Sky broadband launches in Ireland

bealtine

Sky Ireland have just announced they'll be launching Phone and Broadband services in Ireland later this year in a deal with BT Ireland.

More details to follow

dahamsta

If BT are as bad as ever, they couldn't have picked a worse partner....

smellslikeshoes

http://corporate.sky.com/media/press_releases/2012/sky_broadband_and_sky_talk_come_to_ireland

bealtine

Of course if it's BT it will only be available in BT's 60 or so exchanges, all the rest will be bitstream.

10 people selling black cars (with no choice of colour) is not really competition much as Comreg/DCENR would like us to believe that it is...

PogMoThoin

I doubt very much if UPC are quivering in their shoes. Are they going offering on demand services?

Dazza

PogMoThoin wrote: »

I doubt very much if UPC are quivering in their shoes. Are they going offering on demand services?

They already do. ?

smellslikeshoes

PogMoThoin wrote: »

I doubt very much if UPC are quivering in their shoes.

I'm not so sure. Obviously Sky's Dsl isn't going to compete with UPC for speed but if they can keep the costs down for the triple play they will definitely hurt them in some situations. If sky were able to provide a basic Tv package with phone and broadband for a similar or lower price than UPC's basic €66 triple play package there is definitely people who would take the sky package over UPC simply because of Sky's TV service.

At the very least this might put a fire under some providers to get costs down.

PogMoThoin

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

At the very least this might put a fire under some providers to get costs down.

But if it doesn't change line rental then there is no difference. Eircom make money on below cost sold bitstream no matter what price it's sold for.

bealtine

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

At the very least this might put a fire under some providers to get costs down.

I can't see this happening as the cost of line rental is set by Comreg and set artificially high so eircom can recoup their costs...so before you get any service on your line you are paying E26+ so there's not a lot of wriggle room

watty

It's just Sky marketing spin to try and stop customers going to UPC. People need to ignore "triple" play and pick & match services.

It adds nothing. BT even gave their entire Retail base to Vodaphone.

Pick each service based on value, availability, your requirements and real performance. Avoid bundled lock-in.

smellslikeshoes

bealtine wrote: »

I can't see this happening as the cost of line rental is set by Comreg and set artificially high so eircom can recoup their costs...so before you get any service on your line you are paying E26+ so there's not a lot of wriggle room

You are right of course there isn't a lot of wiggle room but what are other providers going to do when Sky start doing a basic bundled TV/broadband/phone package for <€60, spread their cheeks and just take it?
It's not real competition as we all know but it can't be a bad thing that a company the size of sky has thought to join the market even if it is for the most part just to head off UPC.

watty wrote: »

It's just Sky marketing spin to try and stop customers going to UPC. People need to ignore "triple" play and pick & match services.

It adds nothing. BT even gave their entire Retail base to Vodaphone.

Pick each service based on value, availability, your requirements and real performance. Avoid bundled lock-in.

I agree with this and I'm sure the majority of people who view this board do too but your average Joe Bloggs who just wants "all da channels" and cheap broadband for the average stuff would sooner go for what seems like a decent triple play deal for the one bill.

bealtine

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

You are right of course there isn't a lot of wiggle room but what are other providers going to do when Sky start doing a basic bundled TV/broadband/phone package for <€60, spread their cheeks and just take it?
It's not real competition as we all know but it can't be a bad thing that a company the size of sky has thought to join the market even if it is for the most part just to head off UPC.

If Sky can do that then fair ball to them or even make a business case for doing it...maybe the business case is simply to head off UPC

The only part of the equation where they can make a few bob is on the LLU part. I can't see where they can make significant savings/reductions on the bitstream part of the equation.

LLU line rental currently costs E12.41 so there's some wriggle room there but the bitstream costs are fixed and exorbitant. Here is a table of current costs for bitstream : http://www.eircomwholesale.ie/News/Bitstream_Price_Cuts/
As you can see the most basic DSL provision costs E21.50.

