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[Bowdon]

UK ISP Sky Broadband Suffers Slow Growth to 5.94 Million Subscribers

Sky has published their latest results to the end of Q1 2016 (calendar), which reveals that the total number of Sky Broadband subscribers in the UK and Ireland increased by just +46,000 in the quarter to total approx. 5.94 million (down sharply from the +144K added in Q4 2015 and +133k in Q3).

One reason for the sharp drop in quarterly subscriber growth could be put down to the fact that Sky didn’t run as many headline grabbing discounts during that period. Sky also delivered an overall customer churn figure of 10.7%, which is up from 10.2% at the end of 2015.

[niemand]

They also ruled out investing in their own FTTP network. I was waiting for them to do so.

At least part of the point of these trials was to try and influence Ofcom. Now that the decision seems to have been made and Ofcom are trying to encourage Sky and others to invest Sky back away.

£1.4 billion a year on Premier League rights, roughly equivalent to BT's entire CapEx spend on first phase FTTC/P, no problem. Building a network, scary.

[kitz]

£1.4 million a year on Premier League rights, roughly equivalent to BT's entire CapEx spend on first phase FTTC/P, no problem.

Thanks for quoting that,  I was wondering after just having seen the other post about them backing out of FTTP.

A case of do as I say not do as I do?

[speedyrite]

You mean £1.4 billion per year for Premier League coverage rights, of course!

Sky's "winning" deal, announced in February 2015, is to pay £4.2 billion for the 3 football seasons from 2016/17 (which starts in September 2016) to 2018/19 inclusive.

https://corporate.sky.com/media-centre/news-page/2015/sky-sports-wins-live-premier-league-rights

[Chrysalis]

As I said investing alone or as part of openreach are two entirely different things.

What is the evidence that the trials were just a ploy to sway ofcom? if you cannot say then I consider it just speculation, sorry.

Ofcom made their choice, they are a bit stupid if they think someone is going to build a new network to compete with openreach.

[skyeci]

Perhaps if they removed the requirement for option 60/61 when wishing to use your own kit even though they dont like it, perhaps it might be more appealing 

[niemand]

Ofcom made their choice, they are a bit stupid if they think someone is going to build a new network to compete with openreach.

Given VM are spending £3 billion passing 4 million premises, and are about to start their 3rd group of FTTP builds perhaps not.

People won't build networks to compete with Openreach. They will build to compete with BT Retail, Sky, etc.

I know of a pretty large company that's awaiting the PIA changes and EU infrastructure directives with considerable interest.

EDIT: Hyperoptic have announced plans to use PIA too. With PIA to modern estates it's not actually that much harder to build to them than buildings. Pop some kit in the basement of a local MDU and branch out from there.

No-one is going to build everywhere but the areas that Openreach would have built FTTP to if they weren't dogmatically sweating the copper may see some action.

New, potentially affluent estates with high premium TV take up will be of interest.

[niemand]

What is the evidence that the trials were just a ploy to sway ofcom? if you cannot say then I consider it just speculation, sorry.

That they apparently haven't connected anyone in York is a hint. All TalkTalk. Strange way to conduct your largest trial of FTTP.

Sky can make FTTP work if they desire, just as VM can. Both have the necessary content access. Sky made a decision.

[WWWombat]

Strange way to conduct your largest trial of FTTP.

Even stranger that I've been inundated with banner ads from Sky for the last few weeks, attempting to get me to register my interest in their York offering. Did anyone else see a lot of these?

Perhaps, of course, their choice to back out is as a result of the click-through rates they achieved.

[niemand]

The possibility of them acquiring TalkTalk can't be eliminated entirely either though.

I can easily imagine TalkTalk being happy at being provided an exit from the market given their numbers recently.

For Sky it would provide considerable weight in discussions with Openreach without having to worry about putting their own money down in CapEx.

[gt94sss2]

I wonder if Sky would actually be allowed to buy TalkTalk on competition grounds - it would mean having only two (or 3 if you count Virgin) large scale residential providers in the market for both line rental and broadband.

[gt94sss2]

Ofcom made their choice, they are a bit stupid if they think someone is going to build a new network to compete with openreach.

Given VM are spending £3 billion passing 4 million premises, and are about to start their 3rd group of FTTP builds perhaps not.

People won't build networks to compete with Openreach. They will build to compete with BT Retail, Sky, etc.

To add to Ignitionnet's comments, infrastructure competition is common in other parts of the world including other parts of Europe. The difference is that these other countries tend not to have LLU when may have led to lower prices on the short term but has harmed long term investment.

Ofcom/the industry and in real danger of compounding/repeating this by promoting PIA.

[Chrysalis]

Ofcom are pushing hard now for what seems like a LLU type system on fibre (which I dont support), so it does look like they learnt nothing from past mistakes.

They seem intent on providing low wholesale cost to talktalk and sky at the expense of everything else.

The competition at retail level has got as big as it is going to get, the uk broadband market is past the point where a regulator is to encourage new players, they should move on to deregulating wholesale and regulating retail.

[niemand]

Ofcom are pushing hard now for what seems like a LLU type system on fibre (which I dont support), so it does look like they learnt nothing from past mistakes.

They seem intent on providing low wholesale cost to talktalk and sky at the expense of everything else.

Could you explain this? They claim in the review to be actively pursuing infrastructure competition and PIA is their solution to help speed this along. We have VULA which is the closest you're going to get to unbundled fibre without going point to point or using WDM.

[niemand]

Okay I think I found what you are referring to.

Dark fibre actually helps promote infrastructure competition at the access layer, for example rather than purchasing EADs to backhaul their FTTB services Hyperoptic can rent the fibre itself and place their equipment either side as needed. Companies without large core networks of their own can rent fibre between exchanges and add wavelengths as they need to rather than having to buy EBDs and EADs.