Sky Broadband launches: Not availible in ROI

slovessmg

Sky today launched FREE Broadband for customers in the UK. But "Sorry, We are unable to offer Sky Broadband in the Republic of Ireland."

However, for once we are getting a bit of a consilation prize. €35 off Sky+ or €75 off Sky HD. Call 0818719898 quoting Sky+ Broadband offer or SkyHD Broadband offer. Still I'd prefer they just charge us a lower subscription cos we're clearly getting less that customers in the UK.

Mossy Monk

seems to be a good deal but there is no way it could be launched over here. would cost them too much

agreed about the lower subscription though. our subscriptions are helping Sky provide this broadband service

DigiDec

There was a piece on the BBC One o clock news today, it said that a BT phone line was required.

watty

It is hardly possible here. Sky are running two kinds of service in UK:
28% will get the actual Sky service. The rest get BT wholesale resold. Magnet & Smart will tell you how easy the 1st kind is and we know how Eircom's Bitstream compares with BT wholesale in UK (about 46% vs 99% coverage and on average about 1/2 the speed).

It isn't likely here till well after LLU is sorted.

Mossy Monk

DigiDec wrote:

There was a piece on the BBC One o clock news today, it said that a BT phone line was required.

yes, even with LLU a connection to the BT telephone exchange is needed where Sky will have installed their own equipment

DigiDec

Got a letter today from James Murdock saying that you may have heard we now have a broadband serivce but this is just for the UK so we will give you €35 off Sky+ and €75 off SkyHD (even though I already have both).

It goes on to say that they are working on a Sky Broadband service for ROI, I won't hold my breath on that one.

Zaphod

DigiDec wrote:

Got a letter today from James Murdock saying that you may have heard we now have a broadband serivce but this is just for the UK so we will give you €35 off Sky+ and €75 off SkyHD

No doubt the money is coming directly out of his own wallet.:D

Jamesy was sermonising recently on how BSkyB are turning into a bunch of muesli-eating tree-huggers -

"Trusted consumer-facing brands can be the missing link, helping millions of people to aspire to lower-carbon lifestyles and begin to tackle an issue that feels overwhelming," intones BSkyB's James Murdoch, optimistically.

I wonder what the power consumption of 8 million digiboxes on "standby" is?

norbert64

woohoo, 35 yos yos off :rolleyes:

unless, is there some new sky+ offer we don't know about, where this discount will actually be of some use :cool:

Greds

I got one of these letters today as well. Basically it will cost 114 euros for sky+ and installation fee of 75 euro (free installation if you take multiroom which is 15 euro per month). This is assuming connected to 2 premium channels, 12 month contract etc etc. Total cost for upgrade to sky+ then looks like 189 euros. (dont want multiroom)
Are there options to do a self install of sky+. Have a quad lnd on the dish already so I take it I would need some cable to run to the new sky+ box and a sky+ box itself. Is this likely to cost less than the 189 euros??

markyboy

DigiDec wrote:

There was a piece on the BBC One o clock news today, it said that a BT phone line was required.

Article in the Irish Times mentioned Eircom owned exchanges being used.

How much is the HD option after the discount?

curryman

ok lads this is prob a stupid Q but this 35 euro off . Is this for normal sky+ sub or is it for a sky+ broadband sub and if the broadband sub how will this work

again sorry if its a stupid Q

Sparky

curryman wrote:

ok lads this is prob a stupid Q but this 35 euro off . Is this for normal sky+ sub or is it for a sky+ broadband sub and if the broadband sub how will this work

again sorry if its a stupid Q

Its €35 off a Sky+ box when you order one through them.

I dont mind the €75 off a SkyHD box. I'm really contemplating getting one the minute they are available again.

JBoyle4eva

Wasn't really surprised by not getting broadband in ROI. I've been waiting 3 years fro Broadband where i am and it's not happening soon.

The consolation for Sky HD is well worth it though. Considering getting it the minute we move home next month!

watty

Zaphod wrote:

| snip|

I wonder what the power consumption of 8 million digiboxes on "standby" is?

