sky broadband roi

helimachoptor

kennygg76 wrote: »

A SKY Agent called last night booking technical issues in the area as a technician will be around next week.
I asked him what's happening with SKY Broadband coming to Ireland.
He said that sky broadband is in Dublin being trialed at the moment.
Will be rolled out in the next 2 months country wide with a phone package as well.
He said that there will be substantial offers given to people who switch, he said 6 months free!!!!

This is what the agent said, hopefully its true.

Complete and utter rubbish.
Edit: Not from you kenny, the agent you were talking to.

akyboo

helimachoptor wrote: »

Complete and utter rubbish.
Edit: Not from you kenny, the agent you were talking to.

Hi just to update you guys Yes Sky are testing their broadband at present and it is been rolled out very soon, and I have knowledge of this from a reputable source

Solair

Even if you were just rolling out BitStream broadband i.e. using Eircom's wholesale access network, you would still have to run a small trial to iron out any glitches.

The way it works is like this:

Eircom provide the local DSLAM equipment (this is the thing your DSL modem talks to) and the voice exchange (the traditional telephone exchange) that provides your dial tone, phone services, voicemail etc.

Sky would need to install equipment at at least a few eircom exchanges around the country to collect data and voice traffic and route it back through their own network. More than likely, they will just use someone else to do this e.g. BT Ireland or Cable and Wireless or even Eircom itself.

You still have to roll out some infrastructure for bitstream, just not to absolutely every exchange. A back-haul infrastructure still needs to be put in place / hired.

Then you've got to test that the service works i.e. check the broadband data is all routing correctly, pings aren't crazy etc. Check the phone services work correctly and calls are routed, billing happens correctly, voicemail works etc

Then you also have to test all the customer service, provisioning, and logistics infrastructure. Make sure that everything works smoothly and integrate eircom's wholesale ordering system into the Sky Customer Service System so that sky agents can setup services, request fault repairs etc.

So, you can be 100% sure that they'd trial it for a while first and make sure they've ironed out any issues.

There's a lot of work to be done before a launch of a product like that and a lot of fine details to be checked, brochures and websites to be written and localised for Ireland etc..

pbarr

I always assumed (wrongly) that Sky broadband would be coming through the dish, but its really no different than any of the other operators.

Cesium Clock

Bull****, no money , no sky broadband the infrastructure is so crap here UPC have the leading edge

UPC have had the decency to put fibre in where eircom have been asleep,

Move or live in an area where UPC have fibre systems

byte

It would indeed be an interesting experiment to see how well UPC network would cope if all of Ireland decided to move to UPC fiber areas to use their broadband service.

Anyway, UPC have a lot less to maintain than Eircom do, and are not the leading edge. We'd all need to move to Dungarvan for that!

Solair

eircom are taking their time rolling out fibre-to-curb technology, but to be honest, they are not that far out of line with most similar telephone companies around Europe and the USA.

The majority of telephone-based broadband lines are still using ADSL. Some urban areas where fibre-to-curb has been rolled out are using VDSL which is still only up to 50mbit/s or so.

The rollout of actual fibre-to-home is still really not all that widespread outside of major urban centres and it's very variable from country to country / state to state.

In almost every market cable companies like UPC are light years ahead of the telephone line based providers for one simple reason - they have a huge, fat, broadband coaxial cable running into every house. Coaxial cables are designed to carry huge amounts of data, telephone lines never were intended to carry anything other than simple analogue voice signals. They're a simple twisted pair without any shielding.

UPC has successfully trialled >1Gbit/s on the same cable infrastructure that's already in place in Ireland on their Vienna system.

The only way the likes of eircom can ultimately compete with UPC is to roll-out a similar network to them either using fibre or coaxial cables over the last step.

If it's still dependent on copper pairs, it's like comparing the N17 to a major motorway or comparing USB 3.0 to your old printer cable from 1985.

DSL Technologies, even with VDSL and fibre-to-curb are simply never going to be as fast as cable systems.

