Sky's loss leading catches up on them

We all know Sky has a loss leading broadband product - just look at their prices!

My connection is still great but apparently, in some areas of the country, they've run out of capacity and users are experiencing high levels of congestion.

I was saddened to see the news article I'm on about, as I have always respected Sky for maintaining their level of service at the size of their broadband customer base.

What are your thoughts on this news?

In reference to www.theregister.co.uk/2013/01/22/sky_broadband_adding_customers_fir...:

"Following a combination of an underlining increase in network traffic as well as an especially high rate of new customer additions, we are aware of capacity issues in a limited number of exchanges."

The company has promised to build in extra capacity at choked-up phone-line exchanges: "We are aware of the issue and are adding new capacity to those exchanges as soon as we can. We apologise to all customers who have been impacted by this issue."

Probably just exchanges that still just had 1Gig links, and will be moved to 10GigE very soon.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Probably just exchanges that still just had 1Gig links, and will be moved to 10GigE very soon.

I wonder if their backhaul suppliers have let them down on scheduled upgrades - maybe pushed out circuit deliveries by another 30 to 60 days or more :-/

In reply to a post by Xplosion:

We all know Sky has a loss leading broadband product - just look at their prices!

Quite similar to the prices of Talktalk and Plusnet really. Are they all loss leading?

Sky have had capacity issues before and have been refreshingly open about it - and then fixed it. Better than other ISPs that I've been with that have become clogged - they just denied it and then introduced draconian throttling.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Probably just exchanges that still just had 1Gig links, and will be moved to 10GigE very soon.

I suspect part of this may be a balancing act going on between not wanting to order (and pay for) unnecessary capacity, and the lead time for upgrading backhaul circuits - though the issue in some areas may be unavailability of 10GigE circuits. I would have thought that increasing data volumes make it a 'no brain' decision to aim to upgrade backhaul to 10GigE in advance of offering FTTx. If this backhaul is via a managed circuit which has bandwidth charges, it should be relatively cheap to upgrade the bearer to 10GigE and enable extra capacity as required with relatively short lead times.

I'm always amazed at how loudly people complain in stories in The Register and similar about outages on cheap consumer ISPs when their expectations are unrealistic. If you're taking overtime to work from home, you should have two different forms of Internet access that are as diverse as possible - one of these can be tethering a mobile phone or a PAYG mobile broadband dongle, so may cost very little if rarely used. Internet access matters to us - we've got Zen FTTC, my contract O2 mobile broadband account and I can tether my contract Vodafone mobile phone.

I've considered putting cheap consumer ADSL on our other BT line so that I can implement auto-failover on my router. This would protect me against failure of the FTTx system, also, if I choose a provider using LLU, against a BT Wholesale outage, though not against failure of the twisted pair network between the PCP and our NTE5s. The other alternative would be seeing if Virgin are prepared to add their cheapest broadband product to our cable account at minimal extra expense, though I was most unimpressed with cable broadband when I had it.


If quality of service matters for home working, I'd think there was justification for your main ISP being one of the business orientated ones (such as AAISP, IDnet or Zen). These providers don't operate on such tight margins, so have more of a cushion to try their best to ensure users don't experience contention serious enough to cause packet loss or excessive jitter.

Edited by deleted (Tue 22-Jan-13 20:51:48)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Probably just exchanges that still just had 1Gig links, and will be moved to 10GigE very soon.

Cheaper to add a second GigE than move straight to 10 from 1 and that's standard. Provisioning 10Gb costs in terms of hardware either side of Sky's network as well as Openreach price, GigE ports are cheap and plentiful.

Cheaper but if the expectation is that 2 x 1GigE will run out soon too the the big leap may make more sense.

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Probably just exchanges that still just had 1Gig links, and will be moved to 10GigE very soon.

Cheaper to add a second GigE than move straight to 10 from 1 and that's standard. Provisioning 10Gb costs in terms of hardware either side of Sky's network as well as Openreach price, GigE ports are cheap and plentiful.

I took MrSaffron to be talking about the backhaul links, not GEA links. Are GEA links even offered on 10GigE - I thought they were always GigE, though you may need multiple links for the entire FTTx infrastructure on the larger aggregation nodes.

