Anyone heard of these guys?

yoman

Hi Just wondered if anyone has heard of these? They offer Sky By Wire which seems a good concept although expensive.
http://www.broadworks.tv/index.html
Though people?
Thanks

Tony

yoman wrote:

Hi Just wondered if anyone has heard of these? They offer Sky By Wire which seems a good concept although expensive.
http://www.broadworks.tv/index.html
Though people?
Thanks

AFAIK they are a cable company. I've spoken to some customers in a nearby estate in citywest who use them and it seems they are not too impressed so far.

yoman

Thanks Tony. Just bought new place and it seems to be the only TV option we have. If only SKY would bring out dishes that looked liked patio heaters that I could hide on my balcony!!

KeithMur

yoman wrote:

Just bought new place and it seems to be the only TV option we have. If only SKY would bring out dishes that looked liked patio heaters that I could hide on my balcony!!

Surely if you bought, as in not renting, you could just put up the dish on a vertical pole on your patio.

yoman

Afraid not, The contact we signed specifically said no satellite dishes (typical apartment contract, no washing out on balcony either but I am not complaining about that!)

It looks like we will have to go with these Broadworks people to get any TV at all, at least they offer Broadband:rolleyes:

KeithMur

Tony

yoman wrote:

Afraid not, The contact we signed specifically said no satellite dishes (typical apartment contract, no washing out on balcony either but I am not complaining about that!)

It looks like we will have to go with these Broadworks people to get any TV at all, at least they offer Broadband:rolleyes:

There seems to be a growing body of opinion that these apartment agreements contravene EU policy (if not law) are illegal in relation to satellite dishes, anyone got any legal opinion on this.

Its good that you get broadband but check out their delivery method as any Broadworks headends I've seen use satellite delivery for Tv and if they use the same for broadband you may get latency issues which is not much good for gaming. Maybe someone on the broadband forum would have a better idea of this.

andrew3

There is a dish disquised as a light fitting -- it has a small black pole and a white sphere on top - it illuminates too adding further to the disguise! -- but inside is actually a small dish!

What about getting a communal dish - one small dish that will service the entire complex-- a 60cm dish with quad lnb and tap can provide feeds for up to 10000 digiboxes! there is no need to have one dish for each apartment!



http://www.digicams-uk.com/prod30.htm

I do know you can get this cheaper than 169sterling - but even at the expensive price it would still whip the cable companies asses!

http://www.selkirkshire.demon.co.uk/analoguesat/paintingdishes.html

There is no excuse for apartments with big dirty ugly lookin things hangin out the front window when there is sucha a wide variety of options!!

Pal

andrew3 wrote:

big dirty ugly lookin things

Satellite dishes are a thing of beauty.
You're in the wrong forum.

watty

Put the dish on a parasol stand or any weighted base and tie a plastic sheet over it.

I wonder do some of the Management companies get a backhander from NTL/Chorus.

My fried was visited SIX times and told he would have NO TV if he didin't sign up for the Cable. They can see the Woodcock hill and get 100% BBC Communication center quality picture from a small plastic frame six element set top yagi for UHF. (all 4 Irish channels).

No dishes allowed.

The Chinese and Polish guys have climbed through skylight and put dishes on the roof though ( 6 floot block plus ground floor).

andrew3

Pal wrote:

Satellite dishes are a thing of beauty.
You're in the wrong forum.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder! - sky dishes ugly (Blahh!) -- Channel master 2m centre focus aint no nicer sight! (yum)

andrew3

You shouldn't have a problem with your management company - They can ASK that you don't put up dishes - but they can't order you (if you own your place) -- buy the little patio light dish (save all hassle) (link in prev post) its perfect! -it even lights up so they cant tell! what more do you want??

if you have a balcony turn the dish upside down! - you can have the dish flat with the LNB arm pointing vertically in the air - this will enable you to hide the dish behind a wall more easily!

yoman

Thanks andrew, I might try that, Balcony has glass front though! I might talk to the builder who is still onsite and ask him about the 1 dish serving all apartments in the block approach.

