Telewest vs Sky

Thus spaketh Steve:

http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/status/i...=December+2006

http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/status/i...=November+2006

http://www.blueyonder.co.uk/status/issuearchive.do


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› See More: Telewest vs Sky

We're with Telewest, and yes our box does sometimes act slow, but ive
got no problems with tw at all we get great service and 40 channels for
£5.50 per month (inlc sky1,e4, ect)! TW also provide our broadband as
well and again they are great! 10mb for £25 per month, its brilliant




{{{{{Welcome}}}}} wrote:
> Thus spaketh Charlie Mitchell:
> > Ok, I am utterly fed up of Sky, we've had sky plus for a few
> > years now and tonight the remote control broke.
> >
> > After speaking some complete moron in mumbai for about 20
> > minutes we were still no where, I screamed at her to give
> > me a number for someone in the UK, which she did, but in
> > total, it's taken about an hour to get a new remote control
> > sent out to us. Add this to the long list of the stupid
> > box just randomly forgetting to record things for which I'm
> > sick of ringing up about and I'm ready for off!
> >
> > Our contract is up at the end of February and I'm seriously
> > considering going to Telewest for the TV and Telephone, I
> > was just wondering if it's possible that they can be any
> > worse than sky?
> >
> > Your thoughts greatly appreciated!
>
> One good thing about TW is you don't own your own box, so for as long as
> you are with them they will come out and fix / replace the box / remote
> etc.
>
> There are no other good things about them, their standard boxes are next
> to useless, so slow (even what they call their later boxes) and don't
> have full EPG just a useless clunky if you are lucky up to 24 hour EPG.
>
> The TV Drive has a full EPG, but is still a slow clunky to use box and
> is full of problems, you may be lucky for a handful of programmes to
> record, jerky pictures, channels disappearing.
>
> TW is a lot worse than Sky, plus cable is slow at adding channels, and
> TW still don't have Sky TUO or Sky THRCC amongst others.
>
> The signal from the Astra and Eutelsat satellites are extremely
> reliable, not known any problems in all the years they have been in use,
> cable are losing channels here and there everyday.
>
> Sky problems are with the boxes (mostly the Sky+ boxes) the software on
> them, for some people they have quite a few problems, whereas others
> never have a problem. I've never had a problem with my standard Sky
> system.
>
> TW problems are with slow boxes, clunky EPG / Software, ropey software,
> problems in their distribution.
>
> I've had satellite since around 1988 and have only lost picture (due to
> very bad weather, which is to be expected - rain fade) a couple of
> times, and the boxes themselves have been fine. I've had a TW cable box
> for 15 months and have lost count the number of times channels have
> disappeared, channels suffer from bad pixalation.
>
> If you did switch to TW you would only regret it.
>
>
> --
> 60 day free DVD rental: www.southeastbirmingham.co.uk/dvd
> Mobile Offers: www.southeastbirmingham.co.uk/payg
> Items for sale: www.dodgy-dealer.co.uk

Thus spaketh Rob:
> {{{{{Welcome}}}}} wrote:
>> Thus spaketh Charlie Mitchell:
>>> Ok, I am utterly fed up of Sky, we've had sky plus for a few
>>> years now and tonight the remote control broke.
>>>
>>> After speaking some complete moron in mumbai for about 20
>>> minutes we were still no where, I screamed at her to give
>>> me a number for someone in the UK, which she did, but in
>>> total, it's taken about an hour to get a new remote control
>>> sent out to us. Add this to the long list of the stupid
>>> box just randomly forgetting to record things for which I'm
>>> sick of ringing up about and I'm ready for off!
>>>
>>> Our contract is up at the end of February and I'm seriously
>>> considering going to Telewest for the TV and Telephone, I
>>> was just wondering if it's possible that they can be any
>>> worse than sky?
>>>
>>> Your thoughts greatly appreciated!
>>
>> One good thing about TW is you don't own your own box, so for as
>> long as you are with them they will come out and fix / replace the
>> box / remote etc.
>>
>> There are no other good things about them, their standard boxes are
>> next to useless, so slow (even what they call their later boxes) and
>> don't have full EPG just a useless clunky if you are lucky up to 24
>> hour EPG.
>>
>> The TV Drive has a full EPG, but is still a slow clunky to use box
>> and is full of problems, you may be lucky for a handful of
>> programmes to record, jerky pictures, channels disappearing.
>>
>> TW is a lot worse than Sky, plus cable is slow at adding channels,
>> and TW still don't have Sky TUO or Sky THRCC amongst others.
>>
>> The signal from the Astra and Eutelsat satellites are extremely
>> reliable, not known any problems in all the years they have been in
>> use, cable are losing channels here and there everyday.
>>
>> Sky problems are with the boxes (mostly the Sky+ boxes) the software
>> on them, for some people they have quite a few problems, whereas
>> others never have a problem. I've never had a problem with my
>> standard Sky system.
>>
>> TW problems are with slow boxes, clunky EPG / Software, ropey
>> software, problems in their distribution.
>>
>> I've had satellite since around 1988 and have only lost picture (due
>> to very bad weather, which is to be expected - rain fade) a couple of
>> times, and the boxes themselves have been fine. I've had a TW cable
>> box for 15 months and have lost count the number of times channels
>> have disappeared, channels suffer from bad pixalation.
>>
>> If you did switch to TW you would only regret it.
>>
>>

