" deals - with PCs, laptops, cameras, components and games reduced to £1 - must have proved more popular than expected. In effect, the Ebuyer team launched a DDoS attack on itself.
As of lunchtime Monday the site is still down.
Ebuyer confirmed that traffic for the £1 deals was what sent their site into a tailspin and said that customers were able to start making orders now if they kept refreshing the page. ®

In November 2012 Kasim Rafiq will attempt to break a British record. At the age of 22, he will become the youngest Briton to ski from the edge of Antarctica to the South Pole with no outside help in an epic 60 day journey and invites you to join him on the journey from the comfort of your own homes.