Sky Fibre Broadband Trial

https://fibre.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/broadband-...

Great, FTTC from Sky might make Anytime+ faster

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Great, FTTC from Sky might make Anytime+ faster

Well I hope it's a darn site quicker than the link

In reply to a post by epyon:

https://fibre.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/broadband-...

says very little about the speeds that they will supply or the price that they intend on charging,

Speeds - same as the other Openreach based suppliers.

Price, TalkTalk another LLU provider charge a £10 premium so would expect around £7.50 to £12.50 extra.

Isn't that just an old form on an updated web page?

I registered my interest for Sky Fibre over 18 months ago using a similar looking form on their website.

Edit - It is indeed the same form that Sky used on - http://skyhispeedbb.com/ - which is now down.

Edit 2 - http://web.archive.org/web/20100125182409/http://www...

Edited by deleted (Thu 08-Dec-11 16:47:01)

Registered my interest but it's a badly designed form page.

It wouldn't accept my street address as St., so had to enter Saint, which is not what the street is called.

This is really old news. Sky launched a site to register people's interest in a Fibre trial 2 years ago. Since then the site was closed and no news was initially available.

However, staff members have been using Sky FTTC trial connection for some time now and last summer a trial was set up in South Harrow for Sky FTTP.

There is a lot of speculation as to whether or not Sky are taking FTTC & FTTP seriously, but no news is currently available as to when a fibre product will be made available, how much it will cost or whether it will be using BTO's FTTC network or Sky's own Fibre network.

What's the deal with the way BT runs FTTC? I've not looked into it that much, do BT Retail own the VDSL Concentrator in the cab or is it Openreach equipment?

Will Sky be able to just use the fibre to the exchange and then, at that point, jump onto their LLU network or would they have to use BT 21CN to transit their data?

If the latter, are we not going to see almost as poor service as Connect from their FTTC service if an when it ever arrives?

The service guarantees a minimum of around.. Uh.. 16mbit (right?) From your cabinet to the headend exchange. At the exchange the isp can then either opt to use 21cn, or can be provided with an ethernet handover, which they them need to be able to connect to their own llu equipment (this subsequently then gives them the full responsibility for their backhaul)

In reply to a post by Adamant:

What's the deal with the way BT runs FTTC? I've not looked into it that much, do BT Retail own the VDSL Concentrator in the cab or is it Openreach equipment?

Openreach own the cab and the VDSL DSLAM in the street - in the same way they own the PCP and other cabing to the exchange.

Will Sky be able to just use the fibre to the exchange and then, at that point, jump onto their LLU network or would they have to use BT 21CN to transit their data?

It is understood that is available. Only TalkTalk are known to use this service so far. Other ISPs offering Fibre products are using 21CN.

If the latter, are we not going to see almost as poor service as Connect from their FTTC service if an when it ever arrives?

Connect is extremely poor, but I thought wasn't using 21CN but actually the old 20CN.

Any Connect users on 21CN and/or faster than 8meg?

Edited by jchamier (Sat 31-Dec-11 16:33:11)

In reply to a post by ScubaGirl:

However, staff members have been using Sky FTTC trial connection for some time now and last summer a trial was set up in South Harrow for Sky FTTP.

And it never went much further than that from what I understand. My exchange (Aberdeen Denburn) is due to go FTTC soon and I can't even get anything out of sky with regards to FTTC, no staff trial or anything.

At the moment I don't pay from my BB so can;t really complain, but I would consider switching (and therefore paying for) BT Infinity to get the faster speeds, especially upload,

Hope they get the finger out for FTTC, as it's clearly the future, they can't ignore it.

And if openreach bump it up to 80mbps as planned. even better!

Judging by what people who work for Sky are posting, you are not alone.

Sky is indeed keeping their plans for Fibre very quiet at the moment. There have been various news stories posted on this site over the past few years on what Sky are doing. Ultimately anything is possible though.

The odd 'rumour' gets posted, but the longer that they keep this quiet, the more business they lose IMHO.

With regards to staff trials, they weren't given to all staff members. I would have thought that by now they would have enough information to make business decisions now, which is what any trials are ultimately for.

I personally think its a pricing thing...

Can they offer FTTC for £7.50 whilst maintaining truly unlimited usage?
Probably not.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

I personally think its a pricing thing...

Can they offer FTTC for £7.50 whilst maintaining truly unlimited usage?
Probably not.

Well, you say that.

