back to article New Sky thinking: Media giant makes dish-swerving move on Netflix territory

Brit broadcaster Sky has signaled the end of the satellite dish with plans to make all its channels and content available online. In its half-year results, the pay-TV and broadband business said it will launch Sky without a satellite dish and stream all its channels and on-demand content over IP. "This is a major development …

  1. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

    What??

    Apart from maybe having more channels, is this that much different from NowTV, which is already a Sky service in the UK?

    1. James 51

      Re: What??

      Beat me to it.

    2. IHateWearingATie

      Re: What??

      Now TV has a very cut down range of channels and formats

      1. Excellentsword

        Re: What??

        The stuff that real people actually watch.

      2. lybad

        Re: What??

        I though Now TV was limited to 720p - I'm guessing that with SkyQ network verion, they will still provide 4K versions where available. (ie at expensive cost)

        1. Gordon 10

          Re: What??

          afaik Both boxes can do 1080p but Sky dont send at 1080p for the cheaper box.

          The bigger flatter NowTV box (~£20 + sub) does a max of 1080p for 11 channels.

          The small re-badged Roku (£15 + subs) sky sends a max of 720p. (but other apps may hit 1080p)

    3. Churro Joe

      Re: What??

      Hopefully there will be a better frame rate. Apparently Now TV is only 25fps at the minute, and its very noticeable, particularly for football.

      1. FIA Silver badge

        Re: What??

        Hopefully there will be a better frame rate. Apparently Now TV is only 25fps at the minute, and its very noticeable, particularly for football.

        Isn't all UK TV 25fps?

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: What??

        As an aside, isn't the comment about this being the death of the satellite dish wrong? I don't think Sky are saying that, they just say that they can reach other potential customers if they have an IP service.

        It may be that Sky customers ill move away from satellite dish usage but that's not what Sky appear to be saying.

  2. K

    move on Netflix territory

    My first thought was - "Adverts, Repeats, More Adverts, More Repeats and new B-rate TV shows.. coming soon, to an IP address near you."

    Then my second thought was, no thanks, I'll still with Netflix!

    1. big_D Silver badge

      Re: move on Netflix territory

      I'll stick to FTA channels for now. I don't see the advantage of paying extra for TV.

    2. phuzz Silver badge
      Pirate

      Re: move on Netflix territory

      There's some stuff that they show where the only alternative in the UK is to pirate it (eg, Game Of Thrones).

      And of course, given the choice between paying Murdoch and piracy, the choice is clear.

      Obviously I take the legal option, wait, why are you all laughing?

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: move on Netflix territory

        Over here, in Germany, we get all of the series eventually - Breaking Bad, Walking Dead, Game of Thrones have all been shown on FTA. You just have to wait a bit.

      2. MJI Silver badge

        Re: move on Netflix territory

        Some of these shows are on Amazon, but GoT is £100

        I have not seen any so is it worth it?

        1. Huw D

          Re: move on Netflix territory

          "I have not seen any so is it worth it?"

          I'm sure you can find low end porn featuring people wearing fantasy costumes elsewhere... ;)

  3. Andy The Hat Silver badge

    I told you years ago ...

    UK is already taking steps in this direction ... The main aim of pumping Government money into 'high speed broadband' is not to benefit customers but to allow broadcasters to avoid their expensive broadcast transmission costs, making the punters pay for it by moving the infrastructure cost of transmission from the push service of the broadcaster to a 'pull service' by the punter hidden under the carpet that is the cost of 'high speed broadband'. Then sell off that wireless space for 5/6/7g and a nice massage of the Government's balance sheet.

    Before this can happen in the UK there needs to be 'super high speed broadband' available everywhere, with sufficient backbone capacity, to prevent subscribers leaving in their droves due to buffering video streams ... that'll be another 30 years then ...

    1. Tom 38

      Re: I told you years ago ...

      allow broadcasters to avoid their expensive broadcast transmission costs, making the punters pay for it by moving the infrastructure cost of transmission from the push service of the broadcaster to a 'pull service' by the punter hidden under the carpet that is the cost of 'high speed broadband'.

