Sky blames piracy for lost customers. Sky: it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Forums › Sky, Neon, Lightbox › Sky blames piracy for lost customers. Sky: it's time to wake up and smell the coffee.

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Awrrr
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#1852392 25-Aug-2017 10:49

networkn:

There are thousands of Hotels/Motels in NZ with no IP of a speed suitable to run IPTV.

Not just motels. We live in sight of Hastings but could not get broadband for years except via awful overpriced satellite so suffered on dial-up. Finally we could get RBI. That works fine for Internet browsing but is still patchy for streaming. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, even for SD. It seems to depend on school holidays, rainy Sundays, and whatever else pushes traffic up on the one mast we depend on. People who live in cities and enjoy fibre seem to think NZ's Internet problems are solved. They are not.

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networkn

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#1852396 25-Aug-2017 10:56

kryptonjohn:

The thing with Sky is... while they have the rugby rights in NZ they are artificially protected. We can talk all we like about how much it really costs to provision a service... but the fact is you can get everything Sky offers for less elsewhere *apart* from certain sports. If there was a streaming rugby service here like the one I referred to earlier in Asia, Sky would be gone in a year.

Sky are not ripping us off. They're doing the very best they can in the situation they find themselves in. The problem is they are no longer an optimal way of delivering the content I want and others are now doing it better and cheaper.

Sky Movies are a good example. $20/month to get whatever they happen to be repeating at the time. If I watch one movie a week then for a little more I can watch four HD movies streaming. Whatever movie I want, whenever I want. If I watch no movies in the month I pay nothing. So I don't get Sky movies because there are better alternatives within NF, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon, Apple etc. If there was a better alternative to Sky Sport I would get it and then Sky would be gone.

It's not just me. Sky lost 30,000 subscribers in the last FY.

Still over 700,000 subscribers left who see value.

networkn

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#1852401 25-Aug-2017 10:58

Rikkitic:

networkn:

There are thousands of Hotels/Motels in NZ with no IP of a speed suitable to run IPTV.

Not just motels. We live in sight of Hastings but could not get broadband for years except via awful overpriced satellite so suffered on dial-up. Finally we could get RBI. That works fine for Internet browsing but is still patchy for streaming. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, even for SD. It seems to depend on school holidays, rainy Sundays, and whatever else pushes traffic up on the one mast we depend on. People who live in cities and enjoy fibre seem to think NZ's Internet problems are solved. They are not.

Well, like anything in life, everything has pro's and con's. You pay significantly less for rent, less traffic congestion, less a lot of things. It's a balance. If your priority was internet, like mine is, you wouldn't live where you live :)

Personally, in a new house the very first thing I'd be looking at is internet capability. Anything less than 50Mbps down sustained, wouldn't be an option.

tdgeek

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#1852411 25-Aug-2017 11:11

kryptonjohn:

The thing with Sky is... while they have the rugby rights in NZ they are artificially protected. We can talk all we like about how much it really costs to provision a service... but the fact is you can get everything Sky offers for less elsewhere *apart* from certain sports. If there was a streaming rugby service here like the one I referred to earlier in Asia, Sky would be gone in a year.

Sky are not ripping us off. They're doing the very best they can in the situation they find themselves in. The problem is they are no longer an optimal way of delivering the content I want and others are now doing it better and cheaper.

Sky Movies are a good example. $20/month to get whatever they happen to be repeating at the time. If I watch one movie a week then for a little more I can watch four HD movies streaming. Whatever movie I want, whenever I want. If I watch no movies in the month I pay nothing. So I don't get Sky movies because there are better alternatives within NF, Hulu, Vudu, Amazon, Apple etc. If there was a better alternative to Sky Sport I would get it and then Sky would be gone.

It's not just me. Sky lost 30,000 subscribers in the last FY.

Yes. No idea why anyone would get Movies. This whole thing would be far easier we we knew what the 350 million content costs were made up of.. The sports bodies will still want their pound of flesh. PPV for all sport per event cant really work here IMHO as we are too small. Sports will evolve for sure though, in some way

Rikkitic

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#1852421 25-Aug-2017 11:21

networkn:

Well, like anything in life, everything has pro's and con's. You pay significantly less for rent, less traffic congestion, less a lot of things. It's a balance. If your priority was internet, like mine is, you wouldn't live where you live :)

C'mon man, we live on a family farm. It's not like we can just chuck it in and move to town.

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networkn

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#1852424 25-Aug-2017 11:24

Rikkitic:

networkn:

Well, like anything in life, everything has pro's and con's. You pay significantly less for rent, less traffic congestion, less a lot of things. It's a balance. If your priority was internet, like mine is, you wouldn't live where you live :)

C'mon man, we live on a family farm. It's not like we can just chuck it in and move to town.

As I said, priorities :) You get the benefits of living on a farm, I remember and miss them from my own child hood and wish my kids could experience it too, but there is a cost.

Rikkitic

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#1852433 25-Aug-2017 11:38

I think it can be seen from two perspectives. One is as you say, a matter of choice. The other is that business and government are still letting people down by not having this properly sorted. Maybe it is not reasonable for someone living in the mountains far from the nearest settlement to expect fibre speeds and capacity, but the reason my Internet drops out is just because VF are too cheap to increase the capacity of that mast and no-one can be bothered to force them to.