Also, you have to factor in really bad Irish planning laws and scattered populations to the mix too.

Housing estates should have been provisioned with neutral duct networks and places to install fibre-to-curb equipment in for VDSL, fibre-to-home and cable television / broadband.

Cities, towns, villages and reasonable clusters of housing e.g. estates could realistically be served with a fibre-to-curb box for VDSL or cable tv. However, rural housing and one-off-housing won't really ever be connectable to some of this stuff. It's just not practical.

I think Ireland needs to pursue a two-pronged approach to this. Concentrate on getting wired products into places where they can be gotten in i.e. any urban area, town or village and stop wasting resources trying to get DSL out to places that it can't realistically serve anyway. Eircom has quite a lot of tiny exchanges, not much bigger than an office phone system, with really long lines in some rural areas. Those kinds of areas are FAR better off being provisioned with proper wireless coverage for broadband than trying to maintain and install lines that could be 10s of km long and end up providing pathetic broadband speeds or no service at all.

I think it's doing a major disservice to rural areas that the wrong technologies are being pushed as the only solution.

Also, the use of 3G mobile services as 'broadband' on the rural broadband scheme was a bit of a joke to be honest. Again, that's the wrong technology being used !!

In areas where DSL and other wired products are unsuitable, we need to be looking at seriously lashing resources into top-notch wireless products that can provide rural users with good speeds and low ping times. At this stage we should be aiming for at least 50mbit/s with low ping times in rural areas and over 100mbit/s in urban areas and small towns where fibre-to-curb is possible if we're going to be competitive.

skydish79

Financially what sort of investment are you talking about to achieve what you have outlined?

Solair

skydish79 wrote: »

Financially what sort of investment are you talking about to achieve what you have outlined?

Well, like any infrastructure project it would cost a fair bit. The problem seems to be that we are not coordinating it correctly, we aren't really targeting the correct technologies and the planning is totally chaotic.

I also think that there's still some locked-in notion that eircom is still Telecom Eireann / P&T and should be driving policy. The state needs to snap out of that mode of thinking. Eircom's a private company, run in the interests of its shareholders and also a company that has very stretched resources at present due to its debt burden.

There are really good examples from places like Finland which could be used as models for Ireland.
Looking at the likes of Holland, Singapore or South Korea is really totally pointless as they're all dense urban concentrations where fibre to home is easy to roll-out.

The benefits from getting this kind of stuff right would be enormous in the long term.
Ireland's manged to pull off projects like this in the past. For example, back in the 1970s and early 1980s our voice telecommunications network was so bad that it was destroying investment opportunities in a lot of areas as you couldn't get a phone or bog standard communications service. In the 80s Ireland pulled off a major coup moving that crappy network with exchanges that dated back to the 1930s! into a situation where it was for a time one of the most modern on the planet.

That infrastructure and the PR and coverage it got attracted quite a lot of investors into places that would have been unheard of in the 1970s as we were regarded as having excellent telecommunications infrastructure.

If we can get that kind of coordinated and concentrated effort back into telecoms infrastructure planning, we might start going somewhere again.

I would also stress that the lack of this kind of infrastructure holds up Irish companies. It makes it difficult for small businesses to do things that their international competitors can do easily and it also makes domestic demand for IT services weak or a bit retarded.

For example, if you don't have cheap, widespread high-speed broadband in Ireland, you won't get small indigenous IT companies setting up to service domestic demand for say streaming services. It's often these kinds of little start-ups that turn into global giants like Netflix etc.

akyboo

Hi everyone I can confirm to you today that I have received notification of Sky's broadband and talk been introduced in Ireland. Customers can pre-register for the service in the coming days/weeks

Quin_Dub

akyboo wrote: »

Hi everyone I can confirm to you today that I have received notification of Sky's broadband and talk been introduced in Ireland. Customers can pre-register for the service in the coming days/weeks

You can register interest in the Service here

https://interest.sky.com/broadband/

Mountjoy Mugger

Can't wait for 120MB BB from Sky..