      Hate to break it to you, but punters pay for everything all the time anyway. Do you not think it makes sense to deliver everything over IP, or should we continue maintaining multiple distribution systems?

      Could we better spend the (presumably) tens of millions currently being spent sending men up ladders to fix dishes to walls?

      1. big_D Silver badge

        Re: I told you years ago ...

        TCP/IP is not designed for broadcast TV, compared to normal broadcasting methods.

        1. Paul Hargreaves

          Re: I told you years ago ...

          TCP/IP is not designed for the web either.

          I'm not sure I understand your point.

        2. Ynox

          Re: I told you years ago ...

          That's why you use UDP multicast?

          I was working on IPTV systems with HD (720p) content back nearly a decade ago!

          1. Dan 55 Silver badge

            Re: I told you years ago ...

            Multicast is rather moot as people now expect an on demand service over the internet instead of a broadcast service anyway.

        3. Tom 38

          Re: I told you years ago ...

          TCP/IP is not designed for broadcast TV, compared to normal broadcasting methods.

          a) I said IP, not TCP/IP. The bloke lower down said UDP, also runs over IP. It seems to work just fine for most things we put over it so far without being designed for it.

          b) I very much doubt there will be much broadcast going on. Quite a lot of streaming, no broadcast.

        4. Stu Mac

          Re: I told you years ago ...

          Elephant in the room....

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "spent sending men up ladders to fix dishes to walls"

        Also you can save on expensive geosync satellites, their channels, and everything needed to upload the signal to them. You'll still need to provide enough storage and bandwidth to deliver on-demand contents to users. While without a good broadband deployment many users would be cut off. Maybe Italy is one of the first because FTTH rollout is going on quckly, and most of the country should be cabled by 2020.

        Anyway, the name "Sky" is no longer a good one.... you'll get the signal in the basement, not on the roof <G>

        1. Teiwaz

          Re: "spent sending men up ladders to fix dishes to walls"

          Anyway, the name "Sky" is no longer a good one.... you'll get the signal in the basement, not on the roof <G>

          Great, Sewer TV (Shit TV) is so much more apt on many more levels anyway.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Oie, OpenReach. look and learn

          Maybe Italy is one of the first because FTTH rollout is going on quckly, and most of the country should be cabled by 2020.

        3. NeilPost Silver badge

          Re: "spent sending men up ladders to fix dishes to walls"

          So Italy - as with the hype for South Korea, Japan etc - why are these countries Internet rankings not far-far better??

          https://www.cable.co.uk/broadband/speed/worldwide-speed-league/

          Italy is 13 places below the UK and 16 below Ireland in Global Broadband rankings. The much vanities Spain FTTH only has an average of 36 Mbit/s.

          If Sky/Xomcast wanted an existing territory to test ‘dishless Sky Q over the Internet’Ireland and the UK seen the most promising.

    2. IHateWearingATie
      FAIL

      Re: I told you years ago ...

      @Andy The Hat

      Erm, no.

      If that was the intention then the approach would have been very very different. I was involved at the start of this in early 2010 and can confirm that your conspiracy theory like thoughts are complete rubbish

  4. adam payne

    In its half-year results, the pay-TV and broadband business said it will launch Sky without a satellite dish and stream all its channels and on-demand content over IP.

    What about all those dish installers?

    1. James 51

      There's always FreeSat and getting other satellite channels. We're at the edge of what is watchable quality but you can get a lot of EU signals in the UK (do need a bigger than standard dish though).

      1. Hans Neeson-Bumpsadese Silver badge

        There are plenty of places in the UK where a dish will work, as there is line of sight to the sky, but broadband performance is so poor that it won't be practical to watch TV over the Internet

        1. NeilPost Silver badge

          But BoJo has promised FTTP to 100% of the UK by 2025 - even in the arse end of the sticks up a track to a Welsh or Scottish sheep-farm.

