Disgraceful State of Sky online services

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Networkn
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#1607091 9-Aug-2016 16:14

tripp:

Skygo is a free non charged service if you have sky.

Also you might find the Sky Rio app a bit better if you have issues with skygo

Play store

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tv.obs.ovp.android.SNZGEN

Also on iOS

I am not sure about how the law would treat it, in terms of it being non-charged. If it's included as part of a subscription and not sold separately, I am pretty sure legally it's bound by the services of the subscription it was parented from and therefore must be "fit for purpose".

It's potentially possible I'd expect, for a customer to make a complaint based on the fact that the SkyGo app is a key reason for their subscription to Sky and this would be pretty compelling from a legal investigation standpoint.

I'll check the Olympics app, thanks.

Rikkitic

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#1607094 9-Aug-2016 16:21

A company that charges for a service (and Sky Go is not 'free') has an obligation to meet a certain standard. Otherwise it is cheating its customers. Incompetence is not an acceptable excuse.

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mattwnz

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#1607096 9-Aug-2016 16:23

Considering they are moving to be an online service, it is surprising they don't seem to have any presence on here.

tripp

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#1607098 9-Aug-2016 16:26

networkn:

tripp:

Skygo is a free non charged service if you have sky.

Also you might find the Sky Rio app a bit better if you have issues with skygo

Play store

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tv.obs.ovp.android.SNZGEN

Also on iOS

I am not sure about how the law would treat it, in terms of it being non-charged. If it's included as part of a subscription and not sold separately, I am pretty sure legally it's bound by the services of the subscription it was parented from and therefore must be "fit for purpose".

It's potentially possible I'd expect, for a customer to make a complaint based on the fact that the SkyGo app is a key reason for their subscription to Sky and this would be pretty compelling from a legal investigation standpoint.

I'll check the Olympics app, thanks.

Most of the time it works as it should, the issue is when it comes to sports everyone wants to watch it live when there is a high demand event. Sports is totally different from lets say a movie on netflix which has content that is not getting hit by a snot load of people all at once at the same time all wanting to stream it to tablets, tv's etc in High Quality. Also taking into account things that sky don't control like ISP, Wifi access points, local networks etc, which can sometimes be an issue.

This is why the Terms of Use are there.

Disclosure: I work there, not in that department that looks after these things but do understand some of the issues and understand how frustrating it can be to customers.

I do not speak for sky at all, just my view on things

davidcole

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#1607100 9-Aug-2016 16:28

mattwnz:
Considering they are moving to be an online service, it is surprising they don't seem to have any presence on here.

Are you crazy? Why would they want to talk to their hapless victims, I mean, valued customers. What could you poosbly tell them they'd be interested in knowing.

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networkn

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#1607101 9-Aug-2016 16:30

Most of the time it works as it should, the issue is when it comes to sports everyone wants to watch it live when there is a high demand event. Sports is totally different from lets say a movie on netflix which has content that is not getting hit by a snot load of people all at once at the same time all wanting to stream it to tablets, tv's etc in High Quality. Also taking into account things that sky don't control like ISP, Wifi access points, local networks etc, which can sometimes be an issue.

This is why the Terms of Use are there.

That's all a red herring to the actual issue. ISP/Wifi/Internet issues do not prevent everyone from using the service during peak times. Lack of resources at the source do, or poor implementation.

If 1000 people access it, and everyone on a single ISP has an issue, that isn't a Sky problem. When everyone accessing it is having substandard service it's a problem Sky needs to resolve.

If you offer a service streaming sport, and you are the ONLY place offering it, in a Sports mad country where you have 800K subscribers, it's stupidity to think it's not going to get heavy usage, and it's negligence to see there is a problem time after time

and not do something about it.

tripp

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#1607110 9-Aug-2016 16:41

I will be removing myself from this thread, however if you do have an issue you can try the Rio app and you are always free to contact sky to lodge a complaint

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networkn

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#1607119 9-Aug-2016 16:53

davidcole:
mattwnz:

Considering they are moving to be an online service, it is surprising they don't seem to have any presence on here.

Are you crazy? Why would they want to talk to their hapless victims, I mean, valued customers. What could you poosbly tell them they'd be interested in knowing.

Considering that their CEO doesn't respond to emails, nor do any of the others in the CXO Suite (which normally in large companies is referred to their media team or the likes of, when it's not CEO specific communication that is required).

I've had personal communication with Jeff Bezos from Amazon even (and yes it was actually him)..

If I was CEO the first thing I'd do is start communicating with customers.

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#1607156 9-Aug-2016 18:08

I must admit, I have not been using SkyGo, however I have been using their Olympics app.

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tdgeek

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#1607161 9-Aug-2016 18:20

mattwnz:

Considering they are moving to be an online service, it is surprising they don't seem to have any presence on here.

