Amazon sets sights on providing broadband

Amazon may be about to launch a broadband service to rival the likes of Sky, BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media.

A "person briefed on the discussion" told The Information that the online retailer's speedy delivery service could soon be ported to computers too, making Amazon a seller of everything.

The broadband connections would be sold to Prime customers as part of the subscription service and apparently the company already has the infrastructure and agreements in place to start it up soon.

Amazon could potentially use BT's Openreach cabling to get to customers in the UK and Deutsche Telekom in Germany, because both companies already lease their lines out to other providers in these countries.

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Such deals mean companies including John Lewis, SSE and the Post Office to offer their own broadband services, despite not having much experience with technology infrastructure.

However, such a deal would be more complicated across the pond in the US, because such cable rental services don't exist and so it would need to lay the infrastructure itself rather than using a rival's service.

"A US offering would be tougher to pull off as US regulators don't require cable operators to open up their networks to rivals," The Information said.

Not only would Amazon's internet service, if true, mean it's adding another string to its bow, it also means Amazon could use the service to upsell its existing Amazon Prime Instant Video streaming service.

Amazon could either bundle the service in with its existing Prime membership or give users the opportunity to sign up to the service at a discounted rate.

Amazon has not yet commented on the matter.