The rumour mill is swirling around Sky Broadband today, with reports indicating that the ISP will replace their ‘up to’ 76Mbps (19Mbps upload) Sky Fibre Pro (FTTC) service with a cheaper Sky Fibre Max product on 15th or 16th August 2016, albeit with reduced features.

At this stage we’re taking the reports (here, here and here) with a pinch of salt because our usual sources have not yet been able to confirm, although it’s never easy to check these things during annual holiday periods / sunny weekends. Even Sky’s PR team are likely to be taking it easy until Monday, which is hopefully when we’ll get something more solid.

The existing Sky Fibre Pro package costs £30 per month + £17.40 per month for Sky Line Rental and suffers a bit because it cannot be ordered online, although customers do benefit from several advanced features such as a Static IP address, a dedicated support line and selectable profiles. Much of this stemmed from when Sky gobbled O2 and BE Broadband during 2013 (here).

The good news, if confirmed, is that Sky Broadband appears set to replaced Sky Fibre Pro with Sky Fibre Max for £5 less per month (£25 per month). We are assuming that the service speed will remain the same, although the refreshed product will sadly drop its Static IP address, selectable profiles and dedicated support line features.

Such a move would also bring Sky Fibre Max roughly into line with the similar speed and £24.99 Super Fibre service via their new NOW TV Combo bundles.

UPDATE 1:55pm

We’ve had it confirmed by one of our usually credible sources that Sky do indeed intend to perform the above change on 16th August, although like the ‘Pro’ package Sky will initially only allow orders for its ‘Max’ replacement via telephone sales rather than online. Expect some more detail on Monday or Tuesday.