          I’ve not seen it on the side or a bus yet, but I’m sure he is good for it.

  5. John70

    Wonder if they want you to have Sky Broadband to view Sky IP.

    Wonder if other ISPs will traffic shape Sky IP.

    1. James 51

      Net Neutrality, FTW! Who would have thought there would be a way to get the Murdocks and the papers they own behind such a cause.

      1. phuzz Silver badge

        You raise an interesting point. Obviously Sky TV are going to stick their streaming servers next to their Sky ISP endpoints so they have great connectivity.

        If that means that (eg) BT don't have such a good route to the TV, who should pay? Should Sky TV pay for better connectivity to their customers on BT? Or should BT pay so that their customers have better access to Sky TV?

        After all, the customers are already paying both companies, Sky for their TV, and BT for their internet.

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What ( I think ) would be cool would be for TV manufacturers to do a deal with Sky and add Sky as a dummy source ( with the Sky Q EPG, a minimum processor/ram speed, big disks for recording ). Although there's no reason they couldn't do that already if they licensed Sky's card standard.

    Doing away with STB's would be nice. Although I do like my Sky Q remote control *.

    Sky moves the cost of manufacture to the end customer and gives the user an incentive to not switch to Virgin/BT, customer doesn't have to find somewhere to hide the ugly STB and wires, TV manufacturer gains a selling point.

    * Why are most TV remotes still so awful in 2017?

    1. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

      TV remotes are mostly awful because most people buy the cheapest tellies - because it's mostly a commodity market and so most players don't make very much profit. So they don't invest anything in getting their software right, or making their hardware ergonimic.

      Sky are very profitable and decided to make their boxes mostly nice to use.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Sadly I doubt licensing Videoguard is going to happen any time soon, although maybe depending on who buys NDS from Cisco!

    3. FIA Silver badge

      What ( I think ) would be cool would be for TV manufacturers to do a deal with Sky and add Sky as a dummy source ( with the Sky Q EPG, a minimum processor/ram speed, big disks for recording ). Although there's no reason they couldn't do that already if they licensed Sky's card standard.

      You can blame sky for this. What should've happened is you should just be able to buy a CAM from sky and use whatever receiver took your fancy. (The CAM is a module that the card goes in, it handles the decryption) If you have a satellite enabled TV that's what the big hole in it is for. This would have allowed a separate market for Satellite/DVR boxes from the content they're used to consume.

      However, sky had good lawyers and managed to get round this requirement. (I heard a (probably apocryphal) tale that the regulations require they sell a CAM module, so they did, just the one; once).

      If it weren't for corporate greed then we'd maybe have managed to decouple the provider of the shows from the provider of the equipment, however that never really happened, in fact Sky ended up integrating even more, they now control the entire hardware production chain.

      This is why their subscriber base can decline year on year but their profits not. It's only now that the likes of Netflix are providing some decent competition this is starting to change.

      Personally, I would've subscribed to Sky years ago if they'd allow this as I use a PC for my TV PVR functionality, and would happily have subscribed if I could've used Myth or TvHeadend rather than Sky+ for my recording needs.

    4. NeilPost Silver badge

      Not a good idea .... if you own the ecosystem/API.. you have an immediate advantage. Ask Apple and Google media wise... and Facebook social bollocks-wise.

  7. andy gibson

    I miss ASTRA

    And the days of when Sky were just a niche UK broadcaster with a few channels on the 1A satellite, alongside channels owned by W H Smith and the RTL channels which got a bit saucy with "Tutti Fruitti" on a Sunday night, and FILMNET with dodgy plug in decoders.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I miss ASTRA

      "Dodgy plug-in decoders"

      Dodgy decoders? Never heard of the concept. Nope. Never. Nuh-huh. Not me. Clueless. What were we talking about again? #1990s

      A/C

      1. MJI Silver badge

        Re: I miss ASTRA

        I remember dodgy plug in decoders.

        The OnCAM.

