Will BSkyB buy Magnet, Smart or Digiweb?

damien

http://www.breakingnews.ie/2005/10/16/story225704.html

BSkyB is looking to buy a UK broadband company. I was wondering why it took them so long with Triple-play being the new buzzword and satellite being sh1t for broadband. Says it all when the biggest sat service in the UK is going via LLU for Internet access provision.

No doubt they'll want to do the same for "people of Eire", so who will they buy? Smart, Magnet or Digiweb? Or will Setanta try and get there first now?

steve-hosting36

Interesting, smart would be the logical footprint...

jesus_thats_gre

Easynet could be compared to Smart with regards to aims I suppose. Shame the Irish market cannot really be compared to the British market in terms of LLU.. Will be a while yet..

Sponge Bob

steve-hosting36 wrote:

Interesting, smart would be the logical footprint...

They wont rush to buy Smart off Oisin Fanning !

Easynet is a strong brandname , Smart is most logical on that basis .

SeaSide

I would not exclude BT (Ireland) from the possibilities

jesus_thats_gre

I would.. Gasp, Eircom..

dahamsta

Couldn't see them buying BT either, or BT selling. There's massive growth coming in Ireland and BT is an a good position to take a good portion of it*; the parent company would be silly to sell (and they're not silly). Only a moron would buy Eircom right now, and Murdoch isn't a moron. Smart would be a major gamble, Magnet would need massive investment.

Digiweb is the one I'd buy. Good image, innovative (for Ireland), massive growth potential with relatively low build-out expenses, no dangerous reliane on upstream prodiders, it's got it all. A behemoth like BSkyB could take second position in Ireland with Digiweb easily.

adam

* Course they'd do better if they cleaned up their processes, but do they listen?

SeaSide

BT Ireland's residential play is unique among BT's international ops. This could be taken out by Sky. Leaving the business end for BT to run.

Magnet Smart and Digiweb all have much the same level of risk. Smart would have a small lead in unbundling, Digiweb a small lead in wireless, Magnet I dont know.

Also dont think sky would care much about a customer base as they would have a much bigger one themselves. So they would care about reach - which none of the three have a significant advantage in.

Also you'd have to remember just how small the Irish market looks to these guys.

Blaster99

It's small and painful to operate it.

SeaSide

Blaster99 wrote:

It's small and painful to operate it.

Please seek medical assistance

bk

BT - unlikely, BT:UK has it's own plans to rollout TV services in conjunction with DTT next year.

Sky might not bother buying any company, instead they could just use Easynet experience and brand to start unbundling exchanges in Ireland.

However it is likely that Sky would simply ignore Ireland for a couple of years.
Sky sales to Ireland have always been half hearted, they didn't even have offices in Ireland until recently. We are a very small part of the market to them and are really just spill over, we have always been and will always be underserved by them.

Don't hold your breathe for Sky BB in Ireland.

Solair

There's no way sky would or could buy eircom. There's no match there, eircom's a far larger company than sky would want. Not to mention the regulatory implications any tie up between a murdock company and eircom would create. BSkyB being our largest supplier of Digital tv by a long shot and with the link between BSkyB and Liberty Media / (Chorus/NTL)

BT Ireland's most definitely not for sale. I think that BT UK and BT Ireland have a lot of synergies and the residential operation in ireland makes a LOT of sense to them.

Who knows they could pick up smart or digiweb, but it's kinda unlikely.

Since the unbundling thing here isn't quite as developed as the UK and broadband uptake's in an earlier stage of development sky would be in an ideal position to caplitalise on this market themselves without having to resort to purchasing anyone.

Sky buy easynet in the UK and just roll it out here using Sky's marketing infrastructure and brandname and hundreds of thousands of customers they already have!

dahamsta

Ewww, someone said "synergies". A factory worker just died in South America.

Solair

Well, at least I didn't mention the fact that these synergies have created a new paradyme across multiple geographies!

Management jargon, you gotta love it!/laugh at it proactively.

Sponge Bob

Going Forward ...naturally

crawler

While looking at several new verticals

damien

http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/fogg/archives/011412.html

crawler

From El Reg - £211m for the LLU kids. Bad news for BT I reckon, Sky had a long standing marketing agreement with BT which seems to create a conflict of interest now...

Still - this is a small number of exchanges by UK standards and would have a long way to go to be truely global from a UK population point of view...

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/21/murdoch_easynet/

Should be read with

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/19/wanadoo_llu/

"Snag is, LLU is only economically viable in large towns and cities which means large chunks of the UK are unlikely to benefit from increased competition and instead be forced to rely on wholesale services from incumbent telco BT."

So LLU is certainly some of the answer but not ALL of the answer.

(edit) More interesting reading :-

http://www.nasdaq.com//aspxcontent/newsstory.aspx?selected=NTLI&symbol=NTLI%60&textpath=20051021%5CACQDJON200510210659DOWJONESDJONLINE000546%2Ehtm&cdtime=10%2F21%2F2005+6%3A59AM

only 21,000 customers

damien

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single5574

bk

This is good news for Magnet, they were badly missing the Sky channels from their lineup, now if they can only signup Discovery Network and MTV channels, they will have a lineup to challenge Sky Digital and NTL.

However I don't think this is quiet the same thing as the Easynet purchase, I expect Smart, Digiweb, BT and maybe even Eircom will strike similiar deals with Sky.

The difference with the Esaynet deal is that it is more in support of Sky's satelitte system, with satelitte delivering regular channels and DSL delivering VoD content and interactive services.

SeaSide

One vote each.....

Sunday Times

SKY IRELAND is believed to be in talks with a number of Irish telecom providers to supply its premium sports and movie channels to homes via broadband.

The pay television company is looking to build on a deal signed last week with Magnet Networks, a new Irish company that is offering cable television, telephone and broadband services as a bundled package to homes around the country.

Sky is understood to be in negotiations with several broadband providers here to give householders access to its new Sky by Wire service. This gives access to premium sports stations and four movie channels through a set top box. Prices range from €31.50 a month to €49.50 depending on the package.

BSkyB, the parent of Sky Ireland, agreed to pay £211m (€310m) earlier this month to acquire Easynet, a UK-based broadband internet service provider. This has fuelled speculation that it might either acquire an Irish broadband group or possibly launch a high-speed internet service here through Easynet.

No move, however, is likely in the short term."



Sunday Independent

"Easynet gives Smart hope"
UK broadband business, Easynet, was last week bought by BskyB for £211m. BskyB recently raised funds and hinted at a move into broadband. But the takeover is very important for Smart Telecom, as it illustrates the Irish firm's medium term takeover potential. Similar to Smart, Easynet pursues an unbundling strategy by placing its own equipment in BT's local exchanges.

If BskyB were to pursue a similar strategy in Ireland, Smart Telecom would become an automatic takeover target. "