Sky On-Demand (formerly Anytime) [Merged]

greendom

If Sky had really been interested in offering a residential broadband/landline business in Ireland they would have bought BT's business when they sold it; instead they left it to Vodafone.

watty

It wasn't big enough. Also that deal involved Vodafone using BT installed Links and BT/CIE fibre for Mobile Base backhaul.

BT's LLU wasn't large enough, it was not much more than they got buying ESAT. Most of the BT customers Vodafone got are actually on Eircom Bitstream.

watty

zerks wrote: »

Don't think speeds would be a major issue if the VOD content is downloaded to the box first instead of streaming it.

True. That's the principle of the Over the Air service, which is 10,000 cheaper.

zerks wrote: »

I know a lot of people using dongles which are worse than useless but persist with them because they have the "ah sure it's only €20 a month" mentality.
Maybe if Sky offered a cheap alternative they'd take it,even 1mb on a stable line would be better than the rubbish a dongle gives.

There is bit here on why 1Mbps DSL beats Mobile
http://www.techtir.ie/comms/mobile-vs-fixed

With 30 GBytes
DSL including a Line in reality costs less than 1/2 as much as Mobile to deliver. An entry level DSL package SHOULD be about €12 including line rental. Instead line rental before you get anything costs more than Mobile.

Note that a 10 Gbyte €20 Mobile data package costs operator x150 to x 350 more than a 1hr voice package at €20 a month mobile.

So the Market is seriously distorted by Eircom's Debt and Mobile cross subsidy of Data by voice & SMS(SMS costs nothing)

greendom

watty wrote: »

It wasn't big enough. Also that deal involved Vodafone using BT installed Links and BT/CIE fibre for Mobile Base backhaul.

BT's LLU wasn't large enough, it was not much more than they got buying ESAT. Most of the BT customers Vodafone got are actually on Eircom Bitstream.

Still would have been a good foothold for them. A decent entry point to the market

mike2084

watty wrote: »

Also if Eircom goes bust (not unlikely) then Sky could buy the infrastructure at a firesale price cheaper than any deal with existing Debt ridden Eircom in the longer term. Sky does think of the medium and long term. Hence essentially "free" installs and boxes (thay YOU own from day 1 unlike UPC)

I'd say that if eircom goes under it would have to look very tempting for Sky to move in alright

mike2084

Lot of talk about this over on DS- tomorrow could be a soft launch day in UK

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showpost.php?p=57201527&postcount=137

Minstrel27

Any news of an Irish launch?

MBSnr

Minstrel27 wrote: »

Any news of an Irish launch?

I logged in to the Sky website and saw that they'd changed the website so that Sky BB was no longer a requirement. I clicked Activate and got a message saying I was in the ROI and I would be redirected to the Irish site. Once there no Anytime + option...

p.oconnor

Seems that sky are activating the service across the UK according to the lads on DS, Il send sky an email and ask about us in the republic.

homelink

p.oconnor wrote: »

Seems that sky are activating the service across the UK according to the lads on DS, Il send sky an email and ask about us in the republic.

Looks like we are going to have a long wait (once again) before we can access it here. I contacted C.S. & have been fobbed off with lack of postcodes as a reason from 1 operator & then no permission from Irish service providers from another so called customer support member. (Should be call mis-information centre):mad::mad::mad::mad:

p.oconnor

homelink wrote: »

Looks like we are going to have a long wait (once again) before we can access it here. I contacted C.S. & have been fobbed off with lack of postcodes as a reason from 1 operator & then no permission from Irish service providers from another so called customer support member. (Should be call mis-information centre):mad::mad::mad::mad:

You would be wondering why they would need permission from Irish service providers, isnt it just downloading a legal file over the internet?, I thought that was the service we are paying the service providers for!

Always seems like sky and the likes tend to push Irish subscribers to the back of the room, there pricing structure for Ireland is disgracefull when compared with what is available to customers in the UK.

MBSnr

I can only 'hope' that enabling it in Ireland is a simple step and that they have decided just to do the UK first. I read that the UK won't have BBC iplayer initially anyhow, so I can't see that being a stumbling block to it going live here.

