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Sky Mobile is an MVNO which uses O2’s infrastructure. That means wherever O2 has signal Sky Mobile does too, which currently means 4G coverage for around 99% of the UK population indoors.
You can expect that figure to continue to grow, as will its 5G coverage, which it also shares with O2. But coverage isn’t the main reason to pick Sky Mobile, as the network aims to stand out by offering roll over data – meaning that if you don’t use all your data one month you can add it to a future month, for up to one year.
The network also allows you to change between tariffs each month, even if you’re locked into a contract. And if you’re already a Sky TV customer you can get free extras. Plus, Sky Mobile has won a number of awards in recent years, including best network for perks at the Uswitch Telecoms Awards 2024, best overall network, best for innovation, and best value, at the Choose Mobile Awards 2022, and best MVNO at the Mobile Industry Awards 2023.
These are all high points of the network, but it falters in some areas too, which you’ll find details of below. Read on then for a full review of Sky Mobile, along with an overview of its coverage.
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Pros |
Cons |
|---|---|
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Data rollover |
Lower speeds than rivals |
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Flexible plans |
No inclusive roaming |
|
Fairly low cost |
No Pay As You Go |
Our Rating
| Table of Contents |
Sky Mobile currently offers just a small number of Pay Monthly and SIM Only plans, detailed below, with no Pay As You Go option. All plans come with 5G at no extra cost. All plans also allow you to roll over any unused data from one month to the next. There’s no limit to how much you can roll over, and you can store it for up to one year.
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|
Mobile Phones |
SIM Only |
Data Only SIM |
|---|---|---|---|
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Plans Available |
✔ |
✔ |
x |
|
Max Data |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
N/A |
|
Contract lengths |
12 or 24 months |
12 months |
N/A |
|
|
Sky Mobile’s Pay Monthly and SIM Only plans come with a choice of data allowances up to a maximum of unlimited data. All plans also come with free unlimited calls and texts.
Sky TV customers can additionally stream an unlimited amount of content from Sky apps that they’re subscribed to without it coming out of their data allowance.
Pay Monthly plans last either 12 or 24 months – though for a 12-month plan you'll pay more each month for the phone component. Sky Mobile’s SIM Only plans last 12 months, but you can switch between them every 30 days if you need more or less data.
Sky Mobile also has tablet plans if you want to get your slate online. These last a choice of 24 or 36 months and come with the same data allowances as above, but aren’t available SIM Only (so you can’t get a Data Only SIM). Instead, you have to get a new tablet as part of the offering.
Sky Mobile is a fairly affordable network, but not as cheap as, for example, Smarty.
It also locks you into a contract for at least 12 months, while some similarly priced networks allow you to have 30-day plans. So in that sense it’s not the best value.
But it makes up for that with data rollover (so you won’t end up paying for data that you don’t use), and the promise of no mid-contract price rises.
Plus, it’s better value if you’re a Sky TV customer, since you can stream from Sky apps without it coming out of your data allowance.
3 GB data Unlimited mins Unlimited texts 12 Month Contract £6.00 a month 5 GB data Unlimited mins Unlimited texts 12 Month Contract £8.00 a month 25 GB data Unlimited mins Unlimited texts 12 Month Contract £10.00 a month 10 GB data Unlimited mins Unlimited texts 12 Month Contract £14.00 a month 50 GB data Unlimited mins Unlimited texts 12 Month Contract £20.00 a month
View All Sky Mobile Sim Only Deals
Data rollover is the clear highlight of Sky Mobile’s plans, while Sky customers will appreciate Sky apps not using up their data allowance. You can see the other main benefits of Sky Mobile below.
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Mobile Phones |
SIM Only |
|---|---|---|
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✔ |
✔ |
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✖ |
✖ |
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✔ |
✔ |
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✔ |
✔ |
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✔ |
✔ |
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✔ |
✔ |
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✔ |
✔ |
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✔ |
✔ |
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✔ |
✔ |
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✔ |
✖ |
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✔ |
✔ |
Sky Mobile offers 5G on both SIM Only and Pay Monthly plans. This requires a 5G add-on, but that’s available at no extra cost.