So, I'll stay with UPC.

p.oconnor

Great news but I wonder could sky now enable the rural exchanges that Eircom are now not interested in to provide a nationwide broadband service?

akyboo

p.oconnor wrote: »

Great news but I wonder could sky now enable the rural exchanges that Eircom are now not interested in to provide a nationwide broadband service?

My information is that it will be available to approx 90% of all households in ireland

PogMoThoin

akyboo wrote: »

My information is that it will be available to approx 90% of all households in ireland

It's resold Eircom bitstream

p.oconnor

akyboo wrote: »

My information is that it will be available to approx 90% of all households in ireland

That will probably mean so they will piggyback on the existing service, our wait for line broadband in rural areas will likely continue...

akyboo

PogMoThoin wrote: »

It's resold Eircom bitstream

Its launched following an agreement with BT Ireland

p.oconnor

akyboo wrote: »

Its launched following an agreement with BT Ireland

But won't they be using the Eircom owned network in any case across most of the country along with where ever BT has their own network.

akyboo

p.oconnor wrote: »

But won't they be using the Eircom owned network in any case across most of the country along with where ever BT has their own network.

Yes as the site where you can pre-register asks you for you current provider and phone number
https://interest.sky.com/broadband/

PogMoThoin

akyboo wrote: »

Its launched following an agreement with BT Ireland

Yes, BT are wholesalers, they do not deal with the public any longer. They sold their residential and business customers to Vodafone. BT will be providing the backhaul

p.oconnor wrote: »

But won't they be using the Eircom owned network in any case across most of the country along with where ever BT has their own network.

Yes, Eircom own all the lines in this country, lots of providers use these lines Vodafone, Digiweb, Imagine by reselling Eircom bitstream. Some providers even have their own equipment in the exchanges (LLU), but the last step (Last Mile) is done over Eircom lines which Eircom get paid for.

p.oconnor

PogMoThoin wrote: »

Eircom own all the lines in this country, lots of providers use these lines Vodafone, Digiweb, Imagine by reselling Eircom bitstream. Some providers even have their own equipment in the exchanges (LLU), but the last step (Last Mile) is done over Eircom lines which Eircom get paid for.

Yes so as I assumed it will be whoever has access to line broadband at the moment will be the ones to have access to sky and unless sky upgrade the rural exchanges themselves thats the way it will stay.

I wonder though would it suit sky to upgrade the rural exchanges as most households in rural areas would have sky over UPC, which is big in cities and towns.

PogMoThoin

p.oconnor wrote: »

I wonder though would it suit sky to upgrade the rural exchanges as most households in rural areas would have sky over UPC, which is big in cities and towns.

No. LLU only happened in built up areas. Rural areas don't justify the expense, even for Eircom themselves to do it.

Quin_Dub

PogMoThoin wrote: »

No. LLU only happened in built up areas. Rural areas don't justify the expense, even for Eircom themselves to do it.

So..it'll just be another service that anyone living outside the major urban centres can't have

I live in a semi-rural area and my local exchange has been enabled for Broadband so Eircom have ticked that boxed....However it can only provide the stunning maximum Broadband speed of 2.05Mb and therefore I know of virtually no-one that has signed up for fixed line services.

Everyone either has Wireless if they can get it or mobile broadband like me as it's all I can get in my location....wonderful...

muffler

Just logged into the Sky page for expressing an interest and I see that they ask how long you have left on your contract for existing bb and phone service with the shortest option on the drop down menu being "less than 6 months" which would indicate that it will be at least the end of the year if not next year before this becomes available.

manutd83

It will be interesting to see there pricing for this,im guessing we(ROI)will be charged the usual hike up compare to there uk prices,they will probably just match the upc pricing

PogMoThoin

manutd83 wrote: »

It will be interesting to see there pricing for this,im guessing we(ROI)will be charged the usual hike up compare to there uk prices,they will probably just match the upc pricing

This is DSL, they cannot really compete on the broadband market with UPC who have their own fibre and cable network. The price they buy the bitstream off Eircom will dictate the price. I expect them to sell it at a slight loss and use it to promote their satellite TV just like Vodafone already do to promote their mobile phone offerings.

mark_79

Any possibility of Sky offering decent packages (20mb and above) at realistic prices throughout the country or will they be hamstrung by Eircom's prehistoric infrastructure?

