Sky Fibre To The Home

bk

Just looking at the Skyhomes site (Sky communal dish system for apartments) and I came across this interesting section on Sky FTTH:

http://www.skyhomes.ie/single-dish-system.aspx

Fibre to the Home (FTTH)
Fibre Optic Cables

Recent technological advances at Sky are bringing new options for the provision of Single Dish solutions in apartment and housing developments.

Foremost amongst these advances is Fibre to the Home technology (FTTH) that brings a new level of flexibility to system design. Fibre cabling – a light, inexpensive product – enables vast quantities of data to be carried to each home. Proving a network with huge potential for today and the future.

Anyone know what this is about?

I've never heard of Sky using FTTH and specially not in Ireland (Sky are a LLU ISP in the UK). Perhaps this is an interesting indication of some future Sky products? Perhaps they are going to start wiring apartment buildings like Smart and Magnet do?

byte

Maybe it's something that revolves around using one of those fibre optic LNB's? Dunno if they're for sale yet though.

bk

byte wrote: »

Maybe it's something that revolves around using one of those fibre optic LNB's? Dunno if they're for sale yet though.

Yes that is probably it *, has anyone actually seen one of these systems in the flesh, how exactly do they work?

* However Sky do have their own fibre to LLU exchanges in the UK and are trialling Fibre to the Curb in the UK. It would be great if they were to buy out one of the LLU operators here in Ireland and offer the same great service as in the UK.

watty

No.
It's future broadband in UK.

Sky don't do broadband here. They can't offer the same service here as:
1) LLU is lossmaking here
2) Too many homes fail higher speeds so no advantage to many to LLU over Wholesale eircom (Sky do also use wholesale BT in UK).
3) Wholesale DSL (eircom bitstream) is almost loss making here
4) Too many Irish homes fail DSL compared to UK
5) The biggest Sky market is in NON UPC (no cable) areas, where ironically DSL is least likely to work.

Unless Sky buy eircom I don't expect them to be operating BB here.

bobbbb

I wish anyboy, anybody at all would buy eircom.

bk

watty wrote: »

1) LLU is lossmaking here

At the prices Sky charge in the UK, standalone it has to be loss making there also.

Sky didn't buy into LLU in the UK for it's money making ability, instead they were forced into it for competitive reasons to protect their very profitable sat and content business.

Sky was coming under pressure from Virgin with their very attractive TV + Phone + BB packages on cable and Virgins true VoD system, so Sky decided it had to become an ISP and also offer attractive triple play packages or lose business to Virgin.

Sky also seem to be planing to roll out true VoD to their Sky boxes via their LLU network.

Sky could eventually come under the same pressure in Ireland from UPC (if they can get their act together) and Sky will be forced to buy a LLU operator here, even if it isn't profitable, in order to protect the profitability of their Sat service.

Have you seen the price difference between Sky UK and Ireland, never mind the fat profits Sky UK makes, Sky could easily absorb losses from LLU if it reduces churn and allows for new value add services like VoD and pay per view.

Watty if you read the text on the Sky website, it does seem to be talking about sat distribution system for multi dwelling units. Such fibre based distribution systems certainly exist in the US:
http://www.dawnfiber.com/auto_links/pdf/FSS-95F12T.pdf

watty

LLU easynet in UK gave them 1/3rd coverage. BT wholesale the reast and then they could add more.

There is no such LLU operation here. Magnet is tiny and concentrating now on apartment / new development fibre, but now builds are nearly stopped. Smart is small and big debt. BT and Digiweb LLU is tiny.

Other than buying eircom there is no realistic DSL entry mechanism here. All the rest of the DSL operations are little more than loss making customer databases. The debt of eircom is 4.7Billion. No-one will buy them unless it goes bust and there is a fire-sale.

Such fibre distribution does exist but is far more expensive than coax for the size of buildings we have here. If you add broadband or the building is 2x to 4x bigger than ours AND the fibre sat +BB installed at build time then it's viable.

For existing Irish apartments fibre simply is x5 more expensive. Coax is cheap and simple up to about 1000 outlets and up to about 11 floors. It can actually do Satellite and Cable Broadband at the same time.

Fibre is the future, but only in conjunction with Broadband for the Irish market.

GAAman

bobbbb wrote: »

I wish anyboy, anybody at all would buy eircom.

Having worked sky tech support, trust me when i say you do NOT want sky buying eircom