Sky Mobile doesn’t offer free roaming, but for £2 per day you can access your allowances in over 55 destinations, including most of Europe along with the US, Australia, and other places.
Sky Mobile allows you to use as much of your data as you want for tethering, meaning you can use your mobile data to get other devices online.
The only limitation is your overall data allowance.
Wi-Fi Calling means using a Wi-Fi network rather than your mobile network to call and text, but it typically still works with your normal number and dialler, so you can seamlessly switch between Wi-Fi and mobile networks and stay in touch where there’s no normal signal.
Sky Mobile offers this but currently only on the iPhone 6 or later, or a selection of Android phones, such as the Samsung Galaxy S8 or later, Galaxy Note 20, Sony Xperia 1, Sony Xperia 5, Huawei P30 and Huawei P40 Pro. You can find the full and up to date list here.
VoLTE stands for Voice over LTE and is sometimes called 4G Calling. It refers to the ability to make calls over 4G, which is beneficial because it means you can stay in touch when there’s only a 4G signal, and can also lead to better voice quality.
This is available on Sky Mobile, but at the time of writing only for select phones, including the iPhone 7 or later, the Samsung Galaxy S9 or later, and others. The full list of compatible devices can be found here.
One of the big selling points of Sky Mobile is data rollover, which is available both on SIM Only and Pay Monthly plans with a handset. This allows you to roll over any unused data for up to one year, which is far longer than most networks with data rollover, as the standard is just one month (if you can roll it over at all).
You also have the option of exchanging your spare data for money off a new phone if you don’t plan to use it.
Sky Mobile lets you set a spending cap of anything from £0 to £100, rounded to the nearest pound. Whatever cap you set is the maximum you’ll be able to spend each month on data, call charges and texts that aren’t included in your standard allowances. Having a cap is optional though, so you can allow an unlimited amount of spending if you’d prefer.
For a long time Sky Mobile didn’t offer unlimited data, but as of late 2024 it does, which helps bring it more in line with most other networks.
Sky Mobile doesn’t provide discounts for having multiple SIMs on your account, so in so much as it has any sort of family plans, they’re more limited than some networks, but it does let you share rolled over data with other SIMs.
This data can be shared with up to seven SIMs on your account, and since data can be rolled over for up to a year, you might find that you have lots available to share.
Sky Mobile's device plans require credit checks, but with SIM Only the network will only carry out an identity check. The network also offers a ‘credit builder’ service, which is designed to help those with poor credit build up a payment history on a SIM Only plan. This is only available when speaking to Sky Mobile over the phone though.
The main unique perk of Sky Mobile is being able to use Sky apps without them eating into your data allowance. However, this of course is only useful to Sky customers who already have access to Sky’s apps, as that access isn’t included as part of your Sky Mobile plan. It’s a way of rewarding customers of other Sky products then.
Sky Mobile uses O2’s infrastructure and spectrum, so its coverage is exactly the same, meaning you can get 5G, 4G, 3G and 2G in all the same places as you can on O2.
O2 has extensive 4G and 3G coverage, as the chart below shows. Its 5G is a lot more limited, which means Sky Mobile’s will also be limited, but as O2’s coverage improves so will Sky’s.
| Network Type | Coverage by population |
| 5G | Now available in over 3,200 locations |
| 4G | 99% |
| 3G | 99% |
| 2G | 99% |
|
Network |
Download/upload speeds |
4G latency (ms) |
|---|---|---|
|
EE |
45.9/9.8Mbps |
36.0ms |
|
Three |
38.0/7.1Mbps |
48.3ms |
|
Vodafone |
31.1/7.8Mbps |
39.0ms |
|
O2 (Sky Mobile) |
23.1/5.3Mbps |
38.1ms |
In a September 2024 Opensignal report (above), O2’s average download speed was found to be 23.1Mbps and its average upload speed was 5.3Mbps – that’s relevant because Sky Mobile uses O2’s infrastructure, so its speeds are likely to be similar.
