What is the structure of the cable industry in Ireland? And what is Chorus?

The Quiet Man

My question sounds a bit more complicated that the answer I am expecting!

My girlfriend and I are planning a move to Ireland from the UK, and being a bloke who likes his telly, my first concern is of course what TV services we will be able to receive as opposed to how we go about buying a house or indeed what we will do in Ireland once we get there.

I am aware that NTL operates in Ireland. But what is this Chorus thing? I've looked at the website and it seems quite a strange offering - 15 TV channels if you have the analogue service, 60 channels if you have the digital one. But what is it? Cable? If so, why such a low number of channels? And if Chorus is a cable provider, is the cable industry structure similar to the UK, with Chorus operating in some areas, and NTL the rest? Or is it a straight choice between the two?

Anyone know what services are available in Arklow, Co Wicklow (our planned destination)?

Incidentally, if anyone has emigrated to Ireland from the UK and would like to share their experiences, I'd love to get an e-mail from you.

Thanks for your help.

John R

Chorus is the operator in Arklow. They operate cable in some areas and MMDS in others, by all accounts their service is very poor, the main attraction to cable/mmds over SKY is the inclusion of the UK terrestrial channels.

My advice would be to arrange a UK SKY subscription linked to a friend/ relatives house and bring the box + card with you. You can always get an Irish sub but an Irish sub does not include ITV, CH4, five and ITV2.

icdg

Basically the structure of the cable industry is much the same as in the UK, in that there are two main players with exclusive franchises in their respective areas. These are NTL Ireland (sister company to NTL UK) and Chorus (which is partitally owned by Liberty Media, which has a shareholding in the UK's Telewest).
NTL operates in Dublin, Galway, and Waterford, Chorus practically everywhere else.There are a number of smaller companies, which operate only analogue services.

A key difference between the Irish and UK markets is the usage of a platform called MMDS. This is essentially a wireless cable solution, operating via microwave transmitters, and small dish recievers on the roof. But MMDS is limited in that it can only offer 11-12 analogue channels (about 60-70 digital ones). In towns a traditional cable service is mostly provided, but in rural areas it is MMDS that is used.

NTL provides in its areas a fifteen channel analogue service and an approxemetly 100 channel digital service (which has a number of simularities with the "Langley" NTL Home Digital service in the UK). Chorus provides an analogue service which varies widely from area to area (Chorus being an amalgamation of many different local cable firms which offered widely differing services). The digital Chorus service is identical in all areas where it is offered however. It has about 40 channels in the basic service.

All Irish cable services provide the basic four Irish terrestrials, plus BBC ONE Northern Ireland, BBC TWO Northern Ireland (on analogue - BBC TWO NI Digital is provided instead for digital customers), UTV (the Irish varient of ITV1), Channel 4, Sky One, and Sky News as part of their basic package. Five is unfortunately not offered in Ireland on any platform from any provider, and the only way to access it here is via terrestrial overspill.

The only major alternative to cable in Ireland is Sky Digital. This is an identical service to that in the UK, save that the Irish terrestrial channels are offered, the BBC channels are not listed in the EPG (other than BBC ONE Northern Ireland on #214 and BBC TWO NI Digital on #215), and ITV1, Channel 4, Five, ITV2, and TalkSport are not provided at all.

There is no DTT ("Freeview") service in Ireland, and no plans to provide one at present.

Chorus cable in Arklow is pretty poor to say the least and subject to many breakdowns with little tech support.

Your teletext will work only sometimes and all channels except RTE are in Mono.
Thats right no stereo sound.

It is not digital there and has only a very basic channel selection.

Your best bet is as was pointed out above, to get a UK sky subscription and bring the box and card over here with you when you move it will work grand.

Obviously you will have to ring the UK number not the Irish number each time you want something.
Also you will not be able to plug in the phone to it as then it will know it is not in the UK.

If you don't have a sky sub, get one on a sky box off ebay or summat so as to avoid the sky condition that you must connect tothe phoneline.

TV3 and RTE reception with an indoor or outdoor aerial will cost very little.

mm

watty

There is Caseyvision too? But small.

Basically the choice is:
* BIG Aerial if in UK Fringe area (Which can include the odd Kerry or Tipparry mountain top)

* Whichever is the local Cable operator

* Sky (Pay package or FREE only )

* Satellite with multiple LNB to add Astra1 and Hotbird13 Free channels or even European Pay channels (ABSat, Canal+ etc).


Any mix of the above.