        Enabled your digital TV to decode OnDigital stuff

    2. rmason

      Re: I miss ASTRA

      It's no different now. Just tech that changes, not people.

      My IPTV comes from a bloke on the internet, costs 40 english pounds per annum and works flawlessly.

      We* used to only be a few people, but then our wives/friends/colleagues who saw it or heard it mentioned realised that we get (insert content they want and pay for) *as well as* the football.

      My tivo box hasn't been plugged in for months. All comes down the via the net.

      *we being mainly football fans who stopped paying sky 100 quid a month.

  8. Jay 2

    One slight problem for the consumer is that with a dish, things are relatively easy to troubleshoot for the engineer who will come round (dish, LNB, cable, STB). However if it's all over broadband then there's bound to be the usual (ISPesque) fobbing off that the problem is almost definatley not with Sky, but elsewhere. So in the worst case you'll have to juggle both Sky and your ISP to sort things out. On an equally bad case then Sky may be your ISP. And then throw in the entire BT/OpenReach thing that the ISP should be doing.

    I'm sure it'll be mainly fine when it's all running, but wouldn't like to be around when something goes wrong.

    1. Not also known as SC
      Happy

      "And then throw in the entire BT/OpenReach"

      Although I hate to say anything good about BT, whenever I've needed an OpenReach engineer to come out they've been first class.

      1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

        Although I hate to say anything good about BT, whenever I've needed an OpenReach engineer to come out they've been first class.

        BT the company can be awful but the BT engineers I've had have always been excellent. One time my landline went kaput late on Friday afternoon and BT's response was "it's a domestic line and we only work on those Monday to Friday, so Monday at the earliest, maybe Tuesday depending". 10:30 Saturday morning the door bell goes and it's a BT engineer saying "I was in the area, so I thought I'd come and fix it now". 15 minutes later and I had a working landline again.

        1. Jess--

          "I was in the area, so I thought I'd come and fix it now".

          also known as

          I screwed up your line at the other end while working on another line and without a tracer plugged in here I can't fix it.

          1. Arthur the cat Silver badge

            also known as

            I screwed up your line at the other end while working on another line and without a tracer plugged in here I can't fix it.

            Not in this case. It was old cable on a south facing wall that had given up the ghost after decades of UV.

      2. John Crisp

        The foot soldiers are usually great once you finally convince the bean counters that one is required.

        Good engineers. Shite managers (though probably handy with their excel stats)

  9. unwarranted triumphalism

    Another desperate attempt at being relevant by a dinosaur.

  10. Ben1892

    Would be nice not getting drop out in thunderstorms and not having fugly dishes on the sides of houses tbh but this is a very well executed, cunning move ( net neutrality ends -> Murdochs sell most of 21st C Fox ->Murdochs focus on being an ISP and content provider -> all ur IPs are belong to us ! )

  11. sawatts

    So much for rural telly...

    Hopefully this will not be a wholesale replacement of satellite broadcasting?

    When I recently lived in a rural area (only 3 mi from a major town) we didn't have much terrestrial reception, and on a good day our "broadband" could nearly reach 2Mb. Sky or freesat was the only option.

    Now that we are within stone's throw of a major centre in Greater London our broadband frequently exceeds 2Mb - perhaps as high as 3Mb if the wind isn't blowing!

    As much as I loath the Murdock empire I do like Game of Thrones...

    1. Zippy's Sausage Factory

      Re: So much for rural telly...

      Satellite broadcasting is incredibly expensive, mainly because of the cost of launching the satellites. If a switch to broadband can be made before the existing satellites wear out, it's probably worth the money as far as they're concerned.

      1. DontFeedTheTrolls
        Headmaster

        Re: So much for rural telly...

        "Satellite broadcasting is incredibly expensive..."

        Satellite broadcasting is comparatively cheap in comparison to setting up ground based transmitters or cabling huge areas. That's how the business was actually able to operate and make profit. Remember Sky(1989) pre-dates ADSL(1998). Dishes aren't going anywhere in a hurry.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: So much for rural telly...

