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Over the last couple of years, Amazon has been finding new ways to draw people over to its Prime subscription service. Right now, Amazon Prime packs in faster delivery, video streaming, Twitch benefits and eventually, Amazon may also offer its own Prime Internet service. According to reports this week, Amazon is currently looking into becoming an ISP in Europe.
This news comes from a source who was ‘briefed on the matter', speaking with The Information. They claim that Amazon is planning to offer internet access as part of the Prime subscription bundle, which will join Prime Video, Prime Music, Twitch Prime, and Amazon's unlimited photo storage service.
However, setting up an ISP could be costly, so if this were to take place, Amazon may need to increase the yearly cost of Amazon Prime once more. At the moment, a Prime subscription costs £7.99 per month in the UK or £79 per year. Amazon itself wouldn't be setting up its own network but rather, the company would buy wholesale access to offer internet over an existing network. In the UK, this could mean Amazon drumming up a deal with the likes of Open Reach/BT.
The UK would be one of the first countries to get this service from Amazon. However, Germany could also be on the cards as Deutsche Telekom reportedly makes its network available to other providers, similarly to Open Reach in the UK. This could all be some ways off, though, as Amazon is apparently only in ‘high-level talks' at the moment, so things could take a while to arrange and that's even if Amazon decides to go through with this idea.
KitGuru Says: While people are generally used to Amazon Prime's new price point, there was quite a bit of disappointment when it was first introduced. If adding internet access to the bundle will significantly increase the annual price for Prime again, then I do wonder how people would react. Do you guys think Amazon should venture into becoming an ISP?
If it’s included in the same price. Then oh damn!
‘In the UK, this could mean Amazon drumming up a deal with the likes of Open Reach/BT.’
In UK BT/Openreach is a private company monopoly that owns the whole network of copper cables. That copper limits the internet speed to 76 Mbps and they already share this network with Sky, TalkTalk and others which offer more of the same internet. The same thing is happening in Germany with Deutsche Telekom being forced, just like BT in UK , to ‘share’ its pipes with others. In UK they rent these copper cables for almost £20/month so that would have to be added to the prime cost plus the price for the crappy internet ~£10