Sky (Sky Broadband) has recently continued their gradual move away from satellite-based Pay TV services by withdrawing their Sky Q kit and service from online sales. New customers are instead being directed to take the company’s latest broadband-based Sky Glass (Sky integrated streaming TV set) and Sky Stream (streaming set-top-box) solutions.
Both Sky Glass and Sky Stream are standalone products that use your home broadband ISP and WiFi connection to stream Sky’s on-demand video content and live TV channels (i.e. without any need for a tedious satellite dish). Despite this, many users often still prefer the experience they get with Sky Q, particularly for key features like live TV recording (Glass and Stream use a cloud-based recording feature that has some caveats).
NOTE: Sky Glass and Sky Stream require a minimum broadband speed of 25Mbps, which rises to 30Mbps if you want to enjoy streaming in 4K (UltraHD + HDR) with Dolby Atmos.
The big change now, as noted by some of our readers (here), is that Sky have removed the option for new customers to order Sky Q online, although it still appears to be available to those who place an order via the phone or in-store (we suspect Sky’s agents will still try to discourage you from it). Instead, the Sky Q page now states: “We’ve unplugged Sky Q. Plug in Sky Stream for less.”
This is not the first time that Sky Q has done a disappearing act online, but on this occasion the language appears much more confident that it won’t be returning. None of this should come as much of a surprise, as this has clearly been Sky’s direction of travel for some time, although for now it is at least still possible to get Sky Q if you really want it. But that increasingly seems unlikely to last for too much longer.