Now excluding retail minus costings...

so 21.50 + 26 = 47 includes a bit of wholesaler profit
That's about the cheapest that bitstream DSL can be delivered at...and most providers like Voda are only charging E40 (with pathetic caps)
The only real wriggle room is on the cost of the TV package.

Sky must have spotted something we can't see or it's a loss leader

RangeR

bealtine wrote: »

it's a loss leader

On the ball, I'd say.

smellslikeshoes

bealtine wrote: »

If Sky can do that then fair ball to them or even make a business case for doing it...maybe the business case is simply to head off UPC

That's all it is for Sky. There hasn't been any real change in the Irish market that would make Sky want to jump in other than a rampant UPC. Also maybe I haven't seen it but have they actually said that they are going to go down the bitstream road? All I've seen is their tie up with BT and their LLU exchanges.

bealtine wrote: »

Sky must have spotted something we can't see or it's a loss leader

The conspiracy theorist in me is half expecting a cut of line rental to be announced in the next while :pac:


Also just so we are clear that <€60 figure I mentioned above is complete speculation. Nothing at all to think it will be that low other than it will be barely worth their while getting the boat over unless they are able to compete with UPC for price.

bealtine

smellslikeshoes wrote: »

The conspiracy theorist in me is half expecting a cut of line rental to be announced in the next while :pac:

Not a hope in hell of that:)

unless they are able to compete with UPC for price.

Well eircom's definition of "competition" isn't the same one used by the rest of the world, for instance to compete with UPC they charge E20 extra for a lesser service. see : http://www.eircom.net/broadband/fibre/
E50 a month for 25Mbs hardly competes with UPC in any meaningful way.
Maybe this is the same route as Sky will take?

Maybe Sky are reading the playbook of eircom? I sure as hell don't forsee an outbreak of any form of competition maybe just a lot more status quo:)

watty

The only part of the equation where they can make a few bob is on the LLU part. I can't see where they can make significant savings/reductions on the bitstream part of the equation.

NO, not even on LLU! The part where they make money is the Pay TV. They will lose money or at best break even on the Broadband. Which will be an AVERAGE of 3Mbps to 4Mbps (very few will get more than 8Mbps). UPC average is heading towards 20Mbps.

bealtine

watty wrote: »

NO, not even on LLU! The part where they make money is the Pay TV. They will lose money or at best break even on the Broadband. Which will be an AVERAGE of 3Mbps to 4Mbps (very few will get more than 8Mbps). UPC average is heading towards 20Mbps.

You think there's no coin to be made even on LLU, that is sad. There's no hope for DSL in this country...eircom have rightly screwed up the fibre pricing too so there's not a lot of hope there

The entry level broadband from UPC is now 25Mbs so the average must be higher than that

watty

bealtine wrote: »

The entry level broadband from UPC is now 25Mbs so the average must be higher than that

That's for new customers in upgraded areas. I don't think every area is upgraded. But you are right, the UPC average will likely jump to 30, 40 and then maybe 50Mbps or so and DSL is stuck at 3Mbps to 5Mbps average.

We need a national FTTC/FTTK plan with a good dose of FTTH/FTTP and some quality fixed Wireless and ZERO Mobile/LTE/Satellite in the plan.

My faith will only be restored if there are prosecutions over the mis-sold NBS.

jmcc

Pay as you go PPV via broadband? Netflix may be a problem as it is changing the operation of the pay television model to an on-demand model.

Regards...jmcc

bealtine

A further piece of news on this:

http://siliconrepublic.com/comms/item/28793-bt-to-trial-80mbps-fibre/

dahamsta

It's Genesis Europe all over again.

bealtine

dahamsta wrote: »

It's Genesis Europe all over again.

