The partnership between Sony and Sky to bring films and TV content to the Sony PSP games console has come to fruition. The site where people can register and subscribe to the package of their choice is www.goview.tv.

The service relies on the use of a Windows XP or Vista computer to download the material to, and then transfer it to the Sony PSP using a USB cable. Currently one months free access to a £10 subscription is available. This provides you with access to Entertainment, Sports and Comedy content. One channel normally on its own costs £5 per month, two is £8 and all three is £10 per month. Films and other content have a price of around £2.50 to £3.50 for each download.

The file sizes are around 500MB for one hours content, with an 8GB Memory Stick Duo Pro holding around 16 hours of content. So for households where someone is making heavy use of one of the subscription packages they may find their broadband usage rising quickly, so check that your broadband package is suitable (for example has no excess usage charges that you are not aware of).

The inclusion of a free one month trial is nice so people can get a taste for whether they want to continue with the service, but if you don’t want to pay the ongoing fees remember to cancel before the end of the free period as your credit card details are taken at the start of the free trial.

SOURCE: ThinkBroadband.com

Digital Spy are reporting that Sky are carrying out tests of Fibre to the Cabinet technology in East London in order to try and boost broadband speeds. Sky already operate their own equipment in some BT telephone exchanges and Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) requires extending fibre from these exchanges out to roadside cabinets where equipment can be placed to provide DSL service. This has various advantages for an end user with regards their broadband connection as existing technologies such as ADSL2+ can provide faster speeds with a shorter line length between the user and the roadside equipment. It also allows technologies like VDSL2 to be deployed which require very short line distances to reap the benefits (100Mbps (mega bits per second) at 500 metres, halving to 50Mbps at 1km).

Although fibre to the cabinet based systems are often seen as a stop gap to a full fibre to the home deployment, it should help increase speeds to users and also provide more higher quality content such as high definition TV. Overall, FTTC is not dissimilar to how Virgin Media operate their broadband service, with fibre running to the roadside green cabinet and then a copper coaxial cable from the cabinet to the end user’s premises.

SOURCE: ThinkBroadband.com