https://www.thinkbroadband.com/news/8124-gigabit-fibre-for-ireland-from-sky-but-nothing-yet-for-ukThe latest financial results from Sky which cover the quarter and year ending June 2018 have been published, alas while they tell us they added 20,000 customers in Q4, they don't break this down so we don't know how much their broadband base has grown. What Sky does reveal is that the fibre base has risen from 27% of broadband customers a year ago to 38% today in the UK and Ireland.
In terms of looking to the future, Ireland can look forward to a new Sky Fibre 1 Gb service (Gigabit) while the UK is being treated to a new router with enhanced Wi-Fi capabilities. In Italy the Sky over broadband service using the Open Fibre FTTH network is due to launch in summer 2019.
From our speed test analysis 47.3% of Sky visitors are on the FTTC 40/10 service, 6.7% on the FTTC 80/20 product and 45.7% on ADSL2+. There is a small 0.4% of tests on full fibre connections, which seems to be the old Sky FTTP trial in Derbyshire, the CityFibre York trial. No sign of anyone using G.fast with Sky, the odd Openreach GEA-FTTP test is at such a low volume it may just be the odd staff member. Our split from speed test users is higher than what Sky report for fibre, but we don't know if the Ireland component is holding back the UK & Ireland result, plus we know there is a tendency for us to see more FTTC users than ADSL2+, since people tend to speed test their shiny new connections.
The Offers for Sky currently has a Comcast bid that is the recommended offer and it seems possible that Sky is holding off of major cap-ex in the UK with regards to any full fibre roll-out plans until the bidding war and purchase is all done.
This is interesting and I think the article has a point. It is kinda strange that so far Sky haven't made any moves in to full fibre in the UK. Lets hope that the bidding and purchase is done quickly or they will end up far behind all the other full fibre network providers.
I've also updated my opinion on Sky / OR. I was saying that it wouldn't surprise me if they teamed up at some point. But I think that is looking less likely if/when they get bought out by Comcast. Though it will be interesting what path Comcast take, as don't they use the same cable technology as Virgin Media? That would be interesting if Comcast used DOCSIS too. In a way it does make sense as a Comcast owned Sky would be very similar to how VM are setup for primary broadcasting distribution.
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Topic: Gigabit fibre for Ireland from Sky but nothing yet for UK (Read 792 times)