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Jon Florsheim, Sky’s chief marketing officer, added: “A lot of our competitors’ broadband customers will be happy to come over to Sky if we offer them a good-value broadband product. The bloodbath is not going to be on our front lawn.”

But there are many who believe that some form of bloodbath is inevitable.

Sky is aiming for 3m broadband customers by 2010. Talk Talk has a stated ambition of 1.75m, though that looks too modest after it attracted more than 400,000 in the first three months. Add in Orange, Tiscali, O2 and others who are investing tens of millions of pounds to install broadband equipment in BT’s exchanges, and the total industry target must be close to 10m.

Here’s the difficulty. Investing to unbundle local loops — that is, taking over BT’s lines in order to provide a broadband service — only makes sense in densely populated areas. To make money, many experts say companies need to have several hundred customers connected to each exchange. Predictably, the broadband firms are all chasing the same 1,000 exchanges in the same cities. Dave Tansley at Deloitte, said: “All the providers are going for the same customers in exactly the same geographies. Most local-loop unbundlers will go bust or be consolidated relatively quickly.”

BT argues that the large number of customers it serves in rural and remote areas means it is less exposed to the threat from Sky and Talk Talk than is often imagined. Only 58% of its customers live in areas targeted for local-loop unbundling.

In contrast, NTL, the cable-television company, has all its 2.8m broadband customers in urban areas.

BT has previously said it has seen little impact from the launch of Talk Talk broadband. Besides its geographic reach, it is attempting to differentiate itself in terms of the quality and reliability of its service.

Talk Talk has struggled to cope with the demand it has generated. Many customers are still waiting to receive the broadband service they were promised. The firm’s call centres have been regularly overwhelmed, causing customers to endure long waits before getting their problems answered.

One customer who contacted The Sunday Times said: “It is now three months since I applied. To date, I have neither modem nor broadband connection. However, I do have the Talk Talk phone line and find I am paying £20.99 for international (calls and) line rental instead of the £9.99 per month and ‘free’ broadband I was promised.

“To rub salt further into a very sore wound, (I am also paying) my previous provider Onetel for a broadband connection. As both Talk Talk & Onetel are owned by Carphone Warehouse, I am paying this company twice for one service! I find this both incredible and offensive.”

David Rowe, chief executive of Easynet — the broadband company that Sky bought for £211m last year — blamed Talk Talk’s problems on its failure to order enough wholesale capacity from BT.

“It’s a fairly elementary mistake,” he said. “The problems with local loop unbundling are yet to come.”

Last week, Sky laid heavy emphasis on its customer-service capabilities. It is taking on another 1,500 call-centre staff, and has added 600 people to a fieldforce that already makes 9,000 visits a day to the homes of Sky customers.

Few rivals underestimate the strength of Sky’s challenge. It is widely admired for its marketing and ability to make technology simple for customers.

BT will also survive. In addition to its BT Vision launch this autumn, it will soon be able to compete more aggressively in the broadband market. It is shackled by regulation until the number of unbundled lines passes 1.5m — but the figure has already reached 600,000, is growing by 100,000 a month and is likely to accelerate.

Rivals believe Carphone’s marketing savvy and retail distribution will also ensure that Talk Talk is a winner.

After that it becomes more difficult. Tansley said: “The local loop unbundling economics will result in a period of speculative growth followed by rapid consolidation that will result in three, maybe four, powerhouses taking 80%-90% of market demand.”

If he’s right, a lot of big brands are about to fall flat on their faces.