In this case, that’s not a great thing, as that’s slower than the average download or upload speed of any major rival. Note that these speeds factor in a combination of 5G, 4G and 3G.
Its average latency (from an earlier April 2020 report) is slightly better though at 38.1ms. That’s the measure of how long it takes the network to respond to a request and for that it beats Three and Vodafone, but still loses out to EE.
We’re also largely reliant on studies of O2 for 5G data. On that front, O2 apparently has average 5G download speeds of 80.1Mbps according to a September 2024 report from Opensignal, so Sky Mobile’s speeds may well be similar. RootMetrics meanwhile found in H1 2024 that O2’s median 5G download speed was 79.7Mbps.
The same site also found that O2’s 95th percentile 5G download speed (in other words close to its highest) was 298.9Mbps.
Then there’s a Speedtest report from 2024 that found O2’s median 5G download speed was 75.96Mbps, that its median 5G upload speed was 8.97Mbps, and that its median 5G latency was 34ms. These results are all worse than EE’s, Three’s, or Vodafone’s.
Sky Mobile’s traffic management policy reads: “We will manage the network in order to give you the service we have agreed to. For example, we may automatically direct traffic onto different parts of the network such as 3G, 4G or WiFi.”
The network adds that if your use of ‘unlimited’ or ‘free’ services exceeds “that reasonably expected of a reasonable person” the network may temporarily suspend your services or charge you, but you’ll be notified before any charges are made. This sort of fair use policy is unlikely to affect most users.
|
Frequency |
Frequency Band |
Network |
|---|---|---|
|
700MHz |
n29 | 4G & 5G |
|
800MHz |
Band 20 |
4G |
|
900MHz |
Band 8 |
2G & 3G |
|
1800MHz |
Band 3 |
2G & 4G |
|
2100MHz |
Band 1 |
3G & 4G |
|
2300MHz |
Band 40 | 4G |
|
3400MHz |
n78 | 5G |
|
3600MHz |
n77 | 5G |
Sky Mobile through O2 should have access to the above frequency bands. The 800MHz band is a good band to have access to, as it's long range, so it can travel a long way between base stations, making it suited to rural environments.
And it’s also good at penetrating walls and buildings, making it great for built up areas as well, and ensuring strong coverage both indoors and out.
The 2300MHz band meanwhile is shorter range, but works well in busy areas. The 900MHz, 1800MHz and 2100MHz bands are a middle ground.
Sky through O2 also has access to the 3400MHz and 3600MHz bands, which are the highest frequency of any it uses and are ideal for 5G. The 700MHz meanwhile fills out the low frequency end, and could be used to bolster 4G or 5G networks.
You can find in depth details of the various bands in our 4G and 5G frequencies guide.
An Ofcom customer service report covering 2023 found that 5 of every 100,000 Sky Mobile customers complained about the company to Ofcom, which is a fairly low number relative to other networks. However, 14% of customers found reason to complain to Sky Mobile itself, which is slightly more than average. The average call waiting time to get through to Sky Mobile meanwhile was found to be 1 minute and 51 seconds, which is less than the average across all the tested networks.
Plus, the network won Best Customer Service at the Expert Reviews Awards 2021, and was ‘highly commended’ for it in 2023.
Sky Mobile is clearly best for Sky TV customers, since you can stream without using your data allowance when using its apps.
However, it’s worth considering even if you get your entertainment elsewhere, as being able to roll over an unlimited amount of data is a big selling point that few networks can match.
Being able to change your plan every month also makes Sky Mobile very flexible, and the costs are reasonable. However a lack of plans and the lack of inclusive roaming holds it back, as does being on O2, as that network seemingly currently can’t match the speeds of rivals.
Overall then it’s not one of the very best networks, especially if you’re not a Sky customer already, but it’s certainly suited to some users.
As Sky Mobile uses O2’s infrastructure, O2 itself is an obvious alternative, especially if you’re interested in Pay As You Go or Data Only plans, as O2 offers them while Sky Mobile doesn’t. However, O2 lacks data rollover on most of its plans, and is typically more expensive.
If data rollover is something you’re interested in, then consider iD Mobile as an alternative.
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