Virgin Media customers could see the return of the Sky channels as early as January the 1st – a report first leaked on Brand Republic details how Sky and Virgin have again been getting together for secret huddled talks regarding the return of the five Sky channels to the cable TV platform “from the start of 2009″.
In March last year, the Sky channels Sky 1, Sky Sports News, Sky News, Sky Arts and Sky Real Lives (aka Sky Travel) were pulled from Virgin Media after the ‘Quad Play provider’ refused to pay the rates Sky were demanding.
In light of the Ofcom report published last week which decreed that Sky should divvy up its premium footy and film content on a wholesale basis, it looks as though the two might be able to work out a deal; Virgin Media are already paying Sky a pretty penny for their Sky Sports and Sky Movies channel packages, and the pending wholesale framework would presumably see Virgin having more money to play with, and therefore be able to meet Sky’s demands for its channels.
A Sky spokesperson said: “We remain keen to agree a carriage deal with Virgin Media but it needs to be a fair price that reflects our investment in the channels.”
The removal of the channels by Sky is widely seen as the catalyst which prompted Virgin, BT, Setanta Sports and Top-Up TV to submit a joint complaint to Ofcom last year, the results of which have recently been published.
The pulling of the channels also prompted a very public war of words between Sky and Virgin, and a series of aggressive marketing campaigns, which pooh-poohed the quality of each other’s services (see above). Now now children.
Posted by Tom on October 6th 2008 in BT Broadband, Sky Broadband, Virgin Media
Ofcom has finally published its verdict on the position of Sky in the UK pay-TV sector; after several hand wringing months, the regulator decided that the triple play provider does indeed enjoy a dominant position in the marketplace, and has suggested that provision of Sky’s premium content – blockbuster cinema exclusives and live coverage of Barclays Premier League football – ought to be distributed across rival platforms on a wholesale basis, much like BT Wholesale, the part of the BT Group that sells and leases connections to practically every ADSL broadband provider in the UK. Ofcom’s analysis is summed up in the closing statement:
“Our review of the evidence indicates that distribution of these channels is indeed limited… We propose to address our concerns by requiring Sky to wholesale designated premium channels on regulated terms.”
This will please BT and Virgin Media, who will be able to offer their customers Sky Sports 1 alongside Setanta Sports content, allowing for complete Premiership coverage.
“We are encouraged that Ofcom has recognised Sky’s dominance in the wholesale supply of its sports and movie channels and is proposing to take action compelling Sky to supply these channels to other pay TV providers in a fair and non-discriminatory way,” said a Virgin spokesmouth.
It is thought that the blow will be sweetened for Sky, who will be allowed to go ahead with their Picnic service, a sort of Freeview plus added Sky pay-per-view options with bundled broadband and phone calls, kind of like a slimline version of their hugely successful See Speak Surf package. Last month, Sky slammed shut the lid on their Picnic basket, citing Ofcom’s glacial progress on the proposal as the main reason.
It is also thought that the ruling will see Sky re-opening talks with Virgin Media, over carriage fees for the five Sky channels which were pulled from the cable platform last March, literally days after the launch of the Virgin Media ‘Quad-Play’ package in the UK.
Posted by Tom on October 1st 2008 in BT Broadband, Sky Broadband, Virgin Media
Here we go again. Virgin Media have called BS on bitter rivals BSkyB over their recent claims with regard to being the first UK ISP to offer punters truly unlimited broadband.
Sky recently removed their fair usage policy from their premier up to 16Mbps Broadband Max service, which means that punters can actually download however much they want, without fear of running into some sort of phantom usage limit and being forced to pay infinity billion pounds in charges; “We believe that we are now the only major broadband provider to offer truly ‘unlimited’ broadband,” crowed the Sky spokesperson at the time.
It was presumably this statement that got Virgin Media’s hackles up. “Virgin Media has always believed that customers should be able to enjoy their broadband as much as they want,” sulked the Virgin official.
“We were the first ISP to provide unlimited broadband packages to our entire customer base, including both cable and ADSL, and have never imposed any form of ‘fair use’ policy.”
Continue Reading »
Posted by Tom on September 29th 2008 in Carphone Warehouse, Free Broadband, Mobile Broadband, Orange Broadband, Sky Broadband, TalkTalk, Virgin Media, Vodafone
Sky Broadband is set to issue a challenge to its rivals as it prepares to launch an advertising campaign, claiming to be the only internet service provider to offer truly unlimited broadband to its customers.
This comes after Sky decided to remove its fair usage policy, which limits “excessive” downloading, on its top-tier Sky Broadband Max product. The company added that because it does not cap download speeds at peak times, known as “traffic shaping”, it offers genuinely “unlimited” broadband.
