Sky

STaN

Do BSkyb have cable customers in the republic? I read somewhere that they have over 300,000

Tom

I think the 300,000 refers to Sky Digital Satellite Subscribers. NTL and Chrous are the only cable operators in Ireland.

STaN

I duno, i read it somewhere that they had xyz amount of cable customers and 70,000 statellite customers *shrug*

Maybe it was including northern ireland

DMC

BSkyB are not a cable operator, anywhere.

Of course Sky One and Sky Sports channels are available on cable systems, but the dont run any cable network, they are purely a satellite company.

300,000 is at the top end of figures for their customer base in Ireland, all satellite subscribers.

watty

RTE thinks that Satellite is Cable Tv that just happens to not have wires, like MMDS.

Cable/MMDS: The NTL/CaseyVision/Chorus owns the box. There are no free channels. If you cancel you have nothing.

Satellite (SKy-BSkyB or whoever). The viewer owns the box, dish, LNB etc. If you cancel (There may be an initial minimum 1 year or else a penalty payment, otherwise 1 mnth notice), you still get 100s of free TV and Radio channels. You own the system and can point it at whatever Satellite you want. "Sky" Satellite source has many channels nothing to do with BSkyB. About 70 free TV and 60 Free Radio. Moving the dish, almost every 3 degrees of sky has a different satellite using the same frequencies..

BSkyB make money out of encrypting other peoples TV on Satellite and also selling their own encrypted packages. They don't even own any Satellites. The BBC, MTV/VH1 and ITV channels all feel the charge of about 15Million Stg to 20Million Stg Per Year, just to encrypt (not for EPG, Satellite Carriage or Uplink) is a bit expensive :-).
They also make money from selling Sky1, Sky Sports etc to Cable operators and selling the 40 odd "Sky Music Choice" Automated DJ and Ad free Subscription only "muzic channels" to other Pay TV Satellite program providers in Europe.


A bit simplified. But more detail on what BSkyB are.

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

STaN

Originally posted by daveirl
242,000 according to the Irish Times today. It's in the article about Dermot Ahern trying to reguate BSkyB

Can they really do that. Sky have a very nice position whereby people are listening to their serivce... like a radio station... they are just beaming down and low n behold ireland gets a signal, no presence needed.

Why or what do they want to regulate?

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

watty

LAck of regulation means:
Sky can charge what they like.
Sky have have what conditions they like.

For non-Subscription, TV, I agree, the concept of regulation in a foreign country is daft.

But if you selling a Product or Service in Ireland you should be subject toIrish laws.

I rather suspect this is more about money than protecting Consumer.

1) 0.5% levy from Sky to ComReg (NTL & Chorus pay 3.5)
2) While installs are Irish VAT, subscription are UK VAT.

If this is to be "fair" then Canal Sat, AB Sat, BBC Enterprises (BBC Prime) and anyone else that sells a sub to Ireland should also be "Regulated" by "Comreg" too.

It is the theory that if you sell a subscription here the price and Quality of service and conditions should be subject to ComReg control (an importantly for Government, pay a % level on number of Irish customers)