My god there's a memory from the distant past:)

I think BT have deeper pockets than Genesis or eircom so they should be able to see it through, but of course it will only be urban areas

Matt_ie

Hi, i just stumbled across this thread while searching out info on the new Sky broadband/telephone service. I'm currently with UPC and had a Sky rep trying to pre-sell me the new Sky all in one package today. I've been pretty happy with the UPC service quality in general and would never consider going back to an old 'telephone line' connection via the old eircom wires which I personally feel is outdated and totally sub standard in 2012. I said this to the Sky rep and they claimed that the new TV, broadband & telephone service will all be delivered via the satellite dish to the modem? Does anybody know if this is true? They claimed I could get a better digital TV package, 30mb broadband and telephone for 55euro per month (with 2x free digi boxes) if I sign up - I'm currently paying 75euro plus to UPC (digital TV with 2x boxes and no premium subscriptions) They also claimed UPC is actually increasing prices soon so this looks like a no-brainer if it's true... but is it true??? anyone know more???

wandatowell

bealtine wrote: »

My god there's a memory from the distant past:)

I think BT have deeper pockets than Genesis or eircom so they should be able to see it through, but of course it will only be urban areas

So just Dublin so while the rest of us have to wait years for a service

bealtine

Matt_ie wrote: »

I said this to the Sky rep and they claimed that the new TV, broadband & telephone service will all be delivered via the satellite dish to the modem?

Sounds like pure bs to me.

Anyway you'd be utterly crazy to go from UPC broadband to satellite "midband" which under no possible circumstances could possibly be called broadband

Matt_ie

bealtine wrote: »

Sounds like pure bs to me.

Anyway you'd be utterly crazy to go from UPC broadband to satellite "midband" which under no possible circumstances could possibly be called broadband

Yes, I'm kinda skeptical... but what about the claim that they can supply "broadband" @30mb (and higher if you want it btw) via the satellite dish - is this technically possible? The price seems too good to be true (would save me about 25euro a month!) but I've had it over the years with crappy broadband via ancient eircom wires and contention ratios slowing my internet down to a crawl etc. The Sky rep claimed I won't be using the old landline connection - I don't even know if that works anymore anyway as I've only moved in recently. So it's all down to whether this is pure BS or whether you can actually get 30mb BB via a satellite dish??? Would welcome any comments from anyone who really knows about this kinda stuff!

PogMoThoin

Matt_ie wrote: »

Yes, I'm kinda skeptical... but what about the claim that they can supply "broadband" @30mb (and higher if you want it btw) via the satellite dish - is this technically possible? The price seems too good to be true (would save me about 25euro a month!) but I've had it over the years with crappy broadband via ancient eircom wires and contention ratios slowing my internet down to a crawl etc. The Sky rep claimed I won't be using the old landline connection - I don't even know if that works anymore anyway as I've only moved in recently. So it's all down to whether this is pure BS or whether you can actually get 30mb BB via a satellite dish??? Would welcome any comments from anyone who really knows about this kinda stuff!

You cannot get real broadband from a satellite, end of.

It's a physics thing, it's a 45,000 mile round trip. You can't make radio waves move any faster. The ping times on satellite (time it takes a packet to get to the satellite and back to earth) are huge, over 700ms, this makes it unsuitable for anything in realtime like gaming, Vpn or VoIP (Skype). Compare that to about 30ms average on Dsl (Eircom) and even less on cable like UPC. It's just too far away to deliver anything other than optimised browsing (it's not even great at that but they use some smoke and mirrors tricks).

bealtine

Matt_ie wrote: »

Yes, I'm kinda skeptical... but what about the claim that they can supply "broadband" @30mb (and higher if you want it btw) via the satellite dish - is this technically possible?

You cannot get anything like broadband from a satellite (like I said already) and asking again won't change that
The TV service doesn't require "realtime" performance so is fine delivered by satellite...

I suggest you have a look at the IrelandOffline website
www.irelandoffline.org where a number of the more technical people from this group have analysed this issue.

If you want to have fun ask the rep to give you guarantees for all the various claims in writing...on Sky headed paper

Mr. TTime

I had a sky rep knock on my door last week (we are already Sky subscribers) and she said the same thing to me: 20 -25 meg broadband coming through the dish...currently we get 2mb from Smart on our landline so obviously our heads would be turned...but if people are saying this isn't possible then why are Sky insisting that this is what they are intending to do?

Is it a case of "say anything to secure the sale"? - probably...