PseudoFamous

mark_79 wrote: »

Any possibility of Sky offering decent packages (20mb and above) at realistic prices throughout the country or will they be hamstrung by Eircom's prehistoric infrastructure?

if eircom can't do it on eircom's network, sky can't do it on eircom's network.

Capt'n Midnight

mark_79 wrote: »

Any possibility of Sky offering decent packages (20mb and above) at realistic prices throughout the country or will they be hamstrung by Eircom's prehistoric infrastructure?

Forget decent offerings Eircom own all the copper and exchanges

as for prices - how do SKY compare to other BB providers in the UK

did they at least offer introductory deals ?



The most annoying thing will be all the ads on SKY for this

and Eircom won't care since they get the line rental regardless

gomamochi1

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

mark_79 wrote: »

Any possibility of Sky offering decent packages (20mb and above) at realistic prices throughout the country or will they be hamstrung by Eircom's prehistoric infrastructure?

Forget decent offerings Eircom own all the copper and exchanges

as for prices - how do SKY compare to other BB providers in the UK

did they at least offer introductory deals ?



The most annoying thing will be all the ads on SKY for this

and Eircom won't care since they get the line rental regardless

I think sky compete quite well in the uk on bb however as stated hard to see them competing with UPC.

channelsurfer2

well the ads for sky uk at the moment have tv entertainment pack broadband and calls for £21.50 a month but sky line rental is extra on top of that £11.25 pm and its more if you are not in a sky enabled exchange as you have to have BT line rental... this only gives you a basic 2gb download allowance though.
standard line rental for eircom is around 24euro or so but with the wholesale deal with BT they will probably match UPC's price of 66euro a month for the triple play bundle i am guessing or maybe even undercut it to 60 a month and give you up to 8mb as vodafone and eircom now do.

lawhec

I currently have Sky phone & Broadband in Omagh. The phone exchange here is unbundled (Sky have their own network up to the exchange, with Openreach providing the connection beyond this to the cabinet and finally to the home). Line rental is £12.25 per month which includes free landline calls on weekday evenings after 7pm and all weekend. A basic broadband service is also thrown in for free but has a cap of just 2GB per month. To get their unlimited service (no download caps) costs £10 a month extra. You get a small discount if you are a TV subscriber as well though as I don't get that I can't remember exactly how much it is (I think it's £3.50 but I could be wrong). These services are delivered via ADSL2+ networks. If your exchange hasn't been unbundled by Sky, the only broadband service they offer is a BT DataStream resell at £17 per month with a 40GB per month data limit. Since earlier this year they've also started supplying a FTTC service in areas where BT Infinity has been rolled out - this costs £20 per month on top of line rental.

Sky supply subscribers with an ADSL2+ modem which at the moment is manufactured by Sagem and looks like a small Sky+ HD receiver. To be honest it's performance is pants, but Sky frown on users using a different modem than what they supply and don't openly give out your username and password which is automatically added in the modem they supply you.

Capt'n Midnight

lawhec wrote: »

I currently have Sky phone & Broadband in Omagh.

Different country
Different regulator
Different incumbent



BT have been subsiding 2 way satellite for years where they can't physically supply ADSL

Down here the impression is that Eircom only upgrades smaller exchanges if it looks like Digiweb or other wireless provider might steal dial up customers from them. It's got to the stage where other providers don't always pre-announce which village/town they are installing next.


So like every other ISP the main limitation is the condition and cost of Eircom's network

muffler

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Different country
Different regulator
Different incumbent

I fully agree with this and its pointless in speculating what Sky will charge for various bundles.

