back to article Sky’s CEO drops MVNO bombshell at results conference

At the announcement of its results this week, Sky said that it was planning MVNO services based on the O2 network, which is run in the UK by Telefonica. Faultline has been forecasting a move by Sky into cellular for the past four years and is surprised that it has taken this long for the move to emerge. The core Sky news was …

  1. BoldMan

    How about you define the term "MVNO" in your article?

    Sure I can google it, but a good journalist defines his abbreviations at the start of the article so that the non-experts among us stand a chance of understanding what you are blathering about!

    Oh hang on this was originally written by consultants so they probably don't know what it means either, sorry I mistook this for proper journalism...

    1. Mage Silver badge
      Headmaster

      MVNO

      Actually over 1200 hits searching MVNO on forums here.

      It does seem to occasionally cause confusion.

      I remember in early 21st C reading a trade/professional Telecomms journal after a few years break and finding every article had myriads of undefined acronyms and abbreviations.

      Given that this is a Tech site, I'm only partly sympathetic, which is why I bothered to explain.

      Then there are acronyms like CAPI and SMB that change with time or context to mean something entirely different. Or BEREC, which in 1906 was British Ever Ready Electrical Company and in 1950s was British Ever Ready Export Company (a UK Ever Ready Division) and in 1980s briefly BEREC was the holding company for Ever Ready and BEREC.

      BEREC is now:

      Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications (BEREC) was established by Regulation (EC) No 1211/2009.

      Very annoying when searching for 1950s BEREC as there is really no sensible way to to date related searches, either on content or site creation.

      It's nearly impossible to keep up to date. Maybe articles should mention once, what the abbreviation is for?

      1. Lars Silver badge
        Happy

        Reh: MVNO

        Long ago I was working with web programming. Then one day my boss, who had visited a daughter company abroad came to ask me what PHP and LAMP stood for. I think I was able to keep a straight face, slightly pleased he would ask me, probably because he knew I was writing programs when he was still in kindergarten, but a bit surprised too. He had a Microsoft only background. So I told him all those abbreviations can be very annoying but that there is this whatis.com I use, if in doubt. He later came to thank me for the tip.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How about you define the term "MVNO" in your article?

      I wish I had more upvotes. My years of writing docs are far behind me, but if there's on thing I remember well is that the the first instance of an acronym should always be accompanied by a means to discover what it is, if only to prevent it from meaning something else. I learned the wisdom of that when I did a consulting stint at MoD straight after almost a year at the company where they invent new acronyms at a rate of 20 an hour, Vodafone.

      Which brings me to OTT: Over The Top? As in "the use of TLAs in this article is OTT"?

      About the only ones you would *not* expand on would be things that replace colloquialisms such as WTF as the explicit purpose of those is to prevent the swearword appearing in cleartext.

      It's simply good writing practice.

  2. Mage Silver badge

    MVNO

    Mobile Virtual Network Operator.

    You'd easily guess as Sky has no mobile network and it's how Tesco and others work.

    Some like Tesco have their own backend using only masts and backhaul and others are really just resellers with only a billing system (probably outsourced).

    Technically, it would be best if there was ONE infrastructure per major geographic region and everyone was a kind MVNO. See also RAN, the idea that you'd roam to other operators even where you own operator has coverage, so as the load per channel / mast / sector is balanced. Can give x2 or more improvement in speed or capacity.

    Dividing a scarce thing like spectrum between operators is totally daft and inefficient. It's not like Service Stations or baked beans factories in terms of competition.

    1. ARGO

      Re: MVNO

      Technically that may be best, but after the accountants were through you'd get a cellular version of Openreach.

  3. kmac499

    It'll be all nice and chummy until you decide to leave.. Two options

    1) Over an hour on the phone with 'customer service' demanding to know why you want to leave.

    2) Cancel the DD and send a registered letter

  4. druck Silver badge

    Maybe...

    ...a large MVNO will trigger some more investment in O2's infrastructure, and get them off the bottom of the table for data speed.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Maybe...

      Erm..... this is Sky we're talking about !

      I'm pretty sure you'll find they only picked O2 because that's who gave them the best deal commercially (read "cheapest").

  5. Gio Ciampa

    "revenue growth of 5 per cent"

    Presumably from cost hikes of 10%+ (subsidising the sports channels... OK... the Premier League) followed by a mass exodus from customers fed up with having to cough up (of which I was one).

  6. Commswonk

    Corrigendum

    Darroch said, “Looking ahead, the forthcoming launch of our mobile proposition will add another major product offering to our UK line up and will give our customers the opportunity to take even more from a brand known for great customer service and quality products.”

    should have read

    Darroch said, “Looking ahead, the forthcoming launch of our mobile proposition will add another major product offering to our UK line up and will give our customers us the opportunity to take even more from our customers a brand known for great customer service and quality products.”

    We apologise for any misunderstanding...

    1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
      Coffee/keyboard

      Re: Corrigendum

      "give our customers the opportunity to take even more from a brand known for great customer service and quality products."

      I came here to say pretty much the same thing. See icon ------------->

  7. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    PCMCIA

    People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms.

  8. Mage Silver badge

    TWAIN scanner API/Drivers

    Allegedly doesn't mean anything!

    Why do people spell Laser with a "z" :)

POST COMMENT House rules

Not a member of The Register? Create a new account here.

  • Enter your comment

  • Add an icon

Anonymous cowards cannot choose their icon