RangeR

Mr. TTime wrote: »

I had a sky rep knock on my door last week (we are already Sky subscribers) and she said the same thing to me: 20 -25 meg broadband coming through the dish...currently we get 2mb from Smart on our landline so obviously our heads would be turned...but if people are saying this isn't possible then why are Sky insisting that this is what they are intending to do?

Is it a case of "say anything to secure the sale"? - probably...

While it's possible that the speeds are obtainable [for how many customers is questionable], but it's not broadband for all the same reasons mentioned on Friday.

My feeling is that Sky are intending to provide over BT [LLU] copper [maybe bitstream for the rest] but the door to door sales agents have no idea and just assume that because TV is coming through the dish, so will the "broadband".

Solair

Matt_ie wrote: »

Hi, i just stumbled across this thread while searching out info on the new Sky broadband/telephone service. I'm currently with UPC and had a Sky rep trying to pre-sell me the new Sky all in one package today. I've been pretty happy with the UPC service quality in general and would never consider going back to an old 'telephone line' connection via the old eircom wires which I personally feel is outdated and totally sub standard in 2012. I said this to the Sky rep and they claimed that the new TV, broadband & telephone service will all be delivered via the satellite dish to the modem? Does anybody know if this is true?

I can 100% assure you that what you have been told is complete and utter nonsense.

They really need to get their reps under control. Going around spinning utter rubbish like that to customers is not helpful to their sales, to Sky or to their potential customers.

Sky are using BT Ireland Wholesale to provide their service. It will be delivered as DSL "up to 24 mbit/s" if you are in an area with BT LLU or in other areas using eircom's wholesale access products where they are either up to 24 mbit/s, or if you're unfortunate enough to live in an area that eircom don't think is worth upgrading, 8mbit/s or no service at all.
Service will be delivered over your telephone line, just like any DSL product.

Sky could opt to connect some customers to eircom or BT Ireland's fibre access products when they become available. So far they're not available in very many places.

However, it is absolutely, definitely not being provided over your satellite dish!

bealtine

To all those who are being seduced by the bs of door to door salesmen and their rather unrealistic sales patter about broadband coming through the satellite, please read this piece on the IoffL website:

http://irelandoffline.org/2011/09/satellite-is-not-really-broadband/

Matt_ie

... further to my earlier post re the nice Sky Rep ... I came across another thread here >>

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=80246834

...so could this perhaps be what the Rep is trying to pre-sell to me? Maybe it's not via the satellite dish at all... I'm in Dublin 11 area and she did say the "all in one" product won't be rolled out for a few months but I can book it now in advance for 25euro. Does this make more sense to anyone?

bealtine

Matt_ie wrote: »

...


...so could this perhaps be what the Rep is trying to pre-sell to me?

Why would anybody try to sell you a product that doesn't exist yet, that's just sharp practice. The BT thing is just a trial to see if the process works and to see how much Comreg mess the whole thing up, if past experience is anything to go by Comreg will make a complete and utter mess of the whole thing so it will never happen, just like the LLU fiasco that Comreg presided over...

So in my opinion no is the answer

VictorRomeo

bealtine wrote: »

To all those who are being seduced by the bs of door to door salesmen and their rather unrealistic sales patter about broadband coming through the satellite, please read this piece on the IoffL website:

http://irelandoffline.org/2011/09/satellite-is-not-really-broadband/[/QUOTE]

As someone who has in the past implemented internet access via satellite using VSAT and BGAN, I'd like to support this point. Satellite is great for delivering internet access to places where wires and other supporting infrastructure won't reach - like an oil rig, a ship on the ocean or a mine in the middle of Africa. It's basic and if you want anything approaching a couple of meg up and down uncontended, it costs a fortune. You can't avoid the latency though making it almost impossible for gaming, reliable streaming and ip communications.

Matt_ie

thanks guys for the comments regarding the Sky 'satellite broadband' idea... the content is noted!!! However I'm curious to know if this was perhaps just one ill informed Sky rep or if others are trying this pitch elsewhere? It appears that I may not be the only one to be given this BS line? As I said I was skeptical from the start which is why I came looking for answers... but I don't doubt there are probably some even less technically minded UPC customers who might fall for this pitch... as they pretty much tried to convince me that this new Sky service (incl. broadband) was as good or better than my current UPC service and at a much cheaper price. So should this type of selling even be allowed???