Hopefully now that Netflix have a presence here, Sky might just move things along a little quicker. Wishful thinking? Maybe.

EDIT: Thinking about it, I bet downloading/streaming internet rights issues are going to crop up as per BBC iplayer. ITV player already looks to be on it in the UK so they'll have to edit the way it displays for ROI. If of course we ever get it....
Screenshot Anytime+

vampyre

I was told by an Irish CS person that an issue is the various fair use policies ie download limits the Irish ISPs have. They're relatively small and even if they're not invoked they can't be ignored by Sky. Ironically my ISP doesn't have a d/l limit.
I didn't post this at the time since sky and reliable information seem mutually exclusive a lot of the time.

homelink

MBSnr wrote: »

I can only 'hope' that enabling it in Ireland is a simple step and that they have decided just to do the UK first. I read that the UK won't have BBC iplayer initially anyhow, so I can't see that being a stumbling block to it going live here.

Hopefully now that Netflix have a presence here, Sky might just move things along a little quicker. Wishful thinking? Maybe.

EDIT: Thinking about it, I bet downloading/streaming internet rights issues are going to crop up as per BBC iplayer. ITV player already looks to be on it in the UK so they'll have to edit the way it displays for ROI. If of course we ever get it....
Screenshot Anytime+

The thing is they don't seem to have any rights issues with Sky Go. I understand that there will be issues with the various English terrestrial on-line players but surely Sky must have taken this into account before now. Don't forget anytime+ is up & running to Sky broadband customers for at least a year now, so it's not new technology.
I thought Sky cares :P:P:P

p.oconnor

From sky...

"There will be an update on Anytime+ coming soon, but nothing to update on today."

Hopefully plans are in an advanced stage and they will get RTE, TV3 , TG4 and Setanta all involved and provide a proper service that befits the rest of the service

mike2084

Doesn't look good for Ireland and anytime+

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Republic-of-Ireland/anytime/m-p/349625#M1307

However, the twitter Sky support still think it hasn't been rolled out to non-Sky UK ISP's so there may be hope yet.

As regards download caps eircom are increasing mine and my employer's download cap to 250GB a month so that should be a help if it's wide scale.

Minstrel27

vampyre wrote: »

I was told by an Irish CS person that an issue is the various fair use policies ie download limits the Irish ISPs have. They're relatively small and even if they're not invoked they can't be ignored by Sky. Ironically my ISP doesn't have a d/l limit.
I didn't post this at the time since sky and reliable information seem mutually exclusive a lot of the time.

What bollocks they told you. UK ISP's have download limits too. Like you I also have no cap.

MBSnr

homelink wrote: »

The thing is they don't seem to have any rights issues with Sky Go. I understand that there will be issues with the various English terrestrial on-line players but surely Sky must have taken this into account before now. Don't forget anytime+ is up & running to Sky broadband customers for at least a year now, so it's not new technology.
I thought Sky cares :P:P:P

Oh Sky care alright... just not about us!

I'd forgotten about Sky Go. So being 'optimistic' perhaps we'll get it at some point, as I can't imagine it's that big a job to have two separate front ends on the box for Anytime+ based on your sub card being UK or ROI. But then having said that, when I'm logged in to the Sky Go website I'm offered content from the BBC that I can't watch.... Genius. If they can't get that right....

dino7

I wouldn't be surprised if they're holding back on Sky Anytime+ for ROI in order to coincide with launching a telephone + BB package. They could tie access to Anytime+ to those using their broadband service like they did in the UK.

The significant technical issue with Anytime+ for ROI is managing a separate catalogue and also a euro charging structure for Sky Store (Anytime+ Box Office).

homelink

dino7 wrote: »

I wouldn't be surprised if they're holding back on Sky Anytime+ for ROI in order to coincide with launching a telephone + BB package. They could tie access to Anytime+ to those using their broadband service like they did in the UK.

The significant technical issue with Anytime+ for ROI is managing a separate catalogue and also a euro charging structure for Sky Store (Anytime+ Box Office).