But, If someone said to me that you could get Unlimited "20mb" broadband for £7.50/month I would think it wasn't possible.

If I was to take a guess I would say £12.50-£15 for fibre would be fair and in line with the current pricing structure.

BUT, for the record, I DO work for Sky, but have NOTHING to do with pricing or broadband rollouts.

So don't quote me!

I think, although might be incorrect.

With sky LLU, sky own the network and hence do not have to pay BT for usage / backhaul.

Whereas with Fibre in it's current form sky would be paying BT which would be more costly.

Until Sky can somehow bypass this I'm unsure if we will see a FTTC product.

Of course I might be completely incorrect with this. It was just my chain of thoughts.

I've read that Sky were considering rolling out their own cabinets. (of course it's all hearsay)

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

I think, although might be incorrect.

With sky LLU, sky own the network and hence do not have to pay BT for usage / backhaul.

Whereas with Fibre in it's current form sky would be paying BT which would be more costly.

Until Sky can somehow bypass this I'm unsure if we will see a FTTC product.

Of course I might be completely incorrect with this. It was just my chain of thoughts.

I've read that Sky were considering rolling out their own cabinets. (of course it's all hearsay)

To be honest I'm not sure, but I think that Sky would only pay BT for the link between the Cab and the Exchange.

The link from the Exchange to the Internet is still part of Sky's existing backhaul network.

But like I say that could be wrong

They'll follow TalkTalk.

What are talk talk doing? Their website only lets me find out if I enter my landline (which doesn't help as I don't have FTTC here yet).

I can get FTTC in my other address but don't have a landline here (well I don't use it)

I had hoped Sky would inform us sooner.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 03-Jan-12 12:05:44)

GEA. The connection is handed over to TT at the exchange.

Ok, makes much more sense now.

In reply to a post by connormill:

To be honest I'm not sure, but I think that Sky would only pay BT for the link between the Cab and the Exchange.

The link from the Exchange to the Internet is still part of Sky's existing backhaul network.

Certainly where Sky have their equipment installed, this is possible. From my understanding BTO will manage the cabling from the telephone exchange to a customer's property. At the exchange it will then be connected to Sky's LLU equipment and from there onto their backhaul.

Sky has also been making noises over wanting to use BT's infrastructure to install their own cabling.

There are a few issues to resolve though:

* Price & T&Cs for FTTC or FTTP with Sky's LLU
* Price & T&Cs for FTTC or FTTP without Sky's LLU
* Upgrade path for existing customers in & out of contract
* Launch date

In reply to a post by ScubaGirl:

There are a few issues to resolve though:

* Price & T&Cs for FTTC or FTTP with Sky's LLU
* Price & T&Cs for FTTC or FTTP without Sky's LLU
* Upgrade path for existing customers in & out of contract
* Launch date

Sky don't yet use BT WBC at non-LLU exchanges even though they could use it improve the service and reduce bandwidth costs. So I don't expect Sky FTTC or FTTP at non-LLU exchanges for some time yet.

Sky must be aiming to get an FTTC/P product to market before BT completes its TV Connect and Content Connect network upgrades in the summer. BT Vision is not yet a threat to Sky TV but when BT can offer fibre broadband bundled with a wider range of linear TV channels including Sky Sports in HD and a full catch-up service they could become more of a competitor to Sky.

In reply to a post by CJ8:

but when BT can offer fibre broadband bundled with a wider range of linear TV channels including Sky Sports in HD and a full catch-up service they could become more of a competitor to Sky.

They're going to compete with Sky by offering Sky Sports? I can see a flaw in that plan.

Why pay for BT Vision when YouView is launching soon and will be available across all broadband suppliers?

http://www.youview.com/

Just make sure that you have sufficient bandwidth available.

As for BT competing with Sky, sorry but of the people whom I know who signed up to BT Vision, all dumped it very quickly.

YouView would eat into any usage allowance, and not use QoS

BT Vision has QoS and does not count towards usage allowance, why? its injected in the gap between the Access and Internet components.

The QoS is end to end, so someone doing a big download will not impact an on-demand TV programme

Let us wait and see. Since YouView hasn't been launched yet, we don't actually knows all the facts about the service. I would guess that you are correct though.

IPTV is new to the UK and as always we will have a different system to the rest of the world.

Personally I do not think that BT Vision could ever compete with Sky. This is not because of the channel line up, but simply because of accessibility. Ignoring planning laws for the sake of this argument, a dish can be located on most buildings, whether in a town or city or village in the middle of no-where.