Solair

Unless it's fibre-to-home, it's not as good as UPC.
Even VDSL (fibre-to-kerb) isn't anywhere near UPC's top package.

EuroDOCSIS 3.0 systems like UPC's can deliver well beyond 100mbit/s too with a bit of tweaking and if they need to keep ahead of the competition.

Fair enough if they want to say it's cheap, cheerful, comes with lots of free stuff, but unless they're putting a fibre into your house, it's not better than a EuroDOCSIS 3.0 hybrid fibre-coax network like UPC or CableSurf down in Dungarvan.

http://www.cablesurf.com/

120mbit/s for 59 quid a month !!

aindriu80

I am currently with Eircom and Sky at the moment at was reading about Sky coming to market via BT. There has been so much hassle with LLU I was wondering what other companies could offer price and speed wise with the current state of affairs.

In the UK Sky has 3 packages each with the minimum Sky Line Rental (£14.50 a month). There is Sky Broadband Lite 2GB monthly usage allowance Free. Sky Broadband Unlimited £7.50. Sky Fibre Unlimited £20. I can't get the speeds?

I was just wondering what can we expect from Sky ? I understand we still have the worlds most expensive line rental at €25.74. But if we got Sky Broadband Unlimited (at 8mb like what I get with Eircom) at anything close to the £7.50 it would work out €20 cheaper per month. I would move if possible ( i joined Eircom back in June)

Solair

LLU prices were dropped pretty dramatically a while back.

Smart Telecom has been showing what can be done there ..

€29.99/month for 24mbit/s (including line rental and only in LLU areas) with a 350GB/month cap (and you can purchase reasonably priced upgrades to that)

There probably isn't all that much advantage to selling customers slower speeds as they've serious backhaul capacity in their LLU areas, so just offer DSL maxed out makes as much sense as tiering it.

Sky could probably do something similar, or below-cost sell it bundled with TV.

Sky's service will be provided over BT Ireland's wholesale infrastructure i.e. LLU where BT have unbundled and Eircom Wholesale where it's not. BT will be providing the backhaul and managing the technical implementation of the product, but all the branding, support and product design will be at sky's end.

BT Ireland claim to have LLU access to something like 1.1 million lines at this stage, that's a LOT of exchanges where they already have their own equipment. So, it's clearly becoming worthwhile.

aindriu80

€29.99 month is quite good but the only thing is the lack of unbundling of exchanges. I don't think Smart is in my area.

If Sky can do anything better than €52.00/month for 8mb unlimited it would do wonders for broadband in Ireland as it would be proper competition. It wouldn't be hard tbh.

I just wonder when you can drop out of an Eircom contract if Sky come up with a decent range of broadband products. Any idea when Sky will be ready ?

watty

Smart doesn't exist. Hasn't for some while. Their pricing model was to get customer base, they never made money and in the end Digiweb got any assets they had after the shutters went up. I think their strategy was to get bought like Esat.

BT obviously wasn't that optimistic as they dumped almost all their retail business on Vodafone.

Sky is in it just to compete with UPC on Pay TV. So if you have Pay TV (which is overpriced and people spend 92% of their time watching the free channels and the market is saturated) you'll get DSL at cost or a slight loss for Sky. This thus adds nothing of value for the ordinary potential Broadband user as it's adding no infrastructure and deals only for Pay TV customers. That market is at Saturation. Sky can only hope to stop losing customers to UPC.

But if you want Video on Demand and better than on average 4Mbps, and only 10% get more than 8Mbps on DSL, then UPC offers real VOD and 30Mbps to 50Mbps ENTRY level.
If you only want basic pay TV better to have Sky just for TV (as you still get UK TV if you cancel) and UPC if available for BB. If you cancel UPC TV you get basically no TV (maybe some poor quality analogue channels that are perfect on Aerial or Dish for free).