About the same as in the "on" position. Maybe save 0.1% as the TV modulator actually gets turned off!

god's toy

Got one of those too in the post

Anyone know what the limitations of the Sky BB are? (download/upload)


Funny, last week I got a sky offer in the door TWO WEEKS after it expired!

Mossy Monk

www.sky.com/broadband

god's toy

thanks

pbirney

JBoyle4eva wrote:

...I've been waiting 3 years fro Broadband where i am and it's not happening soon.

Location: Follow the yellow brick road and take a hard right at the end and there I am!


With an address like that, I'm not surprised that you're waiting so long

Our man in Havana

I can tell you on thing other BB providers in the UK are worried by this delevelopment, Ain't that right Mossy!

Mossy Monk

nothing mentioned to us anyway

Our man in Havana

I has seen an internal memo on the subject.

lawhec

The Sky broadband offer is onlyavailable to those in Britain whose local exchange has equiptment installed by Easynet, whom Sky took over. There's not one exchange in N.Ireland, and across the water its only in the larger cities with Glasgow and Edinburugh only served in Scotland and none in Wales though they do plan to expand on this. In fact LLU in Northern Ireland doesn't exist, and only the Carphone Warehouse has any concrete plans to introduce it here & restricted to Belfast, Derry and a few of the larger towns.

Where I live, I'm fortunate enough that BT have my local exchange enabled and can have up to 6.5Mbps though I have just 2Mbps at the moment. However there's no LLU operators here and it's unlikely there will be for a very long time to come. So Sky's offer means feck all to me.

Sky are just lanuching a service similar to that of CPW (Talk Talk) and Orange and they won't be the last one's to offer a broadband bundled product - I'd expect O2 (UK) to announce something very shortly. Looking at what Sky is offering for subscribers, there's nothing there that doesn't really blow the competition away though like anything else, if you're in a postition of being a Sky subscriber and live within range of a current enabled exchange it may be tempting. Also as I understand it the current offer is only open to existing subscribers. Me smells a method to reduce churn.

Our man in Havana

Are sky not offering a bitstream product which is a reselling of BT wholesale? Surely that can be got from any BB enabled exchange?

lawhec

Bond-007 wrote:

Are sky not offering a bitstream product which is a reselling of BT wholesale? Surely that can be gor from any BB enabled exchange?

They are but there's a charge of a £40 connection fee and it will cost £17 a month, and a 40GB cap with a max speed of 8Mbps (no one will ever get that, 6.5-7Mbps is more releastic max.) I also doubt it'll be available on the restricted "exchange activate" exchanges which are common in the Scottish highlands.

In comparison to other ADSL BB providers, not bad, but there are better deals especially for light or heavy download users out there - more fitting in for those who use the internet everyday and would watch streaming media regulary but not a huge amount. Also most providers now waive connection charges, so not such a great moe on that front by Sky.

Our man in Havana

40GB Cap, not good imho.

Sin e an Fear

Originally Posted by DigiDec
There was a piece on the BBC One o clock news today, it said that a BT phone line was required.

You'd need a BT line for the service, because the UK doesn't offer 'naked DSL'.

Our man in Havana

Naked DSL? Cad e sin?

ShaneOC

According to the folks on Digital Spy some of them got a similar letter from Sky saying that the broadband service would not be available in their area but offering them a £100 discount on Sky HD. Taking into consideration the approximate exchange rate why are our friends in the UK getting twice the discount that we are being offered.

£100 is roughly €150. :mad:

watty

Yep I got the letter yesterday. If I actually had my own HD TV and there was actual content to watch i might be tempted, but a lack of content and such why would I spend all that money for about 1 or two hrs a week viewing?

Mossy Monk

ShaneOC wrote:

why are our friends in the UK getting twice the discount that we are being offered.

£100 is roughly €150. :mad:

Sky quite simply dont give a flying **** about the RoI

Ballyman

Not wanting to sound stupid, but is the Sky broadband offer a satellite service throught the dish or an ADSL service??

I presume it's the latter!

