Sky has finally taken the plunge and become a mobile operator (this is somewhat of a relief to me since I had long predicted it). In fact they are becoming a virtual operator having not spent their free cash flow in purchasing O2 (which went to 3), but partnered with them instead. With the Premiership rights coming up for grabs and the acquisitions of their namesakes in Germany and Italy, they're likely to need every penny they have.
What everyone forgets about services such as mobile, broadband and even TV is that they are largely customer care logistics businesses. This is why Centrica has toyed with everything from the AA to broadband provision.
Of course, with content now dispersed over TV, broadband and mobile there is further coherence to the quad play. Some years ago on this blog I predicted that the mobile phone would become both a remote control and wallet. This has now happened and it is the one device you therefore need to have control over when running an integrated media infrastructure service.
Sky is a very sharp business and it will be interesting to see how they use their content portfolio to leverage this new venture. However they are more and more dependent on others' infrastructure and network and this is a potential weakness.