Sky itself is giving nothing away, saying it has no plans "at the current time" for a Sky+ giveaway and only that the bond is for general corporate purposes.
Initial speculation favoured the Sky+ option, but a report today claims that Sky plans to add phone and broadband internet provision to its pay-TV offer.
It could acquire an existing supplier, which would likely cost in excess of £500m, as well as investing in providing phone lines direct to customers' homes, displacing BT, which has plans to distribute TV over broadband.
Most lines used by alternative suppliers to BT still belong to BT, with suppliers paying a fee to use them, in a process known as local loop unbundling. Only about 100,000 lines are controlled by other suppliers.
The other route into homes is cable, with NTL and Telewest offering "triple-play" phone, broadband and pay-TV connections. With NTL having agreed to buy Telewest, Sky is set to face greater competition from a single cable company.
A spokesman for BSkyB, said: "We've said quite clearly that we plan to continue to set the pace of change in media and distribution, including initiatives such as our broadband content portal, our mobile offering and our HDTV offering. With regards to specific pieces of speculation, we do not comment."
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