Sponge Bob

Tony wrote:

There seems to be a growing body of opinion that these apartment agreements contravene EU policy (if not law) are illegal in relation to satellite dishes, anyone got any legal opinion on this.

not so if you bought and accepted the conditions.
the building regulations have nothing on communal aerials and communcal dishes and specs either.

Its good that you get broadband but check out their delivery method as any Broadworks headends I've seen use satellite delivery for Tv and if they use the same for broadband you may get latency issues which is not much good for gaming. Maybe someone on the broadband forum would have a better idea of this.

sat delivery is arguably the best for TV , I believe they may use Smart for Data (fibre) .

as they kick back to the builder when they get 'exclusivity' I'd say there are 2 chances of getting any coax retrofitted in the apartment

Tony

Sponge Bob wrote:

not so if you bought and accepted the conditions.

If its EU law then this overrides any agreement, every contract must have a basis in law, its exactly the same as a shop putting up a sign saying"no refunds" even if you agreed to this when buying something consumer law protects your rights.

Ulsterman 1690

One thing Ive never understood is why $ky dont offer "non-dish" satellite antennae. There are various designs out there but they almost invariably tend to be in obscure hard-to-find overseas websites who probably charge an arm and a leg to ship here Surely Sky could vastly increace their subscription base if they made this stuff available to those under the yolk of the planning/managment company/listed building nazi's

as they kick back to the builder when they get 'exclusivity' I'd say there are 2 chances of getting any coax retrofitted in the apartment

Such an arrangment (if it exists) is DEFINITELY in breach of EU law

andrew3

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

One thing Ive never understood is why $ky dont offer "non-dish" satellite antennae. There are various designs out there but they almost invariably tend to be in obscure hard-to-find overseas websites who probably charge an arm and a leg to ship here Surely Sky could vastly increace their subscription base if they made this stuff available to those under the yolk of the planning/managment company/listed building nazi's

Sky already have redesigned the dish and box - they have standardised all the equipment that is used to connect to sky to eliminate some of the huge problems of analogue days-
in analogue days people had varying dish sizes, recievers, decoders, remotes etc.
When someone rang customer services with a fault it could take awhile to run through tuning on the box, and all the possible faults that could arise! The books for different satellite recievers and manuals varied immensly along with the menus - try talk an inexperienced person into tuning in an analogue station over the phone on a system your unfamiliar with!! - quite a task!
Not to mention the ages of equipment - my first was a uniden astra 1988 reciever!(still works flawless)

Today its a hole different ball game- same equipment for everyone means less diagnosis over the phone and with 8million subscribers thats a lot of time saved!

Astra and sky encourage agents to use communal systems were possible - but most of the guys here don't give a toss about them - A couple of the distributors here do carry a huge amount of communal equipment thats fairly inexpensive - you should talk to your management company about what you want! - its not for them to limit u in what u can have!

There is no need for a block of apartments to have six dishes hanging out their windows all pointed in the same direction! - doesn't it make sense to have one dish supporting multiple boxes! that way if the dish moves the cost of fixing and maintanance is shared!

Lets face it NTL, Chorus, etc are all reselling whats on satellite at a phenomenal cost - they produce nothing of their own hence why the sky rule the roost!

In all fairness looking at the states cable and satellite companies operate indepentantly of each other - in other words one doesn't hawk the others movie and sports services!

Sky should face the some deregulation ie sports movies and channels should be seperated from the company as individual services.

Charlie

Tony wrote:

If its EU law then this overrides any agreement, every contract must have a basis in law, its exactly the same as a shop putting up a sign saying"no refunds" even if you agreed to this when buying something consumer law protects your rights.

There's a difference, that provision about refunds is under the sale of goods act and is one of the few things a seller cannot contract out of. I am not aware of this EU law you're talking about but generally if a buyer is made aware of the term and agree's to it then the law will not intervene with this agreemnet, unless it is contrary to public policy. The situation with refunds is one such case and is why the legislature enacted it, but this is very much so an exception. As I said earlier the courts will seek as best as possible to give effect to the contracting partie's agreement.

