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Originally Posted by Rillington
Yes I know people will say that VOD is something Sky cannot do directly but many areas can't get it and it is a chargeable add-on rather than an extra as part of the subscription like Sky's broadband content is.
To me, the problem is that cable is always playing catch-up to Sky and that cable seems to be about 2-3 years behind Sky in terms on TV rather than being innovative and ahead of Sky.
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Actually, that's not true. Not all content on VOD is charged, and Sky's broadband is only free if you take movies or sports channels.
Sky have several advantages over UK Cable, which allow them to innovate more easily.
- They have the backing of one of (if not the) largest multimedia corporation on the planet. News Corp.
- They have less hardware/software to upgrade. Even ignoring the STBs, to launch a new service, Sky may have to upgrade a few uplink sites (if any) and their broadcast facilities. UK Cable may have hundreds of sites to update (all the head ends need upgrading for VOD for example). It's also worth noting that if the service requires extra hardware on the STB (such as a hard drive), the Cable Co's have hundreds of STBs to replace. Sky tend to require that the user buy their own. Admittedly, UK Cable could also require this, and save themselves a whole lot of money, but they don't seem willing.
- Satellite is (by definition) a relatively cheap way to reach millions of viewers (all you need is some comms hardware and a transponder or two on a satellite). Cable has a few downlink sites, hundreds of head ends, thousands of street cabinets and tens of thousands of miles of cable.