BT constantly throttle their broadband speed. FTTC and FTTP may offer faster connection speeds, but will not be available across the whole country for several years yet.

IPTV is hardly new to the UK, BT was there before 2000 with trials

HomeChoice existed since the inception of ADSL, now part of TalkTalk.

BT Vision is not affected by the throttling, in fact it is given the priority and only needs 2 Mbps, which some 90% of the country can get, i.e. better coverage than Freeview.

Now having seen NetFlix at £5.99 in the UK, can say the quality is same as the US, and Sky needs to pay attention, £16 for movies + £10 for the HD.

Sky will be watching things, as always.

As for pricing, to add the movie packs, you can add 12 movie channels for an additional £16 per month with Sky.

As for HD, the Sky HD sub currently covers 50 HD channels, with others available for free. Admittedly you need to subscribe to their respective packages, but it is more than any other UK provider can currently manage.

Currently there is a total of 61 HD channels, including the 2 promo and 2 Sky Box Office HD channels.

For the F1 fans an additional HD channel will be added in a few months. This will be available for anyone who has the HD pack or is a Sky Sports subscriber.

There is also talk that Sky may actually open up it's Anytime+ service later this year to anyone who is not on Sky's Broadband Network. I won't attempt to count the quantity of material available already on this service, but I suspect that it is much larger than what BT can offer.

As always though we do need to ask ourselves just how much we can watch and what is of interest to each of us.

The last point is very important. How much can we watch and what is of interest to each of us.

I have no interest in entertainment channels. Sky have always annoyed me by only selling premium sports as an add-on to a basic package. Ok, for a while they offered a '0 packs + Sports' option but it still cost £18/month for the base '0 packs' compared with £19/month for 1 pack.

After recent changes my base pack News & Events (chosen because if I must have one I might as well have the one that includes Eurosport) is now part of Entertainment Extra. When the price freeze ends it may go up to £25 before the extra cost of premium sports.

If BT offer Sky Sports and ESPN in HD on their next gen Vision IPTV service without the requirement for an expensive basic package, then I will probably switch. Sky have been allowed to abuse the bundled pricing model for too long and it's about time there were alternatives like Vision, Lovefilm, Netflix etc. so we have more options to buy the content that is of interest to us without being forced to buy lots more that isn't.

I think Top Up TV sells Sky Sports (standalone) cheaper than Sky do in a bundle. Not sure if it fits your requirements though.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

I think Top Up TV sells Sky Sports (standalone) cheaper than Sky do in a bundle. Not sure if it fits your requirements though.

Thanks, yes I looked at that and I still have a Setanta Sports cam which probably still works with a TopUp TV subscription but they only do SS1&2 (&ESPN) and not in HD. Also I understand SS1&2 may not be available on DTT for much longer as BT plan to move it onto the IPTV part of the Vision service to save money. Hopefully BT will be able to upgrade to the HD versions at that point.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

IPTV is hardly new to the UK, BT was there before 2000 with trials

HomeChoice existed since the inception of ADSL, now part of TalkTalk.

BT Vision is not affected by the throttling, in fact it is given the priority and only needs 2 Mbps, which some 90% of the country can get, i.e. better coverage than Freeview.

Now having seen NetFlix at £5.99 in the UK, can say the quality is same as the US, and Sky needs to pay attention, £16 for movies + £10 for the HD.

The more competition in that arena the better, although the movie industry have proven they will squeeze on the neck when they think there is more money to be extracted (see Netflix in US).

The situation with sports is particularly dire. The piffling measures that were finally taken to yank BSB's fingers from practically all of the rights just ended up with a new premium operator (ESPN/Setanta), but no reduction in price from Sky.

The correct answer was not to simply force some live sports rights elsewhere (thereby causing sports enthusiasts get whacked multiple times), but instead to ensure it is available from *multiple* broadcasters. This is much like the situation with Netflix and LoveFilm, or just about any real competitive environment.

Plus, the idea of paying a fortune to BSB, and then being bombarded with adverts is more than slightly repulsive.

In reply to a post by ScubaGirl:

Sky will be watching things, as always.

As for pricing, to add the movie packs, you can add 12 movie channels for an additional £16 per month with Sky.

<snip>

Just out of interest, do you work for Sky, or any Newscorp related biz (directly/indirectly)?

Edited by deleted (Tue 24-Jan-12 02:07:00)