Back in 2017 Sky announced it was to introduce the Sky Q TV without the need for a satellite dish. There were no dates, just a series of vague promises that it was 'coming soon'.
Now, Pocket-lint has confirmed that the broadband-only Sky Q plans have taken a back seat:
"We have been working on it," said Sky's group chief product officer, Fraser Stirling, during a briefing on the new features coming to Sky Q in July. He revealed that, in the UK, IP (Internet Protocol) delivery of content will be more beneficial to the company's existing Sky Q platform in the short term. "We will move more and more of our services - like in how the product works - to be levered over IP and that will include some channels. You will find linear content, VOD content, and other experiences that are going to be IP based, with a really solid backbone: that hybrid delivery part, which is satellite. [It] is going to play a key part of our future for quite some time."
So, whilst it's not dead, a pure IP Q service is not being developed for launch any time soon and any Virgin Media customers waiting for a dish-less Sky offering as an alternative to VM should cross it off their list for now. (Actually, make that "for NowTV", which is a viable alternative to cable if you want to move to Sky for your TV.)
Incidentally, my contract with Virgin Media has just come up for renewal and I gave serious consideration to the NowTV and BT alternatives (local planning laws prohibit me having a dish). After a number of calls to Virgin and the others I found no-one could beat Virgin's offer for the next 18 months, which I guess is good news for fans of this blog.
4 comments:
I've been with CableTel then NTL then Virgin for 23 years, and have finally taken the decision to cancel all services other than Broadband.. With the advent of Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+ and NowTV we rarely watch live TV. My new smartTV has the ability to record to USB stick via the TV guide.
The only calls coming through on our landline tend to be from "BT" or "Microsoft" offerinng asistance with my "dodgy" PC !
I was paying £57 and have been offered £34.20 for 100mb Broadband (although having since phoned them back to confirm I'm now struggling to get them to honour that price).
I was thinking of doing similar if Virgin increased my monthly bill this year, but in the end I renewed as I got Ultimate Oomph for £5 less than I'm currently paying.
I guess the big difference I have from Kev is that I watch a lot of (too much?) football and my wife likes to have a library of her favourite films recorded on the V6, so we get good value from the Virgin TV package and I couldn't beat the VM price with what was available from BT or Now this time around. Also, the BT/Openreach network around here isn't great, which was a major concern.
Hi All,
Just a quick update... The disconnections team called me a few days later and have now given me the "big bundle" with second V6 box for £33 a month on an 18 month contract.
Since that is a better offer than the broadband only price they had agreed I'm keeping all of the services...for now !!
I appreciate the 18 month contracts they’ve introduced. I expect there to be a price rise or two along the way which I can stomach. When was the last price rise? I haven’t posted on one for two years but may have missed something last year when this blog went into hibernation
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