Our man in Havana

Mossy Monk wrote:

Sky quite simply dont give a flying **** about the RoI

agreed

Pacifico

Ballyman wrote:

Not wanting to sound stupid, but is the Sky broadband offer a satellite service throught the dish or an ADSL service??

I presume it's the latter!

Yup its ADSL afaik

Our man in Havana

Ballyman wrote:

Not wanting to sound stupid, but is the Sky broadband offer a satellite service throught the dish or an ADSL service??

I presume it's the latter!

ADSL with limited LLU offerings.

Ballyman

Would it not have been better to offer a satellite service, most of the equipment is already in place, then they could offer it to all customers?? Is it silly to think this??

Zapho

Its a pretty sweet offer, fair play to Sky. I'm paying €35 for BB and its 1mb up and down, they're offering 16mb for £10! Lucky Brits...

watty

Ballyman wrote:

Would it not have been better to offer a satellite service, most of the equipment is already in place, then they could offer it to all customers?? Is it silly to think this??

No. None of the equipment is in place, the existing Sky installs have no Internet compatibility atall.. Also because Satellite is no use for VOIP or gaming or self hosting, it is Internet and not Broadband.

Also two way satellite needs a much larger dish that the sky dish, a transmitter and circulator as well as the Receive LNBF and generally the gear costs about 10 to 20 times cost of ADSL. Two way satellite bandwidth at the sort to speeds the Sky DSL is offering would cost Sky about 10 times what they are charging for top landline package.

Satellite Internet is for deserts, tundra, jungle and blighted Ireland. OECD does not include even two way satellite connections as Broadband connections.

Satellite on the other hand is far, far superior to what DSL, Broadband or IPTV will ever be for real time broadcast. The same bandwidth serves up to 100M people. That is a 100,000,000:1 cost / bandwidth advantage over broadband TV methods. Satellite with a fixed dish can in theory support nearly 2000 TV channels (At least 500 HDTV), a motorised dish can support in theory nearly 15,000 HDTV channels! Using current technology.

Even terrestrial broadcasting can easily beat IPTV or broadband for numbers of simultanous real time channels to 500,000 viewers with one TX.

Terrestrial Wireless Broadband is good for bandwidth per user in Rural areas, but in cities may need large numbers of very small cell low power transmitters.

barrera

To be fair to Sky on this, I got the letter about the €75 off Sky HD - I'd ordered Sky HD a few weeks ago, so was thinking the offer would miss me, but when I phoned up, there was no problem at all, they'll knock the €75 off my bill.

Can you imagine the gangsters in Chorus/NTL doing this?

Sin e an Fear

Bond-007 wrote:

Naked DSL? Cad e sin?

Nach raibh fhíos agat? It's (A)DSL without a phone line. It's starting to be offered in the US and Canada. Currently, if you subscribe to an LLU service like Bullldog, you need to pay phone line rental as well, even if you don't use BT.

watty wrote:

Satellite on the other hand is far, far superior to what DSL, Broadband or IPTV will ever be for real time broadcast. The same bandwidth serves up to 100M people. That is a 100,000,000:1 cost / bandwidth advantage over broadband TV methods. Satellite with a fixed dish can in theory support nearly 2000 TV channels (At least 500 HDTV), a motorised dish can support in theory nearly 15,000 HDTV channels! Using current technology.

Even terrestrial broadcasting can easily beat IPTV or broadband for numbers of simultanous real time channels to 500,000 viewers with one TX.

Better tell that to the people investing£9 million in a broadband TV service in the UK - it'll save them money and disappointment up front. If that's really the case, Sky should buy out Magnet in Ireland, shut down its IPTV service, and just use it for broadband internet. They can use the money saved to clear the rights for Channel 4, which must be the only channel that Magnet offers that you can't get on Sky in Ireland.

IPTV is, however, still going to be a useful way for niche or 'ethnic' broadcasters to reach audiences worldwide without having to worry about satellite carriage, the whims of local pay-TV operators who can drop their channels from their lineup, or fussy regulators like the CRTC in Canada, which has barred Portugal's RTPi because it doesn't thave enough Canadian content. That's how JumpTV started.