My current fixed line BB and home phone package costs €52 a month but I know from family and friends in N.I. and England that they get the same package for £25 which is about €33 these days. So effectively Im paying 50% more than them.

We will just have to wait for the pricing structure to be announced.

steveon

muffler wrote: »

I fully agree with this and its pointless in speculating what Sky will charge for various bundles.

My current fixed line BB and home phone package costs €52 a month but I know from family and friends in N.I. and England that they get the same package for £25 which is about €33 these days. So effectively Im paying 50% more than them.

We will just have to wait for the pricing structure to be announced.

I used Smart telecom, 10mb line at the moment, which they claim will get faster as eircom are currently rolling out fibre in my area. I also have unlimited calls to Ireland and england for €40 a month all in this includes the Line rental.....so worth switching now mate...

muffler

steveon wrote: »

I used Smart telecom, 10mb line at the moment, which they claim will get faster as eircom are currently rolling out fibre in my area. I also have unlimited calls to Ireland and england for €40 a month all in this includes the Line rental.....so worth switching now mate...

I actually pay €49...."preferred customer" status or something like that. Im not sure if Smart cover my area but I went to their web site and entered the land line number in the line checker and it didn't work. So I sent them an email asking about this and it bounced.

So there's probably a warning in there somewhere when their online checking and email both fail

Thanks for the heads up though

lawhec

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Different country
Different regulator
Different incumbent

True, but it was only written in response to someone who asked what Sky's BB service in the UK was like.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

BT have been subsiding 2 way satellite for years where they can't physically supply ADSL

Only to a certain extent. I know one person who is unfortunate enough to live equidistant from three exchanges and can't get ADSL from either who has satellite broadband, apparently the subsidy only lasts for the first twelve months.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Down here the impression is that Eircom only upgrades smaller exchanges if it looks like Digiweb or other wireless provider might steal dial up customers from them. It's got to the stage where other providers don't always pre-announce which village/town they are installing next.

During their initial ADSL roll out in Britain, BT Wholesale (now Openreach) was accused of similar actions when local wireless providers were being set up.

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

So like every other ISP the main limitation is the condition and cost of Eircom's network

At least in theory then, no different to Sky's UK Broadband Connect service which is an Openreach Datastream resell. What may be offered through BT Ireland's LLU may be better (in a similar fashion to Sky's own LLU in the UK, except that Sky bought out Easynet rather than just strike a deal with them).

Capt'n Midnight

lawhec wrote: »

Only to a certain extent. I know one person who is unfortunate enough to live equidistant from three exchanges and can't get ADSL from either who has satellite broadband, apparently the subsidy only lasts for the first twelve months.

Do BT pay for the initial install / equipment ?

At least in theory then, no different to Sky's UK Broadband Connect service which is an Openreach Datastream resell. What may be offered through BT Ireland's LLU may be better (in a similar fashion to Sky's own LLU in the UK, except that Sky bought out Easynet rather than just strike a deal with them).

Looks like SKY would be available on 1.1 million out of 1.5 million phone lines.

http://www.siliconrepublic.com/business/item/27165-bt-all-ireland-revenues-up/

In the Republic of Ireland, BT is significantly increasing its local loop unbundling (LLU) footprint, giving the company the capability to deliver high-speed broadband to more than 1.1m phone lines around the country at speeds of up to 24Mbs.

http://investorrelations.eircom.net/about/

As of March 31, 2010 we had approximately 2.6 million fixed-line access channels in service, of which approximately 1.5 million were PSTN lines and approximately 0.3 million were ISDN channels.

Unfortunately down here 28,800 bits per second is judged good enough till at least 2014 for those not on ADSL
http://www.comreg.ie/consumer_initiatives/universal_service_obligation.590.html

Eircom’s current term as USP lasts until 30 June 2014.