> We're with Telewest, and yes our box does sometimes act slow, but ive
> got no problems with tw at all we get great service and 40 channels
> for £5.50 per month (inlc sky1,e4, ect)! TW also provide our
> broadband as well and again they are great! 10mb for £25 per month,
> its brilliant
>
>
>

I have the starter TV package for £0.00 and 4Mbit broadband for £19.99,
this was an offer I got extended again.

Whilst I am happy for the TV to be free, I wouldn't pay for it, as Sky
Digital is much better, and if I'm paying, I want to be paying for a
decent service, not one where there has been problems with UKTV for
months, and they are still sorting it out nationally, one where often
their power supplies go faulty on a regular basis, where engineers have
to go out to fix missing channels due to mis-configuration on their
network. With a Sky Digital box you get a full 7 day EPG, on a standard
cable box you are lucky to get up to 24 hours, useless if you want to
set reminders with series links.

But even though Sky Digital is a lot better, I no longer subscribe as I
don't watch enough TV anymore for the service to be worthwhile, and
don't want to pay the high prices (both from Sky and TW) but paying
nothing for starter TV with TW is fine. I get Sky Three and 200+ other
free channels via satellite, and use TW for UKTV Gold etc. Sky Onc may
show one or two programmes throughout the year, so even though that is
free for me via TW, I hardly watch it.

Yes, broadband is excellent and although at times there are capacity
problems in my area, I would recommend broadband from TW to anyone who
can get it, but their TV service and even more so their appalling phone
service leaves a lot to be desired. I don't have a phone line BT or TW,
I dumped TW phone line over 5 years ago when they became the dearest
provider around, I dumped BT around 18 months ago, so need TW for
broadband as I use VoIP with an ATA, had 15 months of free calls all for
a grand total for €6 (Six Euro), recently used my free easyMobile credit
to top up my VoIP account, before easyMobile closed down, so that a
years free calling and plenty of credit.

It could be an excellent TV service, however TW have poor boxes,
problematic network - many many more parts to go wrong than satellite,
poor interactive.

I really would love TW to provide a Sky Digital beating product, they
just don't at the moment. They really could have a great product, if
they issued decent boxes and ensured their network was more robust, they
could easily do it.

As I said I really really would like to see TW become a decent TV
provider, I just wish they'd hurry up and become at least somewhere
close to being as good as Sky Digital - and I hate Sky, even though I do
love satellite TV - have multi-satellite system too, so not just stuck
with Sky's offerings.

Cable has always been several years behind satellite, and the way TW are
going, they will be for sometime to come.

If you already have satellite and you are still happy to pay for a
service, switching from satellite to cable is a backwards step and would
be something you'd regret, if you've never had satellite then maybe it's
not so bad, because you've not known what a service should be / could be
like, also if you can get cable free or heavily discounted, then maybe
you could put up with all things that make cable a poorer service.

As I'm not paying for TW TV, then I'll put up with it, but it is so
clunky to use when you are used to how a proper service / system works.

Come on TW issue some decent / fast boxes, add decent interactive, full
EPG on standard boxes, and digital text.

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