FTA Satellite gives 45+ decent channels and an Aerial gives about six and a half digital channels (RTE2 part time HD, TV3 and TG4 HD later).

So this is "forced" on Sky. It's no biggie for the Irish Consumer. It will be a pointless product unless you have Sky Pay TV, which costs now €33 a month, and 92% of the viewing is available free without a sub. The Advertising is very weasely.

Don't forget that 24Mbps DSL is on average 4Mbps, and only about 10% get more than 8Mbps on DSL due to line length and crosstalk

Solair

Well, they might be for a lot of areas as BT's LLU rollout is much wider than Smart.

http://www.digitaltimes.ie/business-and-technology/bt-ireland-cashes-in-as-demand-for-high-speed-broadband-increases/

Bear in mind though that the largest 60 exchanges or so also represent most of the lines Ireland i.e. all the urban and suburban areas in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford and some major towns.

So, if you're in a rural area or on a very small exchange or just one that BT haven't reached, you would be stuck on eircom wholesale.

That being said, the competition may force eircom's prices down. They're not really going to be able to keep charging those rates and compete with UPC, Sky and Vodafone as well as Smart and the FWA players some of which are improving rapidly.

aindriu80

well as far as i know UPC is only around Dublin. I would love to get rid of Eircom and stick with with 1 company for tv and internet as it is bound to work out cheaper.

I didn't know what the 24mbps DSL speeds was like but I have 8mb with Eircom and it is fine for gaming and downloads even if it comes in . I don't need a faster connection as i just dont have the time to watch any more tv. I wonder what sky can come up with. It could be like 1mb or something.

Putting something like Sky Pay TV along with it is just annoying. It has to be competitive but not identical to Eircom

Solair

aindriu80 wrote: »

well as far as i know UPC is only around Dublin.

UPC is Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, and quite a lot of major towns too.

Their map from 2009 - obviously it may have improved since then.

All Irish cities have been cabled for decades, as have a lot of the towns on that map.

If you've a UPC-related question : UPC Boards.ie Forum is probably the best place to ask about service availability.

As for Sky broadband, if you're struggling to get DSL with eircom, Vodafone etc, then it's unlikely to be technologically any different. The price might be better though.

watty wrote: »

Smart doesn't exist. Hasn't for some while. Their pricing model was to get customer base, they never made money and in the end Digiweb got any assets they had after the shutters went up. I think their strategy was to get bought like Esat.

Well, the company disappeared, but the brand most definitely still exists. Digiweb market LLU (Unbundled) DSL as Smart and wholesale/bitstream (over eircom's network) products as Digiweb DSL.

Their DSL LLU product is here : http://www.smarttelecom.ie/index.aspx

For whatever reason, they never integrated the brand or the LLU products into Digiweb. Even the invoices are Smart Telecom branded.

RangeR

Solair wrote: »

For whatever reason, they never integrated the brand or the LLU products into Digiweb. Even the invoices are Smart Telecom branded.

Most [All?] of their good guys left after the take over. Harmony is never there after a take over.

aindriu80

Solair wrote: »

As for Sky broadband, if you're struggling to get DSL with eircom, Vodafone etc, then it's unlikely to be technologically any different. The price might be better though.

The Eircom line I have is fine. Its the price that I think is high. I am on the 8mb no cap and get the following which I'm happy with :



I was checking out the Sky UK website and if I got similar speeds to what I have now for the price they pay I would be a lot happier. Sky should be able to match the speed reliability and price with BT, its not that fast

dahamsta

Woeful upload there, yikes!

aindriu80

I know but I am mostly downloading and I rarely notice it

leeomurchu

http://www.speedtest.net/result/2191049796.png

Eircoms broadband is pants why am I with them again :eek:

aindriu80

my contract with Eircom is up but I have not heard from Sky after registering. They said they would have a broadband product by year end, its September and they should be at least be posting likely speeds/price

bealtine

aindriu80 wrote: »

my contract with Eircom is up but I have not heard from Sky after registering. They said they would have a broadband product by year end, its September and they should be at least be posting likely speeds/price

Be patient and expect nothing more than you already have...from a broadband perspective anyway