Please bare in mind that this is in the Express!


http://www.express.co.uk/finance/cit...ecoms-shake-up

This has been talked about for a while now it would fit in nicely there is just concern that it wouldn't get approval because of EU concerns.

Vodafone has been circling the operations of Sky in the UK. Fly in the ointment is the European operations, it has been suggested the reason why Sky chose to buy those entities and load itself with debt, was to make any takeover difficult. Basically the points you have alluded to. Vodafone is looking at its options, Sky in the UK compared to the rest of Europe is the dominant Pay TV provider, where as in Germany and Italy it isn't. I could honestly see Vodafone buying Sky but as you say because of the pan european nature would run into issues with EU authorities.

I suspect Vodafone well play Libery Global off against Sky to get the better deal. Sky has universal coverage for its TV product, Virgin doesn't. However its widely recognised that Virgin have the better broadband platform compared to the biggest players in the market (matter of opinion I know). Which ever they go for, will require substantial investment. Vodafone has a soft partnership with Sky at the moment in terms of value added content, Vodafone is about to start trials of an over the top service similar to YouView, however NowTV and Netflix will be the anchor for the platform.

This is where its delicious for consumers, BT (who are looking to buy EE) and Vodafone have large balance sheet. They can buy a company without taking on any debt, what will probably happen is the selling companies will get a mix of shares and money. This will ensure that any purchase doesn't become a poison pill in the future. Whatever happens in the coming months BT and Vodafone will be the biggest winners no matter the outcome. That in turn will trickle down to customers in the form of new packages and price points.

Sky's balance sheet is now tainted because of the European acquisitions, it was financed by debt being loaded on to the former BskyB balance sheet. Its credit rating has dropping significantly as a result. PayTV is stagnating in the UK, the only way SKy can really grow is through partnership or acquisition. Broadly speaking given that Sky is the monopoly provider to some extent, growth oppurtunities are limited. Like any dominant player, eventually they will all come down with a bang.

2015 is going to benefit the UK consumer more than at any other point since the availability of free broadband from TalkTalk.

I hope they do. Sky is an impossibility at the moment for me but Vodafone should open it up for me.

How so?

These rumours have been around for years. Vodafone buying TalkTalk is another old one..

Vodafone have been offering Sky Sports and Sky Movies packages for a while. Whilst I don't think one will buy the other, the chances of a closer offering of services seems probable.

Vodafone have also announced they're entering the home broadband and TV market in 2015 anyway.

Buying Sky would just give them a network they don't have to build. As well as a large customer base to push mobile deals on.

What network are you referring to?

Vodafone already own the ex Bulldog network, from the C&W buyout.

C&W has nowhere near the breadth and depth that TT/Sky have for LLU, they'd either have to start building or use (much more expensive) BT Wholesale.

Vodafone has been building out it's network reason why we have seen O2 4G masts going live first because Vodafone have been building out the back end. I honestly expect Vodafone will try and buy Liberty Global so as to not make themselves customers of BT. Plus the benefits they would get in other countries as well. It makes far more sense then buying Sky does.

I was talking about LLU for ADSL/PSTN - if Vodafone wants to become a major consumer ISP like Sky or TalkTalk they'd need to start putting more exchanges onto their network.

Of course VF/C&W has plenty of fibre for business and other services.

Buying a cable company would not be new for them though, they bought some cable companies in Germany a few years ago. Wouldn't help for the approx 50% of the country that can't get Virgin though.

Hmm true but that has never hurt Virgin any because they are focused on the major population areas so still get a solid profit. Plus that network is far more future proof than buying a ton of LLU substations possibly Vodafone could wait until SLU Bitstream is becoming more apparent so they can offer FTTC speeds where the Virgin network wouldn't reach.

There already is GEA-FTTC, where the CP can rent the port in the FTTC cabinet and have its traffic hauled to the nearest fibre headend. Having LLU in the same locations makes the handover much easier.

Sky and TalkTalk already use this, if you buy their fibre service you aren't using the BT Wholesale network, you are using Openreach from cabinet to exchange and then the traffic is handed over to their own equipment and onto their own network. That's my understanding of it anyway

I'm not sure anyone would ever want to unbundle the cabinets though (there's that one cabinet Rutland Telecom did, and the few cabinets done by the now defunct Digital Region, I guess). You'd get very limited coverage at quite high cost, and that investment would be obsoleted if BT ever does FTTP on a wide scale. Going in at the exchange level makes more sense as it works better with everything BT is doing or may do later on. It'd also reduce the hassle as far as vectoring is concerned

Very true as it would effect any BT vectoring plans even more and as u say would be waste of money if BT do go FTTP or FTTdp. Yeah I knew how Sky and TalkTalk have FTTC set up reason why you might get slightly different speeds if you switch from BT to Sky or TalkTalk even using FTTC not much but there can be slight differences. I probably should of gone with Sky for my FTTC but they wouldn't let me order the up to 80Mbps package so i simply went with BT. Have Sky TV still though far better than BT TV.

There's a company called Call Flow that uses Sub Loop Unbundling. They do have their own cabinets in some areas.