Sky dishes may cost 60% more here

LegacyUser

Just in case ye did not know this already. Taken from Ireland.com......

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2001/0718/fin2.htm

Irish customers who subscribe to digital television with British group Sky face an increase of up to 60 per cent in the cost of installing satellite dishes.

Installation fees will rise to either £60 (euro 76) or £80, depending on the type of programme package chosen by a customer. This is up from a standard £50 fee charged prior to July.

In addition, customers face a £288 penalty charge if they do not stay with Sky for at least 12 months. This charge would cover the cost of equipment subsidised by the firm.

A spokesman for Sky said yesterday the increases were to cover the cost of developing and introducing digital television services in the UK and Ireland.

It is expected Sky will turn off its older analogue service completely in the Republic within the next month to encourage the uptake of digital TV.

Mr Willie Fagan, director of regulatory affairs at Chorus, said yesterday Sky's price increases underlined the need to introduce parity of regulation for Irish-based cable firms.

Because Sky is not regulated by the Irish telecoms regulator, Ms Etain Doyle, the firm can introduce price increases in the Republic without consulting her.

However, both NTL and Chorus cannot increase prices without gaining the sanction of Ms Doyle.

Although Chorus applied for a price increase many months ago, it has not yet persuaded Ms Doyle to sanction the rise. NTL applied for an increase just a few weeks ago.

"We wouldn't be looking to have Sky regulated as we are but rather an even approach to regulation," said Mr Fagan.

Irish customers who subscribe to digital television with British group Sky face an increase of up to 60 per cent in the cost of installing satellite dishes.

Installation fees will rise to either £60 (euro 76) or £80, depending on the type of programme package chosen by a customer. This is up from a standard £50 fee charged prior to July.

In addition, customers face a £288 penalty charge if they do not stay with Sky for at least 12 months. This charge would cover the cost of equipment subsidised by the firm.

A spokesman for Sky said yesterday the increases were to cover the cost of developing and introducing digital television services in the UK and Ireland.

It is expected Sky will turn off its older analogue service completely in the Republic within the next month to encourage the uptake of digital TV.

Mr Willie Fagan, director of regulatory affairs at Chorus, said yesterday Sky's price increases underlined the need to introduce parity of regulation for Irish-based cable firms.

Because Sky is not regulated by the Irish telecoms regulator, Ms Etain Doyle, the firm can introduce price increases in the Republic without consulting her.

However, both NTL and Chorus cannot increase prices without gaining the sanction of Ms Doyle.

Although Chorus applied for a price increase many months ago, it has not yet persuaded Ms Doyle to sanction the rise. NTL applied for an increase just a few weeks ago.

"We wouldn't be looking to have Sky regulated as we are but rather an even approach to regulation," said Mr Fagan.

icdg

Its' true, we reported on it in ICDG over two weeks ago (5th July IIRC). Surprised it took the Times this long to pick it up. Also that Chorus' friends at Independent didn't run with the story either.

However the UK also got an increase, from £40 to £70 (£50 for World subscribers).

Also this only applies to customers buying their dishs since 2nd July, so existing customers needn't worry about an increase. Yet...

LegacyUser

Your report is 16 days late as Ronan points out!! It is the first time I heard about the penalty charge though. I never heard how much it was before. It is still a good deal in my opinion. £80 for a £300 digibox plus having it installed isn't bad. What is the digital alternative offered by Chorus or ntl:? Is there one yet? Even if there is, I still can't avail of any digital service except Dsat. I am out of range of MMDS, the town isn't cabled. Another thing that bothers me is that currently RTÉ is VHF whereas TV3 & TG4 are both UHF. RTÉ signals are perfect, being VHF but TV3 needs a masthead amplifier to make it perfect. What I'm wondering is when DTT comes out, is an amplified signal suitable? Of course, if not, I can always get a higher gain aerial!

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WILL D

LegacyUser

I really don't understand why such a fuss is being made of this, the Sky offer was never advertised as something that would last forever, they always intended to increase fees down the line. But what really annoys me is to hear Chorus and NTL constantly moan about everything, especially seeing as neither of them seems to have researched the costs of the networks they intended to implement, and now that they have realised that they can't fund them work appears to have stopped and plans have been scaled back.

They appear to be asking for money to keep their operations running, I've seen the Sky service improve in the last few months where as anyone I know with Chorus or NTL seem to have increasing problems with picture quality and even loss of service (seems to affect different areas)..........I'll actually be very happy with the Sky service if they add the full range of interactive services to their Irish setup, whereas I don't see NTL's digital launch being anything great......though I wouldn't mind if they proved me wrong......

does anybody else think that the license fee should be taken away from RTE completely ?
I don't mean take away their funding, but I think that in this day and age, and with more options available people shouldn't have to pay a TV license just to fund a badly run company. I reckon we should all pay a substantially lower TV license and then be allowed go with our carrier of choice, and the govt. should fund RTE in another way ......

LegacyUser

about the RTÉ thing, let them keep RTÉ1, privatise Network 2 and get rid of ****e like Fair City to make a decent home grown programme which they dont seem to be able to do