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View Full Version : Bye! Bye! NTL - Hello Sky!!


alexcopeland
18-08-2003, 23:32
Finally getting myself a sky digibox and minidish installed tomorrow. Hope for a better picture and full use of the magic red button.

Keeping the BB modem no problems there. Just had enough of paying NTL to much for the Digital TV service when it's quicker and easier to get Digital TV from Sky.

Anyone else agree?

Defiant
18-08-2003, 23:38
Haha nice one. I switched to FREEview myself not missing anything either. Strange but I find that faster then NTL too and the sound is much better

alexcopeland
18-08-2003, 23:40
Well I'll post what I think of the picture and sound etc. tomorrow night!

Xaccers
19-08-2003, 05:28
Oh how I miss NTL when I'm down at my parents'!
Picture's not quite as good with sky, now and next bar isn't thought out as well as the NTL one (who the hell thought that going upand down the times should be left and right???)
ADSL is so much slower than NTL 600 too :(

Wish they lived in a ntl area still

Gogogo
19-08-2003, 09:09
Originally posted by Defiant
Haha nice one. I switched to FREEview myself not missing anything either. Strange but I find that faster then NTL too and the sound is much better

Will be joining you soon. Had enough of useless epg, failure to provide interactive TV and failure to provide BB along with unanswered letters enquiring about the same and the talking down rudeness of ntl staffers on nthellworld.com site.

:spin:

alexcopeland
19-08-2003, 18:21
Well there it is in all it's glory! One Sky Digital digibox and minidish and it's doing the trick! EPG is always up to date. Interactive works and is bloody quick. There is loads of channels that are included that NTL don't through in as well.

timewarrior2001
19-08-2003, 18:41
I'm, trying to talk my parents into getting Sky digi.
They pay NTL a whopping £62 a month Plus my BB thats £24.99
Now with Sky the ful package of roughly what we get on NTL is £37 a month and NTL telephone line rental isnt £25 a month is it?

grum1978
19-08-2003, 18:43
Originally posted by timewarrior2001
I'm, trying to talk my parents into getting Sky digi.
They pay NTL a whopping £62 a month Plus my BB thats £24.99
Now with Sky the ful package of roughly what we get on NTL is £37 a month and NTL telephone line rental isnt £25 a month is it?

I take it you have an additional stb then? check out sky's prices on them ;)

Macca
19-08-2003, 18:44
Originally posted by timewarrior2001
Now with Sky the ful package of roughly what we get on NTL is £37 a month and NTL telephone line rental isnt £25 a month is it?

Sounds like they have Talk 24 (free daytime, evening & w/end calls to any landline in the UK) which is why they are paying an additional #15.50 on top their #9.50 phone line.

timewarrior2001
19-08-2003, 18:46
Yeah we have an additional STB. Dont really use it though so Sky digi wouldnt be a problem.
I just dont understand how NTL price things, I am sure they pick a price from thin air.
NTL stated before that and additional decoder was £17 (i think) we are only being billed £10 for it.
I have a mate lives not 500 metres from me, he's getting 600K BB for £14.99 a month for a 12 month period.

Nope we dont have any talk time agreements on our NTL bill, not even a friends and family thing.

grum1978
19-08-2003, 18:48
an addtional stb is £15 per month on ntl. Your mate should be paying £15.99 and if he is, he will be on a BOGOF deal simple really :p

Hope you manage to get them to get it though :)

timewarrior2001
19-08-2003, 18:51
What the hells a BOGOF deal when its at home? lol

grum1978
19-08-2003, 18:52
buy one get one free

bascially gives customers a good deal on bundled products :)

timewarrior2001
19-08-2003, 18:59
Ahh right.

I'm curious now though.
We have the full package of TV channels from NTL. But used to be on the 5 packages deal etc when DIGI first came to our area.

Now we get a few more channels, usually shopping ones and Disc Wings which I looked forward to and is infact pathetic but thats another thread entirely.
I understand that we get the telephone line rental in with this package and pay for the extra decoder. All for £62 pm.

Obviously the CM is £24.99 gets billed on the TV bill.......yes we get seperate TV and telephone bills.

Now If we swap to Sky, we lose 1 decoder which isnt a problem to us, pay line rental and pay NTL for the BB.
This will cost us
£37 for the sky subscription
£10 line rental from NTL
£24.99 BB from NTL
Giving a total of : £71.99 pm

Stay with NTL but remove the extra decoder (being fair) we would pay:-
£62.99 minus £10 (as this is what NTL charge us for the exxtra decoder) = £52.99
£24.99 for CM
Giving a total of : £77.98

Hopefully my maths hasnt made me look like a right fool, but I'd actually be better off going to Sky.
Why should I choose to stay at NTL............anyone?

ic14
19-08-2003, 19:06
So you can moan about them?

