Sky has that they have made an agreed offer for Easynet at 175 pence per share. This values Easynet at £211 million and represents a premium of 80% over the value of Easynet's shares prior to the offer period. The offer has been recommended by the Easynet board to its shareholders.

James Murdoch, BSkyB's Chief Executive commenting on the offer said: "Today's offer reflects the exciting opportunities that now exist to combine quality entertainment with significant high-speed connections. Entertainment is at the core of Sky's success. Easynet's innovative network and technological expertise perfectly complement Sky's
strengths in programming and in making technologies easy to use. We see value for families in moving well beyond just another triple play to offer a new level of connected entertainment and communications services."

Sky recently raised around £1 billion from a bond issue and rumours had it that they would use some of this money for purchases such as this. It has also been speculated that Homechoice might also be on their target list. While Easynet has an extensive broadband internet infrastructure, Homechoice has the video over IP system that would give Sky a head start against any competition from the likes of BT and other ISPs should they offer IPTV.

Easynet has an extensive local loop footprint and this will give Sky the opportunity over time to offer its 8 million customers Digital TV (via satellite or broadband), high speed broadband and phone as a single service. This is something that analysts have viewed as the great advantage of the cable companies in the past. With the merger of Telewest and NTL in the last few weeks some have viewed the combined company as a real threat to Sky's dominance of the pay TV market.