Page 1 of Stop subscribing to Sky and move to NTL phone ?

If I stop subscribing to Sky, can I keep the Pace Digibox and Dish and just get the free channels for no monthly fee ?

Could I then still order Box Office movies ?

Also, If I instead sign up for NTL broadband / NTL phone / NTL basic digital TV, can I plug the NTL phone line into the Sky Digibox (Pace).

I would quite like to keep Sky for box office, because I think they will make Dolby Digital available to all at some point (maybe with a new digibox), whereas NTL don`t offer Dolby Digital. Anyone know if NTL plan to ?

How does the quality of NTL and Sky broadcasts compare ?

NTL are Crap, their bills will be a lot higher than you at first think, the most expensive I had for phones. The service is the WORST I have ever encountered. The picture, sound & channels has limitations. Forgetting the phone I wouldn`t swap SKY for NTL for all the tea in china. I am not a Sky lover, their service is not too hot, but `devil you know` & all that.

You`d have to arrange to buy the Sky digibox as this comes as part of the deal when you pay a monthly subscription.

There certainly shouldn`t be any problems running the bulk standard phone line thru your Sky digibox for updates, but ultimately you are better off going for either one or t`other.

I moved over to ntl when itv Digital went bust (I have an aversion to dishes !) when they offered me the phone and everything-bar-the-kitchen-sink deal for £36.50 for the first 12 months (not including broadband : in actual fact my Pipex ADSL still runs thru my BT phoneline : they added their own ntl phone line but it is unused at present, although may become useful should I ever work from home) and so far have to say the service is fine and dandy (especially when tied in with Tivo): the picture and sound quality is a million times better than itv Digital.

However, their customer service is absolutely awful : if you ever need speak to them you may need to arrange a day off work just to get through. Thankfully, aside from a direct debit query which was answered within 15 minutes (very fast by their standards) I have had no need to ring them.

I think as Paull says, for all the aggro of changing over, and because you want to benefit from Sky ever broadcasting Box office events in 5.1 (although you`d probably have to upgrade to Sky Plus for that, as standard digiboxes don`t output 5.1 sound) you`re probably best off sticking with what you`ve got.

I agree with Paull.

I`m in the middle of a dispute with NTL regarding my phone going dead one day for no reason. When I eventually got through to their customer services (on hold for 45 minutes on my mobile) I was told that my phone number didn`t exist and giving them the account number produced the same result. After several phone calls and waiting in for 2 engineers who failed to show up I gave up, called BT and got reconnected to them. The BT guy turned up on time, I kept my number (the one NTL said didn`t exist) and it costs £20 a month inc caller ID, and all my calls at weekends/after 6pm - cheaper than NTL.

I cancelled the NTL direct debit and funnily enough, they`ve miraculously decided that my phone number did exist in order to send a demand and disconnection notice if I don`t pay for it! I can feel a letter to their CEO and Nicky Cambell at Watchdog coming on.

You`ll also find that Sky`s packages work out cheaper than NTL`s last time I looked.

Thanks for your replies.

Yeh, I kind of knew the NTL Customer Service can be pretty bad, but I thought providing you can set things up yourself and they don`t go wrong, then you`re ok.

I was mainly tempted by the price, NTL are now doing special offers e.g

- Digital TV basic family pack & phone rental £13 (for first year, then reverts to std price of £26)
- Broadband £14.99
- No install charges for either and no set up fees !

so for £28 a month I could get the channels I want, telephone rental and broadband. I could also cancel my Sky sub (£37 for all channels, but I hardly ever watch Movies or Sport). After 1 year would revert to £41.

If I stay with Sky I could change to the more basic £16 package, and could then get ADSL for £27 which totals £43, but still have to pay BTs line rental and hefty ADSL set up charges.

My last BT Bill for a Qtr was £111.

I did a quick calculation using NTL Phone prices, call charges alone for last qtr would have been £77 and the line rental for NTL although included in the Digital TV package is about £9.99 per mth on its own, so a comparative NTL bill would be 77+30 = £107. So the phone charges seemed OK ?

In my heart I would like to keep Sky and one day get their Dolby Digital aswell, anyone know where you can get ADSL or Broadband more cheaply ?

Is ADSL better than cable broadband ?

ADSL has the edge albeit only slightly than cable broadband. I considered switching to cable from Sky at one time but the cost`s didn`t add up.

I would definitely stick with SKY and get BT ADSL. Friends of mine who has cable broadband have experienced endless difficulties with NTL servers going down or having problems. One was without email forwarding for about a month although they could access the Web.

Yes, NTL are good........

Until something goes wrong - then you are on you`re own.

It`s a shame that the products/services are let down by such shoddy customer service.

Stick with Sky and BT.

There are a lot of points, mentioned above, that I would totally agree with i.e. customer service - I think this is widely acknowledged - is dreadful! However, if you ever need them (and you will, at some point) use the ntl help/advice on the web - it is usually very quick and efficient.
On the plus side, telephone charges CAN be excellent, depending on your `user profile`. I personally make a substantial saving over BT.
But the best bit, for me, is that I currently pay £5 per month for unlimited internet access. Yes, it`s not particularly fast, or amazingly reliable, BUT IT IS £5.
In an `all things equal` situation, I would probably edge towards Sky, but if you have a `political` aversion towards them (like me) then ntl do have some good points!

Some friends of mine who have NTL phone and digital TV, often have their phone line die for no reason, have to spend hours trying to get through to customer support, and more than a week before its repaired.

NTL digital TV is crap, we dumped it for Sky because the boxes would keep freezing (don`t channel hop quickly you`ll kill it), my underpants were more interactive (push the red button my arse) and the picture quality really wasnt that great. Sound on the terrestrial channels was awfully over compressed.

The same friends of mine with NTL also have Sky as well, and they agree Sky is WAY ahead in terms of quality and features. When we dumped NTL digital 95% of the program listings were always wrong. Its just pants and an insult to digital TV!

I`m thinking about upgrading my sky digital with Sky +, can anyone tell me the pros and cons before I purchase one.

By the way I was thinking of keeping Sky digital and going for telewest phone line, I seen to remember they do cheeper phone lines. Are they any good or are they just the same as NTL?

Floyd