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Card - Box pairing BLOCKED by Ofcom
Nightdeamon
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/12/bskyb-ofcom
nice one ofcom, perhaps now they will make it availiable via CAM's and other STB's.
nice one ofcom, perhaps now they will make it availiable via CAM's and other STB's.
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Ofcom blocks BSkyB spoiler move against Top Up TV
Satellite broadcaster attempted to use clause in deal to block digital terrestrial service from offering Sky Sports 1 and 2
Ofcom has blocked an attempt by BSkyB to prevent rival pay-TV operator Top Up TV from offering Sky Sports 1 and 2 to its subscribers.
BSkyB, which was ordered by Ofcom in March to drop the amount it charges rivals to offer Sky Sports by more than 20%, reached deals with BT, Virgin Media and Top Up TV at the end of April.
However, in its deal with Top Up TV, which provides subscription services to digital terrestrial TV viewers, BSkyB claimed that Sky Sports 1 and 2 could not be sold to customers who bought certain types of set-top boxes with slots for pay-TV cards.
Top Up TV lodged a complaint with Ofcom over the issue. The media regulator said that the clause in the deal that BSkyB was trying to use to block Top Up TV potentially selling the sports channels to its customers who buy certain set top boxes had to be removed.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/12/bskyb-ofcom
It doesn't prevent anyone purchasing a subscription, it prevents them using unsupported boxes and cams that are not CI+( the revised common interface standard Sky's crypto provider actively supports)
No worse or different than Top up Tv only supplying there Top up TV anytime services to those crappy awful Thomson top up TV boxes.
Not only cams, but i guess with this outcome,any box with a card slot will be able to be used :rolleyes:
Sky's model was effectively scrapped when wholesaling was imposed. Sky can insist on their own customers obeying their conditions. They haven't the right (as Ofcom have decided) to impose those conditions on other suppliers who are wholesaling their products.
The big spoiler is removing Sky Sports News.
Thanks for your valuable input. I'm just pointing out what happening all over Europe.
New providers are locking there card to there boxes even tighter and securely than sky has ever done here.
Hope the loose big style :mad:
Isn't that a bit like buying one copy of a piece of software and installing it on many computers? It's okay, the disc/key was paid for.
Card sharing is piracy. You've paid for one card, that is for one box. Not as many boxes as the CS server can support at once.
(assuming that you mean the above, and not taking your legit card to someone else's house)
However by just reselling the channels without any obligation for the customer to take anything else at all and not to have to have equipment that could receive the supplier's other offering (bar ESPN) the offering of Sky Sports by TUTV is not furthering Ofcom's aims. Its just making money out of someone else's paid for rights without taking much business risk.
Is that what Ofcom were really trying to achieve?
They are already making a huge profit and are making further profits by selling their channels through other providers, what is your point?
I think you have a valid point, although the UK doesn't really have any true competition in the pay tv market, at best this brings a couple of sky channels to people who couldn't get them before. I don't see how DTT can provide a full pay tv package, and there's no alternative satellite tv provider, the only one that did exist was bought by Sky!
Digital televisions have a Common Interface as standard, so that the likes of 'pay television' is encompassed, if the consumer wishes to pay for such channels, via a Conditional Access Module and associated Viewing Card.
To have Sky dictate who can or cannot view such pay channels on other platforms, is anti-competitive and Ofcom has a legal right to enforce policing of such commercial services.
The only set-top boxes/televisions that should not gain access to the pay channels are those which cannot cope with the Digital Switchover 8K COFDM transmission format, and those boxes that have no card slot or CI slot.
My point is that what TUTV wishes to do doesn't further the aims of the original Ofcom ruling.
Ofcom's ruling was not that Sky was making too much money and that others should be allowed to share it but that Sky's sports rights contracts were an effective barrier to entry to other companies setting up pay tv platforms.
We all know that Sky doesn't wish to sell SS1 and 2 to other platforms as they use it to get subscribers to their own platform. Was Ofcom trying to make Sky sell it to people who were not using it to help develop a pay tv platform when the purpose of the ruling was to allow other platforms to have the chance to develop?
The original ruling lowers one of the barriers to BT Vision becoming a genuine competitor to Sky in the Pay TV market. There are of course other barriers including Sky Movies (that Ofcom are now looking at) and Sky's VOD rights. I agree a true competitor to Sky is highly unlikely through DTT but it has a chance of coming about through IPTV if Sky has to make available its crown jewels.
I don't think it is about TUTV just reselling.
It simply wants to continue it's current distribution system which is simple and plain, if you want the linear ESPN service ANY CA equipped box with a valid Smart Card has always worked, as it did with Setanta previously, and even longer ago with their pre Anytime linear entertainment services.
If you want to add the Anytime service then specifically designed boxes are required BUT they will always accept linear viewing.
For Sky to unilaterally decree that the linear service distribution method be discontinued is appalling. Ofcom have been right in this matter. I therefore will be able to view Sky Sports via my CAM equipped new Sony Set and avoid the Thomson box. I look forward to being able to buy in confidence a quality branded HD recorder and still record SS and ESPN via it.
I think that is Sky's point. The Ofcom ruling was to remove a barrier to people doing new things in the pay tv market so what TUTV wish to do is not in line with the aim of the original ruling.