Telewest cable tv basic package is rubbish

[andymt]

They say the channels are good and worth watching, but with the basic package (now £16.pm inclusing phone line) YOU GET 35 channels, mostly crap with a few worth watching. The only really good one is sky one.
But, a friend of mine, instead of cable tv has freeview with top up tv. (www.topuptv.com (http://www.topuptv.com))
Top up tv is where you pay £7.99 p.m and get another 10 channels, + the normal freeview ones. these extra channels are-
UK Gold TCM (Movies) , UK Style Discovery Channel , Discovery Real Time , UK Food, Cartoon Network ,(Kids) , Boomerang (Kids) ,Bloomberg (Financial) ,British Eurosport.

This means in total you get about 80 channels including DAB and the rubbish (shopping) channels.
If you were to only count the channels worth watching, you get about 40 really good channels-more than the telewest 35.
Plus there is no contract. You just get a viewing card and slot into a compatible freeviewe box, and as long as you have good digital reception in your area, it works fine.
Of course, you could just have freeview which is also pretty good.

So overall, unless you want to pay for a more expensive telewest tv package (supreme) which is good value, then get freeview and top up tv as its better value than the basic package.

[Paul K]

Freeview will depend on your signal to your aerial, if it's rubbish you will get very little choice, if it's good then you will get the full set of channels. Also to get top up tv you need a freeview box that will take a card and not all do, finding one that does can take a bit of searching, I know argos do a couple though.
I know what you mean though, we have Sky downstairs and freeview upstairs, brilliant picture quality, interactive works and a good choice in channels for when we want to watch in bed.

[dilli-theclaw]

Also worth mentioning that top up tv don't transmit all the channels all day.

For example UK gold starts at 12noon on top up tv.

[Paul K]

There's a channel listing here with times
http://www.topuptv.com/channels.htm

[Chrysalis]

my sister has freeview and I noticed E4 isnt E4 its E4+1, is this the same everywhere?

[dilli-theclaw]

my sister has freeview and I noticed E4 isnt E4 its E4+1, is this the same everywhere?

She needs to retune. E4 is on 14 and +1 is on 39.

I had to retune to pick up channel 14

[Tezcatlipoca]

Also:

1) Take off the cost of the phone, & the TV itself is cheaper with TW.

2) TopUp TV doesn't have Sky One

[andymt]

but with TW you are roped into a contract.

Top up tv is not direct debit, you just ring them and cancel
Yes, the topuptv channels are not on continuously, but they are on at the best times, uktvgold is on from 12noon-midnight-perfect!!

discovery is also very good.

also with top up tv, if you pay another £1.00 a month you can get filmfour apparently...

if you have good ariel quality you can get loooaaaddss of channels. I live in London so i get them all. interactive is great, good for wimbledon tennis.

you say tw tv is actually cheaper, maybe it is but I dont wanna have to pay for the phone too, i just want TV which i cant have so its no use!!

Thanks for the replies