Take that, BT: Vodafone and BSkyB mull over broadband tie-up - report

BSkyB and Vodafone have reportedly discussed the possibility of teaming up on a high-speed broadband service. According to the Sunday Times (paid subscription required), a number of "high-level" confabs have already taken place between the pay-TV company and the mobile carrier. However, senior sources have told the newspaper …

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like uncompetitive market collusion...

... fines of 10% of Annual Turnover all round then.

Oh, and who owns the Sunday Times?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure BT would be delighted to see Sky spunking billions on building and maintaining its own network — it'll leave them with a lot less to spunk on sports rights.

[Vimes]

I would not want to go anywhere near any ISP that has any involvement with Vodafone. Remember that Vodafone is one of the ISPs that has in the past allowed a US company access to the web browsing habits of their users (and the Bluecoat product used appeared to repeat the visits made by their users too).

[Anonymous Coward]

If you think that the ISP you use makes much difference to how much of your search history gets slurped up by US companies then I laugh in your general direction.

[Vimes]

Where to begin?...

1) I never specified just search history. I was referring to each and every single HTTP request made by Vodafone customers that didn't involve SSL. This is the sort of area where choice of ISP could very well make a difference.

2) It's still no excuse to be actively sharing personal information with others when there is zero need to do so, nor does it excuse the shadow visits by Bluecoat that could in some instances be seen as replay attacks.

'B..b..b..but everybody is doing it!!!' is a rather childish response and I fail to see how that justifies in any way what Vodafone has done in the past.

[Anonymous Coward]

"'B..b..b..but everybody is doing it!!!' is a rather childish response and I fail to see how that justifies in any way what Vodafone has done in the past."

Wasn't justifying anything, merely pointing out that no matter what UK based ISP you use the US will and do have access to most of your traffic anyway.

Saying someone is making a childish response whilst failing to understand the comment itself is even more reason to laugh in your general direction.

[Vimes]

Saying someone is making a childish response whilst failing to understand the comment itself is even more reason to laugh in your general direction.

And your lack of basic reading skills is enough to take the piss out of you. You were the one that specified US companies. I might not be able to stop government access but I can damn well stop unwanted commercial parasites from seeing my private communications.

[rhydian]

I was wondering....

...Why BT was jumping ship to EE for their MVNO operations.

Oh yes, don't forget Vodafone also now own Cable and Wireless

[MJI]

Re: I was wondering....

What was wrong with O2?

I had Royal Mail try to sell me telephone, I said I was with them as I was with BT, they were confused, why?

[rhydian]

Re: I was wondering....

The Royal Mail didn't try and sell you a phone line, the Post Office did.

They're not the same company.

[kmac499]

Re: I was wondering....

Buried in the C&W package was that plucky little ISP Demon..

Which I had to leave after twenty odd years cos even after repeated "please bear with us it's coming soon" there was no FTCC Infinty style offering..essential for any video on demand service..

[Anonymous Coward]

Tax Advice

Maybe Sky are looking to learn a few tricks from the master....

[vmistery]

The only way to really shake up the fixed line market would be to err build out a competing fixed line network. Virgin certainly are not doing it so it would be good to see a new player going for it.

[rhydian]

Never going to happen unfortunately, the payback time scales would be uneconomical.

[Alan Denman]

Capacity removal ?

Obviously, if the mobile networks join up to supply mobile telly, then there is little network to sell.

Luckily for them they can double up with 'price rises for all'.

This may means that duplicate LLUs will be removed at the BT bit so again it may mean less competition.

[Annihilator]

Voda & BSkyB joining forces?

"I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened."

[Anonymous Coward]

As pointed out....

...this is more likely to do with Vodaphone owning Energeris sorry Cable and wireless, no hold on, C&W Worldwide, no sorry, Thus or whatever the bloody hell name they are using these days.

[Stuart 16]

Without Vodafone signal in my local area for the past month, and no fix in sight, I have been striving to get as far away from them as possible. If they can't operate their core business who would want to commit to this?

[Stretch]

Tax dodgers of the world...unite!

[Hankie]

The worst ISP teaming up with the worst mobile phone company..... a match made in heaven!

I wouldn't be worrying if I was BT.

[theblackhand]

Worst?

While I wouldn't nominate Sky for the best ISP, surely TalkTalk and EE (and it appears BT...) get the award for worst ISP's based on Ofcom complaints per 1000 users:

http://www.lovemoney.com/news/household-bills/broadband/12418/uks-worst-broadband-provider

[Anonymous Coward]

"The worst ISP teaming up with the worst mobile phone company..... a match made in heaven!"

Sky is the worst ISP? When did AOL lose the title?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not a surprise..

Sky make their money on TV subs - and line rental but we're all getting ripped off there regardless of supplier.

They don't make anything of note out of their BB subs as they spend so much on upgrading the network.

Yes I'm sure some of you are now about to rattle off anecdotal accounts of Sky being crap but with the exception of Sky Connect (non-LLU stuff) they're really very good and their BB forums are pretty quiet - unlike the billing forum :P

The holy grail for Sky is to extend the reach of their TV offerings beyond satellite as fast as possible. They aren't building the network capacity up for file-sharing, you can be sure of that :)

Hence the NowTV stuff and I'd be willing to bet if they did tie up with Vodafone then streaming from the Sky CDNs wouldn't count towards any data usage on Vodafone.

It's a win-win for both of them but as always there will be areas that can't currently handle the traffic and that'll take time to sort out.

[Dacco]

......Poor little Piggy

Hmmm, $KY are inviting Vodafone to their dinner table, wouldn't be surprised if Vodafone leave with the entire contents of their house after breakfast.