Sky backing UFB

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kiwisoma

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#133511 24-Oct-2013 15:14

Press release from Sky advising they are relinquishing some of the analogue UHF frequencies they have in favour of UFB. Does this mean the next gen Sky box will recive content over broadband?

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kiwisoma

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#921065 24-Oct-2013 15:28

SKY BACKS UFB FUTURE

This week it was announced that SKY will be handing back analogue UHF licenses to the government on November 30 2013.

John Fellet, SKY’s chief executive officer said;

"At SKY we are backing ultra-fast broadband to play an increasingly important role in the future to deliver quality video content to our customers.

We examined several potential uses and business cases for this spectrum, but have concluded that between satellite and ultra-fast broadband our business needs will be met. It is not necessary to convert our analogue licenses to digital."

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NonprayingMantis

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#921066 24-Oct-2013 15:30

all it means is they won't be paying for them anymore because they don't have any customers on them.

Nothing to do with UFB really.

sbiddle

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#921072 24-Oct-2013 15:41

It's not really anything to do with UFB.

Sky have already announced plans for the current MySky boxes to support IP based content and testing is underway at present.

graemeh

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#921080 24-Oct-2013 16:14

NonprayingMantis: all it means is they won't be paying for them anymore because they don't have any customers on them.

Nothing to do with UFB really.

A cynic would suggest that they held the UHF frequencies to stop any potential competitors from using them. Now that UFB is rolling out any competitor would use UFB to distribute their content so there is no longer any risk of a competitor using the UHF frequencies.

kiwisoma

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#921085 24-Oct-2013 16:30

graemeh:
NonprayingMantis: all it means is they won't be paying for them anymore because they don't have any customers on them.

Nothing to do with UFB really.

A cynic would suggest that they held the UHF frequencies to stop any potential competitors from using them. Now that UFB is rolling out any competitor would use UFB to distribute their content so there is no longer any risk of a competitor using the UHF frequencies.

That presents a significant risk to any challenger in the UFB space i.e. how do they prevent their traffic been deprioritized (QOS, rate shaping etc) in a network they have no control over?

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sbiddle

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#921186 24-Oct-2013 21:27

graemeh:
NonprayingMantis: all it means is they won't be paying for them anymore because they don't have any customers on them.

Nothing to do with UFB really.

A cynic would suggest that they held the UHF frequencies to stop any potential competitors from using them. Now that UFB is rolling out any competitor would use UFB to distribute their content so there is no longer any risk of a competitor using the UHF frequencies.

They had paid for and legally held the management rights so weren't doing anything wrong.

RF is still a vastly more efficient way of delivering linear content than IP - the only problem is we are now moving to a non linear world.

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pjamieson

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#922407 27-Oct-2013 12:11

kiwisoma:
graemeh:
NonprayingMantis: all it means is they won't be paying for them anymore because they don't have any customers on them.

Nothing to do with UFB really.

A cynic would suggest that they held the UHF frequencies to stop any potential competitors from using them. Now that UFB is rolling out any competitor would use UFB to distribute their content so there is no longer any risk of a competitor using the UHF frequencies.

That presents a significant risk to any challenger in the UFB space i.e. how do they prevent their traffic been deprioritized (QOS, rate shaping etc) in a network they have no control over?

IP TV over UFB is delivered via Multicast, over and above your normal Broadband connection, so those issues don't come into it. This is what Vodafone are using.

NonprayingMantis

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#922415 27-Oct-2013 12:28

pjamieson:
kiwisoma:
graemeh:
NonprayingMantis: all it means is they won't be paying for them anymore because they don't have any customers on them.

Nothing to do with UFB really.

A cynic would suggest that they held the UHF frequencies to stop any potential competitors from using them. Now that UFB is rolling out any competitor would use UFB to distribute their content so there is no longer any risk of a competitor using the UHF frequencies.

That presents a significant risk to any challenger in the UFB space i.e. how do they prevent their traffic been deprioritized (QOS, rate shaping etc) in a network they have no control over?

IP TV over UFB is delivered via Multicast, over and above your normal Broadband connection, so those issues don't come into it. This is what Vodafone are using.

I think what he means is that if somebody tries to enter the market with a non ISP sold product (for example, netflix) then Vodafone can easily decide that they don't want their customers to access netflix, and so they can throttle, deprioritise etc netflix so it is unwatchable.
Netflix etc are reliant on ISPs that don't do this. ISPs that have no existing tv service are probably ok, but Vodafone has such close links to sky they could easily decide to block or slow any non-vf delivered tv service, which is bad for the market.

Zeon

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#922464 27-Oct-2013 14:38

sbiddle:
graemeh:
NonprayingMantis: all it means is they won't be paying for them anymore because they don't have any customers on them.

Nothing to do with UFB really.

A cynic would suggest that they held the UHF frequencies to stop any potential competitors from using them. Now that UFB is rolling out any competitor would use UFB to distribute their content so there is no longer any risk of a competitor using the UHF frequencies.

They had paid for and legally held the management rights so weren't doing anything wrong.

RF is still a vastly more efficient way of delivering linear content than IP - the only problem is we are now moving to a non linear world.

For streaming shows, multicast is still extremely efficient when the infrastructure is setup correctly to use it... Problem is trying to get it working in the current network designs....

Another example just thinking about it of all those threads asking why they need multiple cable runs to the tv!

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