I think you're spot on regarding the hold back.
As for the technical issue, they have only had over a year to sort it out for Ireland. Sky cares, don't ya know.:D:D:D

MBSnr

You might be right on that then. I know Vodafone have been ringing around all their out of contract Home DSL users (me included) in an attempt to sign everyone up for another 12 months. I was wondering why they were keen to get people to commit to 12 months even at a lower price. Perhaps they anticipate Sky's entry into the Telephone and BB market here and want to limit mass migration.

muffler

A Sky rep phoned me a few weeks ago (making me an offer to stay) and when I had him on the phone I asked him if Sky were going to be providing BB any time in the near future. He said that it was anticipated that it would be up and running before the end the year but then proceeded to say something like "ah sure you know how these things go at times. They never work out according to plan"

homelink

From Sky
We’re investigating ways to extend content rights and Sky Anytime+ access to ROI-no more announcements to make at this time.

Content rights for what???

MBSnr

homelink wrote: »

From Sky
We’re investigating ways to extend content rights and Sky Anytime+ access to ROI-no more announcements to make at this time.

Content rights for what???

At a guess maybe Dave and Watch? I've the base standard Entertainment Package and fairly sure I have these at 109 and 111 on the EPG, but both of these are not available on Sky Go either. (Although they appear -along with ITV - on the UK Anytime+ screenshots). Maybe someone can confirm the above?

mike2084

homelink wrote: »

From Sky
We’re investigating ways to extend content rights and Sky Anytime+ access to ROI-no more announcements to make at this time.

Content rights for what???

Link to above statement http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Republic-of-Ireland/anytime/m-p/356157#M1331

If enough of us enquire with them we might get them to work on it.

homelink

Reply from email sent to Jeremy Darroch Sky's CEO

Dear Mr


Sky Customer Account Number:


Thank you for your e-mail addressed to Mr Darroch regarding the provision of Sky Anytime+ in the ROI. This has been forwarded to me to respond on his behalf. Please accept my apologies for the delay in responding to your query.


At present Sky does not have any concrete plans on the provision of Sky Anytime+ in Ireland. Ireland's network for phone and broadband is different to that of the UK and we are investigating and collaborating with telecommunication providers in ROI to see if this is feasible for us to provide the service. All I can advise at this moment in time is that we are continually investigating on ways to extend content rights and Sky Anytime+ access to the ROI and expand our services in phone and broadband provision but at this moment in time we have no further announcements.


Kind regards

---

Service Excellence Consultant

Executive Support - BSKYB

Now can anyone tell me what the difference is between a U.K. dsl/cable broadband network & Eircom/UPC ? (I think I already know the answer )

MBSnr

No difference as you know.... I mean it's not like Netflix said 'Sorry Ireland, it's UK only....'

Quite why they mentioned phone for an internet based product is strange. I can only guess (as mentioned by other posts) that Sky are planning to provide Anytime+ tied into their Sky BB offering once/if they get established over here. (As they did in the UK). They'll probably use it as a marketing ploy to try and get a percentage of Sky subscribers with DSL to move over.

At the end of the day it's a minor value added free service but it is annoying that we aren't getting it yet.

The fact that there doesn't seem on the face of it an actual reason not to open it up, as per Sky Go, makes me feel that Sky Irish customers are getting a 2nd class service again.

homelink

I fully agree.
No problem with netflix. No content rights issues with Sky GO. You can subscribe to Sky using a SKY Go monthly ticket without any rights issues or problems with our turf fuelled broadband network.


So the only reason left is that they are just blocking the service to provide it at some later date with Sky broadband & phone.

Minstrel27

homelink wrote: »

At present Sky does not have any concrete plans on the provision of Sky Anytime+ in Ireland. Ireland's network for phone and broadband is different to that of the UK

My broadband is different how? It's faster?

As mentiond already, this is no doubt being held off for Sky Broadband

bk

Well one difference that Sky would need to make is connect into INEX (Irish Network Exchange) and setup peering agreements with all the Irish ISP's, in order to keep the peering costs low.

I'm sure neither UPC or Eircom (with their own IPTV plans) are going to rush to help Sky with this.

However I'm sure Sky will start offering it by the end of the year, as by then UPC will likely have launched their new fancy Horizon box and their own Video On Demand and catch up TV services.

Sky won't want to leave UPC get too far ahead of them.