“Customers have told us that they want ‘unlimited’ broadband to be exactly that, so we’ve acted on their feedback,” said a spokesperson for Sky. “We believe that we are now the only major broadband provider to offer truly ‘unlimited’ broadband.”
Sky Broadband will still maintain its “acceptable usage policy”, but this limits the type of content that people can download rather than how much.
Sky Broadband is likely to launch its new campaign towards the end of the month, advertising over TV, newspapers and magazines, the internet and through direct marketing, triggering an expected marketing battle with rival ISPs.
Continue Reading »
Posted by ellie_mears on September 22nd 2008 in Broadband, Orange Broadband, Sky Broadband, Virgin Media
Sky Broadband has removed its fair usage policy on most of its packages, thus becoming the first Internet Service Provider to offer truly unlimited downloads.
Although many ISPs offer “unlimited” broadband downloads, many will implement a “fair usage policy” which restricts those users considered to use an excessive amount of bandwidth. Users who regularly practise P2P (peer to peer) file sharing are most likely to fall into this trap. ISPs take various measures to prevent their customers using excessive bandwidth, such as restricting broadband access, reducing download speeds ant peak times or even cancelling their subscription altogether.
But now Sky Broadband has told customers they can download as much content as they want at any time, without worrying about speed capping or data charges. Previously Sky customers had to stick to a fair usage policy of 250GB downloads per month.
The company has reassured customers that enough space has been made available to accommodate the changes. A spokesperson said that Sky decided on the change after several customers complained that commercials were misleading because they advertised their broadband service as being “unlimited” when in fact downloads were restricted.
Earlier this year, the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) ruled that Vodafone remove an advert offering “unlimited” mobile internet access, when in fact they employed a fair usage policy of 250GB a month. The ASA also received complaints about Virgin Media when they advertised download speeds of 16Mbps but imposed speed caps on its heaviest users.
However, a spokesperson for Virgin Media called Sky’s claim to be the first ISP to offer totally unlimited broadband ‘empty rhetoric’, and said that Virgin Media already had an unlimited without a fair usage policy.
Posted by ellie_mears on September 19th 2008 in Broadband, Mobile Broadband, Sky Broadband, Virgin Media, Vodafone
Sky has just announced that it is to indefinitely can its proposed premium Freeview offering Picnic, citing regulatory heel dragging as the cause. Ofcom has been examining the proposals for the past 18 months, with “there is no end in sight,” according to a Sky spokesperson, who added that “no business can go on like that.”
Sky still hope to air Picnic to the public, but it has put the lid on any further development, pending action from Ofcom. “The blunt truth is that Ofcom has spent 18 months looking at our proposals and there is no end in sight. The Picnic team have done everything they can to prepare for launch and there’s nothing left to be achieved until Ofcom makes its mind up,” the Sky spokesperson said.
With Picnic, Sky proposed to remove its three existing free-to-air Freeview channels (Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Three) with premium Sky Movies and Sky Sports content, and the flagship channel Sky One. Picnic would be available either on its own, or as part of a bundle deal including fixed-line calls and broadband services in the same vein as its See Speak Surf bundles.
Sky pitched the idea to Ofcom back in February 2007 – rival Digital TV providers Setanta and Top-Up TV objected, and the regulator consented to having a look around the Picnic proposal. An Ofcom report was due to be published this spring which, unsurprisingly, never happened.
Posted by Tom on September 12th 2008 in Sky Broadband
Keeping in line with yesterday’s post concerning the healthy state of the UK broadband market, in sharp contrast to that of the housing market, Virgin Media have announced some healthy profits, no doubt due to their marketing emphasis on their cable broadband services; some 54,000 broadband subscriptions were added in the last quarter, bringing the total Virgin Media broadband consumer base (including cable and ADSL) to a cool 3,836,100. Underlying profits for the quarter are reportedly something in the region of £333m.
This precipitates the unveiling of the hotly anticipated unveiling of 50Mbps speeds, apparently due sooner than people might think. Virgin Media’s Neil Berkett had this to say: “The second half of this year will mark a major milestone as we roll out our unrivalled 50Mb broadband service. We believe this superfast service, combined with our leading video-on-demand product, will prove extremely attractive to existing and new customers.”
Talks with Sky are apparently still happening, but nothing new is happening on that front, so don’t hold your breath.
Posted by Tom on August 7th 2008 in Sky Broadband, Virgin Media
The six biggest ISPs in the UK have struck a deal with the government and the BPI to clamp down on illegal filesharing. The ‘Memorandum of Understanding’, or MoU, comes ahead of an announcement to be issued by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform later today, threatening ISPs with prosecution if they fail to tackle unlawful downloading of music and videos.