Sponge Bob

Ulsterman 1690 wrote:

Such an arrangment (if it exists) is DEFINITELY in breach of EU law

Not as long as neutral ducting is not in the building regulations....which it is in the UK I think ( recently) . The builder puts in an exclusive eircom wire or exclusive BT wire up north and an exclusive broadworks cable of some sort , whats the difference between eircom and broadworks . MMDS deals have been done for years, you get an antenna on the roof and co ax form there, you can get one form of multichannel feed (other than DSL+TV off Magnet maybe) ....guess which one .

The builder should put a big toroidal on the roof and 2 x CT100 to each apartment with a choice of diseq or not depending on whether you elect for sky or not . That would be sensible, future proof, keep the Poles happy too , and is ALSO not in any building regulation.

Exclusive cabling deals with developers go back years , why complain when the likes of Magnet and Broadworks are replacing NTL / SKY Installs (if you are lucky) and Chorus.

The building regulations should specify a fully functional sat feed to every apartment scope from 28e to 13e minimum and 2 x CT100 drops .

The building regulations should specify a small room in the front of each block with a patch panel and 4 x Cat 6 cables to your apartment or an empty duct. Providers get into the room, install their gear, be they eirom or any one else, and patch you in.

Blame our building regulations and Ministers Dempsey and Roche who have known about this issue for being waaaaaAAAay behind the digital curve and blame our old friends the greedy short sighted builders.

Tony

Sponge Bob wrote:

Blame our building regulations and Ministers Dempsey and Roche who have known about this issue for being waaaaaAAAay behind the digital curve and blame our old friends the greedy short sighted builders.

well said Sir

Ulsterman 1690

The building regulations should specify a small room in the front of each block with a patch panel and 4 x Cat 6 cables to your apartment or an empty duct. Providers get into the room, install their gear, be they eirom or any one else, and patch you in

Amen to that

RE: Non dish antennas see http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2054850899&highlight=apartment this thread

Sponge Bob

The UK has planning guidelines for the past while, their local authorities should take these into account when considering planning applications. I'm not sure about building regulations per se. These are here

http://www.odpm.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1143966

105. In considering planning applications for other forms of development, planning authorities will wish to consider telecommunications issues. They should encourage prospective developers of new housing, office and industrial estates to consider with all relevant telecommunications operators how the telecommunications needs of the occupiers will be met. Developers should provide adequate ducting for telecommunications cables (and for other services where appropriate) to be installed at the outset both underground and in the structure of the building, sufficient to meet foreseeable demand for competitive services likely to be provided to those estates. This will help to minimise the disruption and expense if provision has to be made later, and reduces the need for new telecommunications apparatus above ground. Provision of such apparatus to serve the occupiers, such as communal or master antenna systems, should normally be the subject of close consultation and co-operation between the developer and the telecommunications operators. It may be appropriate to include in development plans that developers constructing tall buildings may wish to incorporate antennas into the design of their building.

We have nothing of the sort down here and even if we did we would have to draw pictures and write crib sheets along the lines of 'this is a dish, say dish and this is a fibre, say fibre ' given the morons who call themselves planners in our local authorities. Even then they will make a balls of it by insisting on north facing dishes and the like.

Sparky

i seen a place in carrick on shannon, brand new apartments and atleast they were nice enough to install 2 dishes with octo lnbs on the building, in the spec, i seen the apartment, they had a single gang double f connector satellite outlet in the wall for the tv, to enable installation of a sky plus system or one sat receiver and one fta receiver.

Atleast those lads who done out the spec for the building had their heads screwed on.
Plus in the future it looks neater, rather than having a load of dishes.

Sponge Bob

Sparky-s wrote:

Atleast those lads who done out the spec for the building had their heads screwed on.
Plus in the future it looks neater, rather than having a load of dishes.

Absolutely right. Nevertheless the situation out there should be that no apartment complex gets planning without that sort of rig being in the spec that goes into the planning office.

Do you think that our Poles and Latvians wanna watch sky or Astra 2 only ? , the dish should be a cosmetically recessed toroidal, say on the lift shaft roof, with a full 30w - 30e sweep of LNBs and diseqs attached . Maybe have a small second (non diseq) astra dish too.

Anything less and you get refused , the builders will get the message PDQ .