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BSkyB Digital
I just thought I would supply my take on recent news about the rollout
of Sky Digital.
Sky has announced that the service will start in June 1998.
Sky also released to the press reports that blamed Pace for delays.They
said that Pace hadn't got their act together & this could delay receiver
availablility for 2 to 3 months.
I have spoken to some reliable contacts at Pace (who I know
personally).They tell a different story !!!
Pace (or at least my contacts there rather than their official news/PR
guys) had delays due to regular & numerous alterations to the
specification of the Sky Digital Receiver as well as a long delay before
Sky placed any firm contracts -which mean a lot more than the press
announcements that Sky made.
Meanwhile Pace had to respond to firm contracts from elsewhere
-particularly a substantial order from Canal Plus France. So the
production capacity was allocated to the guys that placed the order
(Canal+) which makes natural business sense.
Pace thought Sky were very cunning in that they made an announcement
("Delays due to Pace") that diverted all the blame away from BSkyB when
Sky themselves were at the very least partially to blame .
It looks like all the Sky Digital Boxes will now be based upon a
reference design that semiconductor firm SGS-Thomson cmae up with ;of
course there will be minor variations but at "block-diagram" & core IC
level they'll probably all look the same.
Legal stuff :-
The above statements reflect my own opinions & not necessarily those of
my employer,Pace,Sky, my pet rabbit or anyone else .
Kind regards,
Chris Muriel
Senior Field Applications Engineer
Tel: +44 (0) 161 973 1572
Fax: +44 (0) 161 905 2846
mobile 0468 720557
email address: chris.muriel@analog.com
Website : http://www.analog.com
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