“We have looked to ISPs to acknowledge their responsibility to help deal with illegal file-sharing, engage in communicating the issue to their customers, and put in place procedures necessary to effectively tackle repeated unlawful file-sharing,” said a spokesperson for the BPI, the body that represents the British recorded music business.
Unsurprisingly, the list includes both BT and Virgin Media who have both already threatened to get medieval on errant customers. The four other signatories include Orange, Tiscali and Sky and the Carphone Warehouse - we were surprised to see that Charles Dunstone’s group had signed up, given that they had in the past told the BPI where to shove it with regard to adopting a three-strikes rule.
The new agreement sees ISPs adopting universal measures to deal with repeat offenders as well as a plan to commit to the development of more legal music download sites. The deal will involve providers sending warning letters to thousands of illegal downloaders telling them that their activities are being monitored and that they could face prosecution if they continue to flout the law. The crackdown is being hailed by the government as the “world’s first solution” agreed by the industry to tackle illegal file-sharing; it is estimated that last year alone around 6.5 million people in Britain downloaded files illegally.
Parents who receive the letters will be in for a shock, since many are unaware that their children have been downloading music, films and TV programmes illegally. They could be blacklisted and have their internet use curbed under the new plans. Households that ignore the warning letters could have their download speeds massively reduced, making it harder and more time-consuming to download large files, or even be blocked from using the internet altogether.
Concerns raised by this ruling include the prospect of subscribers having their wireless connections hacked and used by someone else for illegal downloads - under current proposals, this could see customers who are victims of pharming being held accountable for the illegal actions of others.
Posted by ellie_mears on July 24th 2008 in BT Broadband, Broadband, Carphone Warehouse, Free Broadband, Mobile Broadband, O2 Broadband, Orange Broadband, Sky Broadband, Tiscali, Virgin Media
Tiscali have begun legal proceedings against BT, after it was revealed this week that the UK’s leading internet service provider had mailed letters, containing “defamation and malicious falsehood” to Tiscali customers.
The letters, sent in the wake of the announcement earlier this year that Tiscali - currently the fourth biggest ISP in the UK - was searching for a buyer, cast doubts on the company’s future and advised customers to switch to a provider with a more stable long-term prospects, i.e. BT.
“We can understand why you’re wondering what might happen to your Tiscali broadband service,” the letters said. “And because no one really knows the answer just yet, it could be a good time to look for an alternative broadband service.”
BT have defended their actions saying that sending the letters to Tiscali customers was legitimate business practice: “Following media reports suggesting that Tiscali was up for sale we recently approached a number of Tiscali customers, and pointed out the benefits of our service. We believe this is a legitimate and reasonable business practice - comparative marketing is an important aspect of a competitive market.” Many are suspicious as to how BT obtained Tiscali’s customer information in the first place but BT insisted that it used “reputable external sources.”
The move by BT is just another example of the cut-throat nature of the consolidating UK comms market as ISPs try desperately to attract new customers and the top dogs try to stay on top. Arash Amel, an analyst with research group Screen Digest believes that as competition becomes tougher, only ISPs backed by big businesses such as Sky and Virgin Media can hope to survive in the long-term: “The standalone ISP business model is looking increasingly shaky… For every gigabyte of data customers use the bigger the costs for ISPs and their small profits start to disappear.”
Indeed; Tiscali last year bought Pipex, who had previously purchased Bulldog and Toucan - this swelled Tiscali’s total broadband consumer base to around 1.9 million. Vodafone, the world’s biggest mobile phone network, was once touted as a possible buyer for Tiscali’s broadband services, which would have meant for further market consolidation, but negotiations reportedly dissolved at the last minute.
Posted by ellie_mears on July 23rd 2008 in BT Broadband, Broadband, Pipex, Pipex Broadband, Sky Broadband, Tiscali, Virgin Media, Vodafone
Karoo, the incumbent ISP in the Kingston Upon Hull areas, whose parent company KCOM owns Eclipse Internet, will be setting up ADSL2+ connections across its entire network over the next two months, providing residents with a much needed boost in broadband speeds.
As Karoo is the only choice of phone and internet service provider in Hull and its surrounding areas, residents have missed out on the competitive prices offered by providers elsewhere in the UK, having been unable to sign up for the triple and quad-play services provided by the likes of Sky, BT, Tiscali and Virgin Media.
Until now, residents of Hull have been unable to sign up for the faster ADSL2+ services which are available to Be Broadband and O2 Broadband punters as well as UK Online subscribers. There are not yet plans in the pipeline to make ADSL2+ speeds – theoretically capable of a maximum downstream speed of 24Mbps – available to Eclipse Internet customers.
Posted by Tom on July 17th 2008 in BT Broadband, Be Broadband, Broadband, Eclipse Internet, Next Gen Broadband, O2 Broadband, Sky Broadband, Tiscali, UK Online, Virgin Media