Obviously, the situation with backhaul depends on what Sky are renting in each case - if they're renting dark fibre with a limited number of spare pairs that is of suitable specification for 10GigE, it should be cheap to upgrade the link to 10GigE - 10GigE optics and switch ports are now relatively cheap assuming that the switch fabric is 10GigE capable. If they're renting a leased line and the provider doesn't have 10GigE infrastructure, multiple GigE may be the way to go for now - but with increasing roll-out of up to 80Mbit/second FTTC, also FTTP destined to move more into the mainstream, adding backhaul in units of 1Gbit may seem shortsighted.

Virgin oversubscribe regularly - check out their forums. Bristol 9 months - Southampton 5 months and so on.

Be had a spate of it about 2-3 years ago.

In reply to a post by drummerjohn:

Be had a spate of it about 2-3 years ago.

You don't actually have to look that far back: http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/beunlimited/f/41984...

I'm connected to one of the affected exchanges (Selby). Sky CS informed me, that BT are upgrading our exchange with a 10GigE link, on or around the 15 Feb. Fingers crossed!

Edited by HiPing (Wed 23-Jan-13 00:21:36)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Cheaper but if the expectation is that 2 x 1GigE will run out soon too the the big leap may make more sense.

True but most of the time the standard is 1Gb -> 2Gb -> 10Gb.

Suspect a combination of tons of advertising, the nature of the advertising, Netflix and Sky On Demand has stuffed them a bit.

I was talking about backhaul too, there is no 10Gb CableLink product available yet.

Sky rent backhaul links from BT for the most part, a few other providers plugging gaps. Not aware of their using dark fibre for any of their links from exchanges.

Going from 1Gb to 2Gb is a doubling of capacity, customers using FTTC going from say 16Mb to 80Mb does not entail a five-fold increase in usage. The actual usage increase downstream averages only about 10% - people for the most part do the same things faster.

I'm not aware of Sky having plans to offer FTTP or FTTPoD - FTTP will be available to a very small base and FTTPoD will have a massive install cost and that target audience will be mostly the home worker / SME base along with some uber-nerds rather than your average residential Sky customer.

Edited by deleted (Wed 23-Jan-13 00:21:29)

In reply to a post by Ignitionnet:

Going from 1Gb to 2Gb is a doubling of capacity, customers using FTTC going from say 16Mb to 80Mb does not entail a five-fold increase in usage. The actual usage increase downstream averages only about 10% - people for the most part do the same things faster.

I'm not aware of Sky having plans to offer FTTP or FTTPoD - FTTP will be available to a very small base and FTTPoD will have a massive install cost and that target audience will be mostly the home worker / SME base along with some uber-nerds rather than your average residential Sky customer.

Clearly it depends on the profile of each aggregation node. If Sky are winning a lot of customers from Virgin or other ISPs, or if FTTC becomes available in areas that previously had very low ADSL speeds, Sky's backhaul requirements may be growing rapidly. If the majority of new FTTC customers have upgraded from fairly fast ADSL, I'd expect more modest growth in their requirements, though if faster connections loosen restraints on 'on demand' video, the growth may still be sharp.


I can understand Sky not offering FTTP in the short to medium term. It looks like BT Openreach's modest proposals for commercial deployment of FTTP are mostly being replaced by FTTC deployment. I'm sure you're correct about the vast majority of FTTPoD customers being home workers, SMEs and uber-geeks. However, there will be those wanting FTTPoD because it's the only way to get a moderately fast and stable connection, or those having FTTP left over after a previous FTTPoD installation (I don't think Openreach will want to offer FTTC to locations with working FTTP).

The obvious answer will be for Sky to offer low speed FTTP products, but not support FTTP products faster than 80/20.

indeed.

maybe ignition, maybe not.

I cant imagine me using netflix on my old 6mbit adsl connection, and I think it would have been chaotic on my VM connection (before it got fixed). Now I have been using it heavily for the past week or so and during the evenings.

I routinely now click on 720p on youtube to get the video buffered to the end very quickly (as that isnt rate limited), on older isp's I would just leave at the default which is usually 360p which is not only smaller sized but also rate limits the streaming throughput meaning if I dont watch the entire video it isnt all streamed.

In terms of the content I download things havent changed a great deal but my streaming activity has skyrocketed.

I think there is certian net activities people dont even try until they get a faster connection.

Also the fact isp's get caught out time and time again whenever they increase speeds suggests the theory that usage doesnt go up is wrong.

Edited by Chrysalis (Wed 23-Jan-13 18:41:22)

yes i agree also, we cant just say from 16 to 80, because the typical speed on adsl2+ is way below 16, likewise not all of vdsl2 is 80 either but the average speed on vdsl2 is several multiples of the average on adsl2+.