Because its all whining.

Over 800,000 have Sky, so it cant be too bad

Fanpass has good reports

Neon, if it was HD, which is coming soon, would be fine, I hear some here enjoy it

SkyGo is a free add-on. When I used it on and off, it was fine on my iPad. I accept it plays up on high usage events it seems.

The Olympic app seems to be great.

tdgeek

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#1607368 10-Aug-2016 07:15

networkn:

Most of the time it works as it should, the issue is when it comes to sports everyone wants to watch it live when there is a high demand event. Sports is totally different from lets say a movie on netflix which has content that is not getting hit by a snot load of people all at once at the same time all wanting to stream it to tablets, tv's etc in High Quality. Also taking into account things that sky don't control like ISP, Wifi access points, local networks etc, which can sometimes be an issue.

This is why the Terms of Use are there.

That's all a red herring to the actual issue. ISP/Wifi/Internet issues do not prevent everyone from using the service during peak times. Lack of resources at the source do, or poor implementation.

If 1000 people access it, and everyone on a single ISP has an issue, that isn't a Sky problem. When everyone accessing it is having substandard service it's a problem Sky needs to resolve.

If you offer a service streaming sport, and you are the ONLY place offering it, in a Sports mad country where you have 800K subscribers, it's stupidity to think it's not going to get heavy usage, and it's negligence to see there is a problem time after time

and not do something about it.

Is everyone having this issue? Every Sky Go user? I was watching the cricket last night in bed, not only was it 100% reliable, it seemed to have improved quality since the last time I used it

profrink

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#1607445 10-Aug-2016 10:27

So there are a few things at play here.

Sky Olympics App & website

Don't get me wrong, I loath the organisation - but I'm not yet sure how much fault for the Olympics app & website actually fall with SKY NZ.

The iOS & Android apps, along with the website are a white label offering from OBS (Olympic Broadcasting Service), from some South American dev shop. The video feeds as far as I'm aware, come straight from the OBS in Rio via Akamai. Seven in Australia are using the exact same mobile app and web service. Many providers are.

The video feeds for events are all the same, no matter the provider you are accessing them through. The only thing that differs around the world is the commentary.

I'm pretty sure SKY don't manage the video streams feeding the Olympics app or website, as that is the whole point in this white label offering. However they do manage the authentication and accessing of the service, and I think that's what failed yesterday?

Fan Pass

Again CDN not run by SKY, proven platform and generally works fine from what I've seen? Not sure how much content is being fed directly from SKY

SKY GO

Now this is a different story. Pretty sure SKY directly feed this platform with the same source content that goes out to your MySky boxes at home. Custom mobile app and website.

Awful platform with scalability and stability issues. Think this was probably done in-house or by a third party who clearly don't know what they are doing with video live streaming. Most likely at considerable cost.

This is the method BBC and many others use, except it works.

Inexcusable and needs to be fixed. It's really not that difficult to broadcast and encode HD video for web/mobile playback these days.

---

*All these ramblings are just my theories based on limited research I've done.

networkn

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#1607448 10-Aug-2016 10:29

tdgeek:

Is everyone having this issue? Every Sky Go user? I was watching the cricket last night in bed, not only was it 100% reliable, it seemed to have improved quality since the last time I used it

Sky have acknowledged the the system has malfunctioned each of the times it has, which co-incides with popular events. I have watched the odd game of Crusaders rugby with not too many issues, but try watching an AB's game or another popular event.

Basically it doesn't scale. If you have 100 people using it, it seems fine, with 1000, it doesn't.

Rikkitic

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#1607492 10-Aug-2016 10:57

Correct me if I'm wrong but my impression is that Sky has always lagged (far) behind in keeping up with the latest technological developments, only implementing things like HD partially and grudgingly when it can no longer be put off. If true, I assume this is another (short-sighted) cost-saving measure to keep profits flowing to the shareholders.

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networkn

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#1607500 10-Aug-2016 11:07

Rikkitic:

Correct me if I'm wrong but my impression is that Sky has always lagged (far) behind in keeping up with the latest technological developments, only implementing things like HD partially and grudgingly when it can no longer be put off. If true, I assume this is another (short-sighted) cost-saving measure to keep profits flowing to the shareholders.

Well as I stated before, I think it's not really entirely that, though it's hard to argue there is SOME merit to that argument. I suspect that the leadership is set in their ways, not really keen to embrace the new technology and probably didn't have the knowledge or experience to engage someone who knew how to do it properly. I think they spent quite a lot of money on it, and don't have an easy avenue to fix it because the issues with it are not "fixable" as in the platform just may not be built to be scalable.

If that's the case they need to take their lumps and buy a new platform, though that would take considerable time, and with the upcoming merger, I suspect they won't be doing anything till well after that, and part of the reason for the merger was to see if VF could fix the platform somehow?

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