          Satellite broadcasting is comparatively cheap in comparison to setting up ground based transmitters or cabling huge areas.

          Satellite broadcasting is cheap compared to sending a VHS copy of every show to every house too! Look, I can make meaningless comparisons too!

          Sky are competing with OTT providers, so comparing their costs against a broadcaster installing ground based transmitters or cabling areas is nonsense. Compare their costs of running satellite broadcast TV vs Netflix's costs of ensuring enough AWS nodes are active.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: So much for rural telly...

            How many customers does Sky have? I saw some math recently for Directv, which has 20 million plus subscribers in the US. If you assume a 20 year satellite life, costing $400 million each, they need a fleet of five long term. That means they need to launch one every four years on average, costing $100 million per year. That's $5/year per subscriber, or less than 50 cents a month.. That's less than 1% of the average bill.

            Streaming to 20 million subscribers sure as hell wouldn't be free, and might even cost them more...

            Even if half their customers eventually decide they want to stream instead, it is still under a buck a month. Satellite is cheap, it won't be going anywhere.

  12. JasonLaw

    TV Licence?

    What does this mean for the TV licence? At the moment, you only need one if you're watching 'Live broadcast' or 'live, catch-up or on demand' via iPlayer - no mention of other viewers.

    If all TV, including news, is via a non-iPlayer on-demand service .... no licence required? Or more likely, they change the law, with the prospect of scooping up people who are currently exempt?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: TV Licence?

      won't make any difference at all, same shit just going via an internet connection not via a Sat

    2. Peter Gathercole Silver badge

      Re: TV Licence?

      It will still need a license if you are watching broadcast TV via the internet.

      There is a definition of what broadcast TV means knocking around, but I can't be arsed to dig it out. It's something to do with watching it (however you do it) while the same content is being transmitted on a broadcast medium, and covers all broadcast types.

      This is different from on-demand, where you request specific content independently of whether it is being sent to other users.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: TV Licence?

        I wonder if Sky could screw over the BBC by introducing an option for a 1 second delay mode to its Sky boxes?

        1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

          Re: TV Licence?

          Delays are already covered in the licensing - primarily because of those units that can "pause live tv".

          http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/Live-TV-and-how-you-watch-it

    3. Locky

      Re: TV Licence?

      If you can recieve BBC content, live or not, you need a licence

      http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-37226030

      They closed that loophole about 18 months ago

      1. Jamie Jones Silver badge

        Re: TV Licence?

        No. Just about anything "can receive" BBC broadcasts.

        The law applies to any live (live as in "pre-scheduled" as opposed to on-demand) TV broadcast. It was also modified about a year ago to include any non-S4C video i-player content.

        So, anything that is available on 'normal tv' needs a license, however you're getting it.

        i-player needs a license (unless you only use it for radio or S4C). itv player, channel 4 on demand and 5 on demand don't need a license (unless you watch their "live channels" through them)

        Youtube videos don't need a license, however 'live programming' from youtube does - i.e. you need a license even if your only video viewing is cnn live via youtube, or some australian tv via a live internet feed)

        The rules apply to both watching and recording.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: TV Licence?

        Corrections to the above.

        "If you can receive BBC content, live or not, you need a licence" Nope!

        "If you are receiving broadcast", only if you are *watching* or *recording* live broadcasts, on PC (mobile etc included) or TV. They also added all content on iPlayer, as you said, including iPlayer catchup to this requirement.

        But the licence only applies to other on demand services if they use live broadcast. Such as watching ITV/Channel 4/5 live broadcast on a PC etc. However if you are using catchup on those services you do not need a licence. Interestingly, and IMO untested, is if these "can" receive live broadcast they seem to be included even if they are not being used. :(

        http://www.tvlicensing.co.uk/check-if-you-need-one/topics/Live-TV-and-how-you-watch-it

        (As a note it mentions "Live TV" or "Live TV online", so services such as Twitch and Youtube streaming do not require a TV Licence as long as it is not TV broadcast they are streaming. So games/origional content is fine)

    4. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

      Re: TV Licence?

