Westminster Cable TV closing but what about the hidden telephone service?

[MrWoo]

Originally Posted by m419

They had Sky sports on Analogue? They took that off my mate back in 2009 saying it was no longer available and after that it was just audio but no picture

Yeah or you could use topupTV as well to get a similar but digital version of Westminster Cable, it runs through freeview but you get a viewing card to view the pay-tv channels

Yes I did have sports on analogue. I am also still receiving bills and although they switched off on the 31st January they have billed me until the 15th february, no intention of replying, let them sort it out, but I wonder how many other's have been billed in full, do you think I should start a new thread on this?.

[m419]

Originally Posted by MrWoo

Yes I did have sports on analogue. I am also still receiving bills and although they switched off on the 31st January they have billed me until the 15th february, no intention of replying, let them sort it out, but I wonder how many other's have been billed in full, do you think I should start a new thread on this?.

No not really, what you need to do is call them up and request a refund if you did not recieve more than what you usually get.

It costs £4 per month to recieve BBC1,BBC2,ITV1,Channel 4,Channel 5 and ITV2 without a set top box.

If you have paid more than that for channels which you didn't recieve after 31st January like premium channels such as JSTV and Sky Sports then you are entitled to a refund, people are being billed because some people are still getting services.

So if you have free calls to 0845 numbers call 0845-454-1111, if you don't then ring the cancellations on the 0800 number given on the letter you recieved about the closure.

Hope that helps.

[m419]

I must add, you were supposed to cancel it yourself by the 31st January, it has been left on for a bit, because some people are having problems finding alternative providers as certain buildings are not allowed to have dishes and aerials.

If you are having difficulties paying or if you are on a low income and cannot afford to pay £140 to City West homes, I would advise that you contact them and make some kind of arrangement to pay in installments. Not everybody can afford that and it isn't primarily your fault, therefore you should get some help with it from CityWest homes as it is them that instructed the GPO(BT) to provide that cable service and ban people from putting up aerials and dishes.

Also some people may have problems with reception as well because there are a lot of obstructions in the area as well.

BT commercialised the service and by 2000, NTL took over the customer base and charged £3.50 for the very standard service, this slowly crept up to £4 over the years.

Many people don't pay that as they simply plug the TV into the socket and pick up basic channels.

You are just one of many people stuck in the BT vs Virgin Media with a unco-operating local council fiasco, Milton Keynes has the same problem. Oddly Westminster City Council said it has never had any involvement with Westminster Cable/BT or NTL(Virgin Media) over the management or running of the service or agreements.

Originally Posted by m419

No most councils have installed a combined dish and aerial and the socket has four pins, one for TV-Freeview and Analogue freeview,one for FM Radio and 2 for satellite TV.

On BT Vision you will be able to get Freeview,Sky Sports 1 and 2,ESPN,Picturebox and other on-demand content.

You haven't been able to get Sky Sports on Westminster Cable since 2009 and Sky Movies since 2008 and no Front Row/Filmflex since 2006.

By the way if you require JSTV channel, which was on Westminster Cable TV until closure for £6 per month, it is not available on any other service in the UK including Sky.

sky analogue had that years ago.. that was a good channel..jstv

---------- Post added at 15:29 ---------- Previous post was at 15:26 ----------

Originally Posted by m419

I must add, you were supposed to cancel it yourself by the 31st January, it has been left on for a bit, because some people are having problems finding alternative providers as certain buildings are not allowed to have dishes and aerials.

If you are having difficulties paying or if you are on a low income and cannot afford to pay £140 to City West homes, I would advise that you contact them and make some kind of arrangement to pay in installments. Not everybody can afford that and it isn't primarily your fault, therefore you should get some help with it from CityWest homes as it is them that instructed the GPO(BT) to provide that cable service and ban people from putting up aerials and dishes.

Also some people may have problems with reception as well because there are a lot of obstructions in the area as well.

BT commercialised the service and by 2000, NTL took over the customer base and charged £3.50 for the very standard service, this slowly crept up to £4 over the years.

Many people don't pay that as they simply plug the TV into the socket and pick up basic channels.

You are just one of many people stuck in the BT vs Virgin Media with a unco-operating local council fiasco, Milton Keynes has the same problem. Oddly Westminster City Council said it has never had any involvement with Westminster Cable/BT or NTL(Virgin Media) over the management or running of the service or agreements.

wat was west minister cable tv like wen i was running properly?
what channels was on there?

[m419]

Originally Posted by paulsouth

sky analogue had that years ago.. that was a good channel..jstv

---------- Post added at 15:29 ---------- Previous post was at 15:26 ----------




wat was west minister cable tv like wen i was running properly?
what channels was on there?

JSTV was Japanese Satellite TV

When Westminster Cable TV was running a full service in the mid 90's offered the full range of TV channels:

BBC1
BBC2
ITV
Channel 4
Channel 5 (From 1996)
ITV2 (From 1998)
The Parliamentary Channel (BBC Parliament)
BBC News 24
UK Gold
UK Horizons (From 1998)
Discovery Channel/Discovery Home and Lesiure (Timeshift)
Nickelodeon/Paramount Comedy Channel (Timeshift)
Granada plus/Granada Men and Motors (Timeshift) closed 2004
CNN
Live TV (Closed 1999)
JSTV(Premium Channel)
RTL+
Rai-Uno
TV5
Sci-fi
Sky1
Sky2(Until 1997)
National Graphic
Challenge TV/TV Travel Shop (Timeshift) Closed 2004
MTV
Travel Channel/Bloomberg (Timeshift) Removed many years ago
Performance Channel (Removed 2008 after channel ceased)
VH1
The Box (4 Music) (replaced with The Hit's later renamed 4Music)
Sky Sports 1 (Premium)
Sky Sports 2 (Premium)
Sky Sports 3 (Premium)
Sky Movies Premier (Removed for incompatibility reasons)2008 (Premium)
Sky Movies Max (Removed for incompatibility reasons)2008 (Premium)
Sky Movies Cinema (Removed for incompatibility reasons)2008 (Premium)
Movies 24 (Introduced as a bad replacement for Sky Movies)
Film4 (From 1998 after Channel One news closed) Premium until 2006
Channel One News (London Cable news channel until 1998)
Carlton Food Network/Carlton Select (Timeshift)
Zee TV (Premium)
Sony Entertainment Asia (Premium)
Living TV (Timeshift)
Bravo (timeshift)
Television X (Premium)
Playboy (Premium)
Adult Channel (Premium)
History Channel (Timeshift) 4pm to 8pm
Virgin 1/Channel One until closure
TNT(TCM)/Cartoon Network (Timeshift)
Fox Kids (until closure)
Disney Channel (Premium until 2006)
Hallmark/Universal (Removed recently ITV2 has replaced it)

So you could get a wide range of channels,most were timeshift.

Many were removed by NTL and some were withdrawn for operational reasons whilst others like Sky Movies were no longer compatible, Sky introduced a watershed pin protection system which is only compatible with Digital TV.

NTL took over in early January 2000, in 2003 it rolled out Broadband in some parts and in 2005, pulled out of Barbican completely.