More than £1 billion was wiped off the stock market value of BT Group after Sky struck a deal with one of its biggest competitors to supply fibre broadband to households throughout Britain.
The long-term deal with CityFibre, the UK’s largest alternative network provider, or “altnet”, was seen in the City as a potential blow to BT and its Openreach internet division.
At present, Sky uses Openreach’s network to supply fibre broadband to its six million internet customers. From next year, it will start using CityFibre’s network as well.
Greg Mesch, the founder and chief executive of the London-based CityFibre, said winning Sky as a customer “had been our game plan for 13 years. They were always clear that they liked what we were doing,