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networkn

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#1852435 25-Aug-2017 11:43

Rikkitic:

I think it can be seen from two perspectives. One is as you say, a matter of choice. The other is that business and government are still letting people down by not having this properly sorted. Maybe it is not reasonable for someone living in the mountains far from the nearest settlement to expect fibre speeds and capacity, but the reason my Internet drops out is just because VF are too cheap to increase the capacity of that mast and no-one can be bothered to force them to.

Well, I wouldn't say the second perspective isn't based on reality. How many people use that mast? What revenue does VF get from it? Wireless is a finite technology and not designed to be as stable or reliable as a wired connection.

I'd suggest you spend some time understanding how wireless and cellular technology work, before assuming VF are too cheap to "make it work" to your expectations.

Some might even say it's you who are too cheap to pay Chorus to run a cable to you so you can have the internet you demand! If you had to pay for it, I wonder if you'd do it?

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#1852445 25-Aug-2017 11:59

We already pay around $130 a month (including phone) for our unreliable Internet connection. I think that is enough. I don't know much about the details of cellular technology but I do know enough to know that increasing the capacity of that mast, or even adding a second one, is not rocket science. All you need is a will to do it.

Are we too cheap to pay for a cable run of many kilometers? I guess so, since the cost of that would make even Peter Thiel blanch.

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#1852450 25-Aug-2017 12:09

Rikkitic:

We already pay around $130 a month (including phone) for our unreliable Internet connection. I think that is enough. I don't know much about the details of cellular technology but I do know enough to know that increasing the capacity of that mast, or even adding a second one, is not rocket science. All you need is a will to do it.

Are we too cheap to pay for a cable run of many kilometers? I guess so, since the cost of that would make even Peter Thiel blanch.

I wouldn't assume increasing the capacity is as easy as flicking a switch (There is backhaul requirements that may need to be changed as well) , nor would I assume that doing so would have no cost.

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#1852506 25-Aug-2017 13:15

kryptonjohn:

Sky are not ripping us off. They're doing the very best they can in the situation they find themselves in. The problem is they are no longer an optimal way of delivering the content I want and others are now doing it better and cheaper.

Getting in late but this to me is the crux of the issue. As has already been discussed Sports rights are increasing and there is currently no way to deliver the content to a majority of the country without the satellite platform and even ditching the platform is not a get out of jail free card.

I can't see any way that TVNZ or Mediaworks are going to buy Sports rights and as we've seen with beIN, just because an international company takes them to get Worldwide coverage it doesn't mean they'll bother with things like a streaming platform to little old NZ. So what can Sky do to keep Sports available to the same number of kiwis as it does currently and still turn a reasonable profit? I may not love Sky but neither do I want to see the company go bust, that's a whole lot of people out of work and potentially a much worse situation for consumers.

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#1852571 25-Aug-2017 13:56

networkn:

I wouldn't assume increasing the capacity is as easy as flicking a switch (There is backhaul requirements that may need to be changed as well) , nor would I assume that doing so would have no cost.

I get that and so I am just patiently waiting for things to improve when they finally decide they need more capacity. Maybe when they get around to upgrading to 5g or 4.5g or whatever comes next. In the meantime, though, I will throw in a moan when the opportunity arises. I don't want people getting the idea that everything is fixed for everyone!

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Rikkitic

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#1852572 25-Aug-2017 13:58

karni:

I may not love Sky but neither do I want to see the company go bust, that's a whole lot of people out of work and potentially a much worse situation for consumers.

I don't think anyone here wants to see Sky go bust. I certainly don't. Some of us just wish they would up their game.

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trig42

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#1852578 25-Aug-2017 14:05

I agree that Sky going bust would not be good, and that they need to up their game.

A start would be fairer content pricing - Sport should cost a lot more than they charge for it. Basic (given the crappy bitrates, the Sport subsidy everyone pays and endless repeats) should cost less. HD should not be an addon charge - if they adjusted the packages, build the cost into the sports/movies packages (after all, you don't need the HD ticket for One, Two and Three do you? - prime?).

Make FanPass the same price per month as the Sport package on Satellite - obviously they'd need to raise the package price on Satellite (as above).

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#1852588 25-Aug-2017 14:15

I do not believe they will go inter liquidation anytime soon. They still have good supply contracts and a sizeable customer base sport will see that customer remain at high levels. NZ does see churn in most sectors for example power suppliers have an average churn around 20% and I would imagine telcos are at similar levels of churn. I don't believe that Sky has no desire to change but is in an industry where the rights owners are largely calling the shots and that wont change rapidly. Sky is locked in an arrangement with Optus for at least another 24 months and that will be impacting on change plans. The Commerce Commission rightly or wrongly declined a big part of their change plans with the decline of teh Vodafone merger a decision that may well come and bite the NZ consumers. If NZ consumers want a kiwi focused provider we need an organization big enough and funded enough to compete globally for content rights or we will end up with diluted content and lower quality content.

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