      "What does this mean for the TV licence? At the moment, you only need one if you're watching 'Live broadcast' or 'live, catch-up or on demand' via iPlayer - no mention of other viewers."

      There's no mention in either the article or the press release indicating that Sky have plans to go all Netflix and convert to on-demand only. It's just an increase in channels on their IP delivery network. Apart from which, Sky don't own all the channels broadcast over the Sky network.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is old news I think they announced they were looking at this last year or maybe 2016. Its good news to all the people who live somewhere with no LOS. Mate of mine loves his football and had sky in the pre-digital age then when it went digital and moved to a different sat in a different position in the sky he couldn't get an LOS! Well pissed off!

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    We don't have the internet infrastructure for this and I'm not sure when we will if I'm honest. Anybody in a rural location or place where there isn't capacity are not going to get it.

    1280 x 720 — 720p, recommended bitrate = 5 Mbps

    1920 x 1080 — 1080p, recommended bitrate = 8 Mbps

    3840 x 2160 — 4K, recommended bitrate = 25 Mbps

    and that's just a single channel, when you add in extra boxes or programs being recorded that goes right up. Furthermore that's also if nobody else in the house is using the internet for consoles and the like.

    Guestimate minimum connection speed would be 30mbps.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      SkyQ already uses an internet connection for lots, its pretty seamless we watch probably more stuff download than we do live, you just wait a few seconds for it to download enough of the program to be watchable. And 4K UHD content is ONLY available by download its no via the dish.

      We've got a 80Mb connection getting in the mid-high 70's most of the time

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        "We've got a 80Mb connection getting in the mid-high 70's most of the time"

        I wonder how long that will last if half the people in your street decide to do the the same thing?

        1. NeilPost Silver badge

          Bojo promised FTTP to 100% of the UK by 2025 so solved already.

          https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/17/boris_johnsons_promise_of_fullfibre_by_2025_is_pie_in_the_sky/

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "And 4K UHD content is ONLY available by download its no via the dish."

        Sorry, not true. Anon as I don't want break (more accurately - get caught breaking) company rules about posting stuff on t'internet.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Can you be more specific ( without endangering your employment, obviously )?

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          well it was true when it started. I don't have a 4k telly so don't use it

    2. Tom 38

      Those would be H264 bitrates and not HEVC?

      1. Len Goddard

        The bitrate is the same. Just the degree of compression of the content which differs.

        1. Tom 38

          The bitrate is the same. Just the degree of compression of the content which differs.

          lolwut? The degree of compression changes but the bitrate is the same?

          The bitrates correspond to a level of quality that is considered broadcast. HEVC requires lower bitrates to achieve the equivalent quality.

          We used to use MPEG-2 for HD, do you think the bitrates for that are the same as the H264 streams?

  15. Chewi
    Meh

    I did wonder whether it was a bit late in the day to start setting up a new Linux-based DVB-S box at the end of last year but I figured it would still be very many years before they shut all this off.

  16. mark l 2 Silver badge

    The way this is announced is though the satellite broadcasts will be switched off in the next 12 months. There are still a lot of areas of the country that don't have fast enough internet to make IPTV practical, especially if you have other people in the house using the internet for other things so satellite will be around for at least another decade yet.

    What it doesn't mention in this article is the new EU rules on geo-blocking are due this year which will mean that broadcaster are no longer able to restrict the content to only show in specific countries. So you will legally be able to buy a UK Sky subscription from any EU country, so having it all available on IPTV gives Sky a vast new market to sell to. But on the reverse it also means other pay TV operators can start to sell their service to UK customers from the EU meaning you could get sporting events cheaper than Sky by using an EU pay TV provider.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "So you will legally be able to buy a UK Sky subscription from any EU country"

      That depend on the Brexit agreement, I'm afraid. Probably geoblocking will be illegal inside the EU, and maybe EFTA - but as soon UK is out, if no agreement is in force, it could be free to geoblock what it likes, and vice-versa.