Thats about the only reason

Macca
19-08-2003, 19:08
You have some kind of regional offer for your 2nd stb, but what you should have been charged without that is:

#47.50 for telco & full TV pack
#15.00 for 2nd Stb
#24.99 for 600k B/band
Totalling #87.49

If you remove 2nd Stb you will be paying #72.49.

Sky's full pack is #38.00, ntl phone line #9.50 & 600k B/band #24.99, totalling #72.49.

Edited to add Sky pricing etc.

timewarrior2001
19-08-2003, 19:19
Ahhhhhh the plot thickens.

Well if NTL are giving us an offer for ohhhhhhh 2 years plus on the extra decoder then I reckon we will stick with them lol.

grum1978
19-08-2003, 19:42
lol...your easily won over :p

Alex glad you like sky so far :D

HornetUK
19-08-2003, 20:18
Tempted by a sky dish also as Sports Extra shows div 1 matches.

But Sky told me I have to have it pluged into a phone line during the 1st 12 mths permanantley and my phone point is not near the TV so thaey said they'd run a wire to TV and create an extension?

Also is it true if the box breaks its going to cost and isnt a free repair like NTL?

Last thing what is the truth about pic quality on NTL or a dish is there a difference?

Thanks

Macca
19-08-2003, 20:31
Originally posted by HornetUK
Tempted by a sky dish also as Sports Extra shows div 1 matches.
But Sky told me I have to have it pluged into a phone line during the 1st 12 mths permanantley and my phone point is not near the TV so thaey said they'd run a wire to TV and create an extension?
Also is it true if the box breaks its going to cost and isnt a free repair like NTL?
Last thing what is the truth about pic quality on NTL or a dish is there a difference?
Thanks

It is quite straightforward for the box to be connected to the phone line, they just put an adaptor on your phone socket and have the phone and sky from that adaptor. Strictly speaking it must stay connected to an active phone line but I did have my line disco'd for sometime and it did not affect my channels although it does affect your PPV once you have reached your credit limit.
You are under warranty for 1st year for sky box but after that you will need to pay call out and cost of replacement box, if necessary, unless you take out extra cover which costs #30.00 a quarter, I think.
Not much difference in picture quality but bad weather can affect your sky viewing.

There is a rumour that Sky Sports Extra is coming to ntl in November, but nothing is confirmed so it is just a rumour.

Edited to add Sky Sports Extra stuff.

tridens
19-08-2003, 23:52
hi you cant beat sky ive got ntl phone & internet but sky tv tried ntl tv not apach on sky
sky charge £80 for an eng to visit you but in that price includes repair or replacment of your digi box subject to negoshiation 2 months ago i had my digi box replaced worth £300 free of charge didnt pay acall out fee been with sky 12 years :D

tridens
19-08-2003, 23:58
ps.. havent had my digi box connected to tel line for 18 months had no problems with sky just cant use the pay as you view programs only when i want to purchase:D

timewarrior2001
20-08-2003, 10:44
Sky now charge £65 for an engineer to visit. My gf decoder (so glad I didnt say box) screwed up, would only receive about 5 channels. They changed the box over at no extra charge even though it wa sout of warranty. We had gone without the full package for 9 weeks and were compensated approx £85.

We gladly waved goodbye to the old Grundig box and welcomed out nice new pace one.

alexcopeland
22-08-2003, 20:53
I'm having no regrets going over to sky. I believe I'm getting better value for my money. Picture quality on my 32" Philips Widescreen TV is better. The sound quality is different from NTL. I can't put my finger on it, but I can say that when I watched the England game in the week, the studio sound was bad but during the whole duration of the game the sound was exceptional!:D

Undisputedtruth
26-08-2003, 11:26
Alex, you should also consider going for a BT line. Their customer services is a big improvement over NTL. Also their lines are much better value than the NTL counterpart. They also offer free voice mail free itemised billing. And of course, you can speak to someone in customer service straightaway.

shy_one
26-08-2003, 21:51
Hi I am curious. If you want to access the e-tv features on Sky Digital ie BBCi Interactive Athletics, do you have to pay a premium rate phone call? I am disappointed that ntl are not providing it.

Michael

Tristan
26-08-2003, 23:03
Not BBC multiscreen features like the Athletics and so on. You do have to pay to send any info back the other way though, if you're voting on something, or entering a competition.

Personally I can't understand why NTL haven't got multiscreen athletics, considering Telewest have. But then again it's the only BBC thing we've missed out on (compared with Sky) since it was all launched with Wimbledon, so I suppose we've done pretty well.

(N.B. This applies to CR3 areas only. Only around 50% of NTL's TV subscribers have this. The other half should be getting the necessary software upgrade "soon").

alexcopeland
28-08-2003, 12:29
To be honest though, I don't have any problems with the phone line. A majority of people I talk to on the phone are on NTL so I get cheap calls any way. Thanks though for the suggestion.