In my particular area the speed multiple from adsl to vdsl based on estimated speeds is 17x. A calculation of actual speed multiple is 12x still much higher than 5x.

Those are the stats from ISPs who've monitored customers before and after upgrades, the average usage increase is around the 10% mark.

There will, obviously, be those such as yourself who use considerably more after an upgrade, there will likewise be those whose usage doesn't change at all with the upgrade.

ok if you have actual stats as a source then I stand defeated, fair enough. Although do you agree the increase might vary from area to area as suggested, as that logic seems reasonable enough.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

ok if you have actual stats as a source then I stand defeated, fair enough. Although do you agree the increase might vary from area to area as suggested, as that logic seems reasonable enough.

It's a discussion not a competition!

The main factor is actually the starting speed, not the end one. The usage changes in an area where people are on 1 - 2Mb will be very noticeable.

The average ADSL2+ speed is a shade under 8Mb.

In reply to a post by David_W:

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Probably just exchanges that still just had 1Gig links, and will be moved to 10GigE very soon.

I suspect part of this may be a balancing act going on between not wanting to order (and pay for) unnecessary capacity, and the lead time for upgrading backhaul circuits - though the issue in some areas may be unavailability of 10GigE circuits. I would have thought that increasing data volumes make it a 'no brain' decision to aim to upgrade backhaul to 10GigE in advance of offering FTTx. If this backhaul is via a managed circuit which has bandwidth charges, it should be relatively cheap to upgrade the bearer to 10GigE and enable extra capacity as required with relatively short lead times.

I'm always amazed at how loudly people complain in stories in The Register and similar about outages on cheap consumer ISPs when their expectations are unrealistic. If you're taking overtime to work from home, you should have two different forms of Internet access that are as diverse as possible - one of these can be tethering a mobile phone or a PAYG mobile broadband dongle, so may cost very little if rarely used. Internet access matters to us - we've got Zen FTTC, my contract O2 mobile broadband account and I can tether my contract Vodafone mobile phone.

I've considered putting cheap consumer ADSL on our other BT line so that I can implement auto-failover on my router. This would protect me against failure of the FTTx system, also, if I choose a provider using LLU, against a BT Wholesale outage, though not against failure of the twisted pair network between the PCP and our NTE5s. The other alternative would be seeing if Virgin are prepared to add their cheapest broadband product to our cable account at minimal extra expense, though I was most unimpressed with cable broadband when I had it.


If quality of service matters for home working, I'd think there was justification for your main ISP being one of the business orientated ones (such as AAISP, IDnet or Zen). These providers don't operate on such tight margins, so have more of a cushion to try their best to ensure users don't experience contention serious enough to cause packet loss or excessive jitter.

Sky unlimited broadband costs £7.50 a month. You can download hundreds of gigabytes with no problems. Latency is very low. There are NO caps on torrents, p2p etc. If the same person was to do with zen, to download the same amount would costs them HUNDREDS of pounds a month. That's why sky has become over congested in several exchanges, which they have already said will be fixed in a week or two maximum.

on the figures, is it from all isp's or just a few? eg. plusnet publish a lot of figures which can be misleading as they have a low usage userbase.

what still seems odd is if usage only goes up by 10% on average, how are isps been caught out by such a small jump.

In reply to a post by dave2150:

Sky unlimited broadband costs £7.50 a month. You can download hundreds of gigabytes with no problems. Latency is very low. There are NO caps on torrents, p2p etc. If the same person was to do with zen, to download the same amount would costs them HUNDREDS of pounds a month. That's why sky has become over congested in several exchanges, which they have already said will be fixed in a week or two maximum.

It took just over 3 months to sort out the capacity issue in the Hastings area last year although Sky blamed Alcatel for constantly pushing back the planned start date of the upgrade work.

Entire list of congested exchanges and the estimated resolution dates:

http://beusergroup.co.uk/pastebin/?q=51011572bcb75

At least Sky are admitting the issues and doing something about it, unlike BT who are plagued with over-subscription and capacity issues and won't admit anything is wrong despite the fact connections are dropping to 2mbs in peak hours on infinity 2.

Edited by lockyatlrg (Thu 24-Jan-13 13:12:16)

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

on the figures, is it from all isp's or just a few? eg. plusnet publish a lot of figures which can be misleading as they have a low usage userbase.

what still seems odd is if usage only goes up by 10% on average, how are isps been caught out by such a small jump.

