Well I have a HD Humax PVR. It is Freesat (Freesat from BBC/ITV, and not the Freesat from Sky, which are confusingly same name but different service). It is great.
Less channels than a contract, obviously, but it is free. Really it offers much better value for money, for what I need at least. The box wasn't cheap for sure, but when you consider for a basic Sky package with HD costs around £500 a year when you factor in full costs it's mad.
I am not a Virgin fan at all. Cable is just not the future. I always find the EPG is slower than Satellite, and even terrestrial servies (Freeview) is quicker. The broadband isn't too hot either, around here at least. They make out as if they run a total fibre-optic network when in reality of course it just runs street level. Even BT manage that in some places, BT is really making waves with fibres though. investing billions to get the core of its customers on fibre within the next few years. That's real fibre too, as in 100mb/s connection speeds that actually exist. More than enough to stream TV through your broadband as well.
I find Virgin really bogs down during peak hours, this is because essentially with cable a local loop is restricted to a set amount of bandwidth. ADSL doesn't experience this as such, so ADSL network only slow down due to poor ISP not providing enough capacity. Though I am with BT for broadband and my internet is as quick peak time as non-peak - the way it should be.
Anyway, you certainly can negotiate with Sky. You are paying them over £700 a year so they won't want to lose you. I know a colleague at work managed to renegotiate his contract just before Christmas, he has HD also, and he managed to get £19/month off his bill without losing anything. That’s nearly a £230/year saving which can’t be laughed at.
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Jason Moller
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