      1. Tom 7

        Re: "So you will legally be able to buy a UK Sky subscription from any EU country"

        And everything will be advert ridden pay per view once NowTV is geoblocked by some magic hand.

      2. Ynox

        Re: "So you will legally be able to buy a UK Sky subscription from any EU country"

        I wonder if Sky will only supply this over Sky Broadband? It's entirely possible I guess. Especially if they're hauling multicast over the network too. No Sky broadband, no IPTV.

        As for the other way to geoblock - just use a satellite with a tight footprint on the UK, e.g. Astra 2E.

    2. peterm3

      It will be interesting what happens. The UK is quite dominant in producing content - British detective dramas are shown all over the EU but apart from the odd Skandi drama, not much comes the other way unfortunately.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Inspector Montalbano!

        1. FlossyThePig

          What about "Engrenages" from France. OK it's Spiral on BBC4.

    3. Test Man

      "The way this is announced is though the satellite broadcasts will be switched off in the next 12 months."

      No. Sky are introducing their subscription service over IP, and the UK won't be getting it till end 2018/early 2019 - so obviously they aren't switching off satellite broadcasts in the next 12 months. Nothing in their press release refers to satellite broadcasting whatsoever, so you can easily assume that this is IN ADDITION for those who want it over IP instead of a dish.

  17. A Non e-mouse Silver badge

    Central Kit

    Whilst everyone is talking about the pros and cons of TV via broadband, my idle geek mind is thinking about the other end of the IP/TV pipe. How do they stream all that live TV via IP. Are they using Multicast in the core and converting to unicast near the edge? Or something else? Those millions of customers (even if they're not all watching live TV at once) soon adds up to a lot of bandwidth.

    (I suppose the question is similar to other services such as Youtube Live, etc)

  18. Andytug

    Also targettted advertising

    cannot be sent/monetised easily via a dish.

    Certainly can via the Internet though....

    1. KTF

      Re: Also targettted advertising

      They already do that. The adverts are just pushed to your STB via IP in advance and stored on a section of the HDD you cant access.

      https://www.skyadsmart.co.uk/

  19. Steve928

    Any thoughts on what will be the broadband speed requirements ? Supposedly the push is on for “superfast broadband” (24Mbps+) to 98% of premises in the United Kingdom by around 2020." Mmmm, not with BT involved !

    My understanding is that streaming 4k Ultra requires a minimum of 15-20 Mbps (that's 'spare' over what is being used for other things). 25Mbps is recommended - that's 1Mbps above the superfast definition.

    Sky says - "Sky Q lets you record six shows at the same time while you are watching a seventh, so you no longer have to worry about clashes."

    Ok, at the moment not all streams will be 4k Ultra, but what sort of bandwidth will be required to use this Sky Q function. Oh, I live almost half-a-mile from a town - no scheduled date for upgrading our broadband which is currently 5.5 Mbps (on a good day) and further down the lane they get 2Mbps !!

  20. Milton

    O, joy

    O, joy ... another way to go through Sky's menu and realise, after scrolling through several hundred channels twice, that there isn't a single thing worth watching. The sheer avalanche of cretinous shit is dumbfounding. Who are they, those people who actually want to watch endless reruns of crappy, breathless narrations as some poor schmuck gets stopped bringing an illegal boglogorian fruit through Australian customs? Or Season-57-Episode-94 of My Cheating Fat Loser Model Bakeoff Confession Wedding? Or the 21,032th repeat of a 1950s movie that shouldn't have been made, let alone watched even once?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: O, joy

      Will they show "Network"?

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Who needs net neutrality in the UK?

    Hello BT, Why has my download speed halved? You mean you let even more idiots watch moronic streaming TV?

  22. Stu Mac

    I am ever amused at how many of you are prepared to pay monthly subs to the much loved Murdoch Empire.

    SAPS

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