CABLE OPERATORS:
Analog cable is often VERY poor picture (10 to 16 channels)

Analog MMDS can be better or worse (11 or 12 channels)

Digital Cable is OK till cable is cut (60 channels approx)

Digital MMDS is excellent *IF* you have a good base station and signal (otherwise screen freeze can be common) (16 Ch basic, 60Ch max)

You only get to choose package, not operator or delivery (Cable vs RF).

The RF MMDS is 2.5GHz via mesh dish of varying sizes about size of Sky Minidish, but much more open mesh.

The Analog cable and Analog MMDS can usually drive a few channels simultanously to all the TVs as some channels are not scrambled.

Often the Digital MMDS or Digital Cable comes with a analog service too (for now).


Best value is FTA Satellite (or bring a UK cancelled Sub card to add ITV, C4 and Five for free).

Second best value if you have a FTV card or cancelled UK sub card or don't care for ITV/C4/Five is Sky Family Pack, or Chorus 16 channel Digital Pack (has ITV and C4 but NOT BBC3, BBC4, CBeebies, CBBC).


We use a TV Aerial for Irish TV optimised to give better pictures than Chorus, NTL or Sky.

A Digibox with no sub and a few "extra" FTV channels as Ch6 on all TVs.

Analog on 13E for BBC World on Ch7 of all TVs
Analog on 19E for CNN on Ch8 of all TVs
PC based Satellite Receiver with 570 FTA TV and Hard Disk recording (BBC, TCM, Ebs etc) on Ch5 of all TVs


So I am my own cable company

watty

Personally I can't watch the analog MMDS or cable as the picture is so poor...

The Quiet Man

Thanks guys, your responses are helpful.

Richard Flynn

Dear ICDG,

In your post you refered to "exclusive Franchises of Ntl and Chorus. Please note that this is no longer the case and that any provider can now operate and offer cable services in any territory within the state.

See www.comreg.ie.

Regards,

Richard

watty

Yes, but neither of them can actually make money at it and already have cable in the most dense areas it is seriously unlikely another player will come in.

It would be cheaper to buy NTL's MMDS (they don't want that bit) or Chorus altogether.

When ITV goes FTA next year (more likely when than if) then either FTA or Pay Satellite TV will be the preferred.

Even as it was before BBC was FTA Sky was growing and basically Chorus / NTL depending on buisness where either the viewer "must have" ITV/C4 or isn't allowed a dish.


Chorus & NTL had a window of oppertunity (as did DTT here) to become decent UK Tv and /or Multichannel suppliers with quality Digital platform before Sky Digital introduced, or broiught subsidized install.

Instead they dragged their feet and had to be threatened by ODTR (now Comreg) to provide Digital Roll out and good service.

Even now they "miss the plot"

There are THREE markets:
1) The viewer who wants a basic but quality British TV package.
2) The viewer who wants a varied MULTICHANNEL (60+)
3) The viewer who wants Sport / Football

(1) has to be cheap. Traditionally this is what anmalog Cable and analog MMDS was, but the quality is WAY too poor.

(2) The "basic" Digital packs on Cable or MMDS have too many channels or not enough! They need a smaller 8 or 12 channel pack that is a closer replacement to Deflectors, Analog MMDS, Analog Cable. The Larger pack needs to be bigger and more options (turn off Analog MMDS and then MMDS can do 120 channels with more power).

The Chorus "basic" at €28 is way too expensive, though in reality the small channel lineup (much smaller than Sky's Family pack at €27 Euro) is some of the better channels in the Sky pack.



(3) I think they partially address this, which is expensive from Sky anyway.


When you cancel Cable/MMDS you have nothing, but with Satellite you still own all the gear and have over 50 Radio and at least 20 decent TV channels.

At least they could "sell" the Digital MMDS receiveivers and have the 4 Irish channels and a couple of others FTA . Perhaps BBC, Eurosport, TCM and Sky news (Ironically you do lose the Irish TV if you downgrade below Family pack on Sky. Eurosport is a pay channel on Sky, but FTA on Analog Sat and FTA in German on Digital).

sceptre

Originally posted by Richard Flynn
Please note that this is no longer the case and that any provider can now operate and offer cable services in any territory within the state.

I thought Comreg employees were actually engaging with consumers until I read your other post and found out that you're not a comreg person:)

"Exclusive franchises" is indeed not quite correct. "Exclusive areas" is though (given that they're not competing against each other in any common area and hence each area is exclusively dealt with by one operator), rather annoying for consumers given the price rise granted to both operators some time ago in exchange for dumping the exclusive franshise areas.

I'll add my voice to those who advise The Quiet Man to go the satellite route. Chorus are a satire of a joke of a clown company.