Sky got nailed by Sky Go, Netflix, etc, and an influx of high usage ADSL2+ subs as a result of the advertising campaign more than Sky Fibre.

That was from BT Retail.

Edited by deleted (Thu 24-Jan-13 13:42:58)

you got no update on your issue? I had slowish speeds for 3 days which dissapeared and been fine again after that.

On the BT care forums 90% of complaints are people unhappy with their sync speed dropping not congestion, yours seems the only one which has hideous speeds on all protocols for any sustained period of time.

there is people from my area popping up on BT forums now, but BT have come to a dead end and we are talking about ending my contract early.

this thread?

http://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity/CAN-ANYTHING-...

Maybe that is the way we should go. Everyone gets fast broadband but we pay for what we download.

Flat rate of £5/mnth + 50p/GB on top upto 10GB then 20p/GB after that.

We have the ability to record via Freeview, Sky and VM so catch-up should be minimal.

Yes the guy that created it is on the next exchange, I think mine connects to Burton.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Maybe that is the way we should go. Everyone gets fast broadband but we pay for what we download.

Flat rate of £5/mnth + 50p/GB on top upto 10GB then 20p/GB after that.

Hope not.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Maybe that is the way we should go. Everyone gets fast broadband but we pay for what we download.

Flat rate of £5/mnth + 50p/GB on top upto 10GB then 20p/GB after that.

We have the ability to record via Freeview, Sky and VM so catch-up should be minimal.

I cringe whenever someone suggests PAYG internet and we go back to the dark ages.

No need to quote, you were replying to me anyway.

Why "The dark ages", those that hog their ISP's local network might think twice about downloading 24/7. If you use gas and electricity you pay for it. There are a few suppliers that give the elderly a flat rate but they are few and far between

Some ISP's have different download limits and charge more per month for a higher limit. I was thinking about a fairer option for all.

Do ISP's pay for speed on their lines or the data going down them?

because its like using a sledgehammer to kill a fly, why not suggest a modest 300gig usage limit?

The 2 obvious flaws of your solution is (a) the base price is then too low products like broadband work when low usage customers are profitable, they not very profiteable when its PAYG.

2nd it promotes not using your connection, people will be scared to use netflix etc. in fear of a skyrocketing broadband bill. 20p per gig will be way below the price in such a scenario, because the usage will no longer be subsidised by idle connections.

The modern way of consumer telecoms business is inclusivity.

Edited by Chrysalis (Fri 25-Jan-13 16:48:25)

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Maybe that is the way we should go. Everyone gets fast broadband but we pay for what we download.

Flat rate of £5/mnth + 50p/GB on top upto 10GB then 20p/GB after that.

We have the ability to record via Freeview, Sky and VM so catch-up should be minimal.

The very fact that Sky will soon become to dominant ISP in the Uk based on its already fast growth, shows that the overwhelming majority want unlimited broadband, with no limits on p2p etc.

Pay as you go as you suggest, is suitable for those elderly people who don't really use the internet to it's full extend. The younger generations really do push an incredible amount of data through their broadband connections these days.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Some ISP's have different download limits and charge more per month for a higher limit. I was thinking about a fairer option for all.
Do ISP's pay for speed on their lines or the data going down them?

Depends which wholesaler they use. One reason Sky/TalkTalk etc use LLU is to get away from BTwholesale's network which I *think* is charged by data.

Leased circuits are charged at the speed of the point to point connection - however Internet transit can be charged by the hundreds of gigabytes transferred over a transit point (e.g. LINX) - but many ISPs connect directly (peering) to avoid any charges.

Nobody has said Sky can't *afford* the upgrades - there just could be a scheduling issue where the growth has gone faster than the plan for the upgraded connections to be installed. It could even be related to the weather!

BT Wholesale WBC is charged on a 95th percentile charge, so peak usage can be expensive.

My costs were only indicative. My point is that some users download lots and ruin it for others. Why should users download 300 GB and those that only download 50GB pay the same?

There must be some way to make it fairer?

I used to have a 2GB limit which was usually more than enough but on the odd occasion (Win updates) I would go over and be charged extra. For £2 less / mnth I have unlimited download but still use less than 2GB on average.

Perhaps it is the society we now live in than wants something for very little.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

My costs were only indicative. My point is that some users download lots and ruin it for others. Why should users download 300 GB and those that only download 50GB pay the same?