As USP, Eircom must comply with the following obligations.
Provision of access at a fixed location

The USP must satisfy any reasonable request to provide connections to the public telephone network and access to publicly available telephone services. Also any connection provided by the USP must be capable of:

Local, national and international telephone calls
Facsimile (fax) communications
Data communications at data rates that are sufficient to permit functional internet access (the USP is currently required to adopt 28.8kbps as a reasonable minimum data rate)

theteal

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Forget decent offerings Eircom own all the copper and exchanges

as for prices - how do SKY compare to other BB providers in the UK

did they at least offer introductory deals ?

I'm on sky bb over here. sky, bt, talk talk, plusnet are all fairly similarly priced (at least they were when I was looking 10 months ago). the reason i went for sky was because of it's unlimited usage limit - no asterisk, and only a 12 month contract. they're all dsl so i presume it's all originally bt infrastructure. i'm not in a virgin enabled area which i was a bit disappointed with initially being used to upc cable bb in ireland.

iirc my intro offer was half price for the first 6 months which came to ~£17pm, it's currently £22.25pm (it's not bad maths, half price of the bundle not the line rental). it's advertised as up to 24mb but i know my line can't handle that, i get a consistent 12mb and find downloads coming in quicker than upc's 25mb back home.

I'm very happy with it, whether eircom based irish customers will enjoy a similar experience i would be hesitant to predict.

lawhec

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Do BT pay for the initial install / equipment?

Not 100% certain, but I believe that they at least subsidise the equipment. Very few homes around here now have satellite as their only option other than dial-up; BT's ADSL(2+) services is pretty widespread at every exchange, BT's Infinity/FTTC is almost complete for its current stage, and NWEWN are currently rolling out a WiMax network with (to an extent) some concentration on not-spots.

Sky's LLU service is available IIRC to about 80% of the UK population, using nearly 2000 of about the 5600 exchanges in the UK.

lawhec

theteal wrote: »

I'm on sky bb over here. sky, bt, talk talk, plusnet are all fairly similarly priced (at least they were when I was looking 10 months ago). the reason i went for sky was because of it's unlimited usage limit - no asterisk, and only a 12 month contract. they're all dsl so i presume it's all originally bt infrastructure. i'm not in a virgin enabled area which i was a bit disappointed with initially being used to upc cable bb in ireland.

iirc my intro offer was half price for the first 6 months which came to ~£17pm, it's currently £22.25pm (it's not bad maths, half price of the bundle not the line rental). it's advertised as up to 24mb but i know my line can't handle that, i get a consistent 12mb and find downloads coming in quicker than upc's 25mb back home.

I'm very happy with it, whether eircom based irish customers will enjoy a similar experience i would be hesitant to predict.

My reasons were (a) half price BB for 12 months, so £17.25 inc. line rental until December with 12 month contract, (b) I needed a new line installed, and Sky had an offer of £10 for installation, and (c) £70 cashback via Quidco which altogether for the 12 month cost inc. installation is £147 which is hard to beat, though with the half price BB gone next year I'll have a shop around again.

Probably also worth pointing out that Sky BB customers in the UK have free access to TheCloud wifi hotspots, they'll probably offer this in their RoI services as well though I think TheCloud coverage in the republic is pretty sparse.

Onikage

More competition can only be a good thing.

PogMoThoin

Onikage wrote: »

More competition can only be a good thing.

How? It's not really competition if it's reselling Eircom bitstream. It does not in any way improve or expand the Irish market as the line rental price is set by the regulator and Eircom get their cut no matter how much it's undersold for. It's all about TV for Sky, they will use it to promote their highly profitable TV services

Onikage

PogMoThoin wrote: »

How? It's not really competition if it's reselling Eircom bitstream. It does not in any way improve or expand the Irish market as the line rental price is set by the regulator and Eircom get their cut no matter how much it's undersold for. It's all about TV for Sky, they will use it to promote their highly profitable TV services

If they priced it at €25 per month who would care about any of that? People in urban areas would have an alternative to UPC whose prices only go up and people in rural areas would have an alternative to mobile which is pants.

Capt'n Midnight

Onikage wrote: »

If they priced it at €25 per month who would care about any of that?

Remind me again how much Eircom line rental is ?