There must be some way to make it fairer?

Umm, yes. One (cheaper) package with a 50Gb limit, and one (more expensive) package which is unlimited.

there is isp's that suit what you want, look at aaisp. Thats as close to PAYG I have seen on broadband.

Sky dont appear to have a major issue with viability of their service, the amount of exchanges affected is tiny compared to the total they have and sky have already announced fixed dates that are under 2 months. So its a temporary issue.

For the majority of people 2 gig is very inadequate now days. I am not a heavy user and I use 2 gig a day a lot of days probably.

In all honesty if you only using 2 gig a month you dont even need a FTTC connection. PAYG 3G will do it when you wouldnt even have a monthly sub, just fully usage based charging.

The very nature broadband is sold is unfair, eg. many have argued for several years the nature of 'up to' is unfair but its how the market is, its driven by customer demand. What you are asking for is out of fashion on the mass market and sky is a mass market isp.

Edited by Chrysalis (Sat 26-Jan-13 17:26:35)

3G is expensive and the speed is rubbish unless camped out under the mast.

To be honest I don't care anymore. £4.50/month and truly unlimited. I can even stream HD content to my TV via the laptop with no buffering on an upto 16mbps.

2gig usage on 3G wont be that expensive, it seems you a bit of count the pennies guy, cant really help you.

and at £4.50 a month also how low do you expect it to go?

plus you wont be doing much streaming for 2 gig, this I dont understand in your posts, if you stream even semi regurly your usage will top 2 gig easily.

I'm happy to pay for what I use and I do count the £ssssss. Like we all do.

It seems like others want to count the pennies and get as much as they can for very little hence they download as much as they can and then complain when things slow down.

I don't stream much as I have Sky+ and a PVR so have the ability to record.

No help required, but thanks anyway.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

My costs were only indicative. My point is that some users download lots and ruin it for others. Why should users download 300 GB and those that only download 50GB pay the same?

There must be some way to make it fairer?

I used to have a 2GB limit which was usually more than enough but on the odd occasion (Win updates) I would go over and be charged extra. For £2 less / mnth I have unlimited download but still use less than 2GB on average.

Perhaps it is the society we now live in than wants something for very little.

Using less than 2gb a month? Even my grandparents use more than that, both are over 80 and worked out how to use youtube and skype.

What rock are you living under exactly?

And what's on YouTube that's so great? Can't they afford a phone?

In reply to a post by broadband66:

And what's on YouTube that's so great? Can't they afford a phone?

You've a phone that does decent quality video calls and costs less than a few Skype sessions?

There's tons on YouTube that's great, even on mobiles:

In Europe, YouTube represents more than 20% of peak period downstream traffic on mobile networks

The web is becoming the method of choice for video to many:

Mean monthly data usage has increased by 120% from 23GB to 51GB in the past year on North American fixed line networks [51GB is equivalent to 81 hours of video]

Netflix dominates North American fixed networks accounting for 33% of peak period downstream traffic

Welcome to the future, where content is on demand, delivered to a device of your choice, available wherever you are and whenever you want it.

Edited by deleted (Mon 28-Jan-13 22:21:25)

Hey what about Blockbusters!

In reply to a post by NilSatisOptimum:

Hey what about Blockbusters!

It was never the same without Bob Holness.

I know, I was being facetious.

I still reckon that the more we download - the more we should pay.

O2 struggling, Sky BB probably subsidised by their other services.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

I still reckon that the more we download - the more we should pay.

Only if it costs them more money.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

O2 struggling, Sky BB probably subsidised by their other services.

Apparently it's been profitable for a while.

this is the guy who says he wants to pay for what he uses yet what he pays O2 is a loss leader

And your point is?

well you appear to want a pricing model that has noone subsidising anyone else.

Yet I am an O2 mobile customer effectively subsidising your broadband which is sold to you at a loss. I am not moaning about it tho, the telecom companies now cross subidise a lot its common practice now, not just across customers on the same products but also across products as well.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

Yet I am an O2 mobile customer effectively subsidising your broadband which is sold to you at a loss.

How do you know O2 Broadband is sold at a loss?

And I'm not moaning. I just made a point to see if other more knowledgeable posters thought this would be a goer or not. Obviously your O2 mobile costs (and mine) would be cheaper.

Also, I pretty sure my Sky TV costs would be cheaper if it wasn't for their cheap, unlimited BB.