Onikage

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Remind me again how much Eircom line rental is ?

Why? Is there a law saying that they can't sell it at a loss?

The point is that this is all speculation until we see what they are actually offering. More competition won't harm the market at this point, so why all the hate and resistance?

Solair

The only purpose of Sky Broadband (in the UK or Ireland) is to try and keep customers on-board and away from Virgin Media or UPC.

They can't offer anything beyond DSL in either market as they only offer a DSL product.

Sky know that their DSL offering is not comparable to cable, so they do cheap bundles with TV and offer very attractive voice packages (free calls abroad etc etc).

Eircom know their DSL product can't really compete technically with UPC, which is why they throw in music hub, study hub and all those freebees to keep people on board too.

There's no way for these companies to compete with UPC until they shift to a new technology i.e. fibre to the curb/home.

UPC already have fibre-to-curb with coaxial cables to your house and in theory (with existing infrastructure) can deliver 1Gbit/s !! They've already field-trialled this with the same infrastructure in Vienna.

Comparisons between UPC cable broadband and classic DSL services like eircom's is like comparing DSL with dial up. They're totally different technologies and one is much slower than the other.

In Ireland, according to RTE's article on it anyway, Sky are going to use BT Ireland to run their DSL and phone networks. AFAIK, that is what Vodafone @ Home does.

So, it'll be Eircom (and in a few areas BT) DSLAMS and BT backhaul. So, it's the usual up-to-24mbit/s service, with realistic maximum speeds being more like 17mbit/s on a good day and in the unfortunate areas that are still stuck on ADSL 1.0 --- 8mbit/s max.

They will have the option of re-selling eircom's fibre-to-curb / fibre-to-home products which will give customers much more speed. That's only rolled out in a very select few areas so far, but it is rolling out and now that eircom's debt is partially restructured, that rollout might even speed up a bit.

Cantona's Collars

We can debate what tech they are going to use to give us broadband but the main thing here is price.If it's cheap people will snap it up.I know many,many people who are using 3g dongles which are useless but cite the fact that they pay "€20 a month" even though their service is woeful.A neighbour of mine is a prime example,he pays €20 for his which is terrible,he can't even use youtube,I pay €38 a month for Vodafone@Home but can get 10mb on my line so don't mind paying a bit extra for something that works.
I speculate that Sky will have some excellent pricing to entice customers to sign up & hopefully they'll go the same route as the UK & install their own networks ie.fibre.

Solair

It could be a good deal in terms of pricing compared to other options, but it certainly won't be a technology change.

lawhec

Solair wrote: »

The only purpose of Sky Broadband (in the UK or Ireland) is to try and keep customers on-board and away from Virgin Media or UPC.

Wrong. People like myself who don't have, and have no interest in, the pay television services provided by Sky are happy enough for their phone & broadband packages only. Initially when Sky started offering phone and broadband services through the buyout of Easynet, it was to match Virgin Media's triple-play offer (Virgin can offer quad-play as well through Virgin Mobile's MVNO) and only open to legacy Easynet subscribers and Sky TV customers, but this is now not the case and Sky have their LLU service available in places where Virgin Media is not available. In the case in the Republic, Sky's eventual service should also be available in locations where UPC don't serve.

Solair wrote: »

They can't offer anything beyond DSL in either market as they only offer a DSL product.

Incorrect. See below.

Solair wrote: »

Sky know that their DSL offering is not comparable to cable, so they do cheap bundles with TV and offer very attractive voice packages (free calls abroad etc etc).

Eircom know their DSL product can't really compete technically with UPC, which is why they throw in music hub, study hub and all those freebees to keep people on board too.

There's no way for these companies to compete with UPC until they shift to a new technology i.e. fibre to the curb/home.

Sky in the UK have now been offering VDSL2/Fibre to the cabinet broadband packages in the UK since the start of this year. To take advantage of it you exchange must be part of Sky's LLU network and also upgraded for VDSL2 by Openreach at the exchange & cabinet.
http://www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/fibre-optic/