Am I right to dump Sky?

bcirl03

Trying to save money (like us all) and figure out I can save anything up to €400 this year if I switch from Sky to UPC.

I'm sick of paying more money for simple services like multiroom \ hd that UPC seem to be a lot cheaper. I can also throw my phone \ broadband onto the same bill again saving money.

My question is am I right to dump Sky and move? Has anyone made the switch and been satisfied or not? Is it worth it?

Thanks,

TC

Ranicand

I made the switch and I am more than happy.

UPC has improved the bit rate on the channels and the HD box is very good.

Two things there is no red button stuff and there is less channels here is the channel list.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_channels_on_UPC_Ireland

Multi room is much cheaper and if anything goes wrong UPC call outs and replacements are free.

Some people have had trouble with the broadband for gaming because the flood control on the router is set to on by default.
It is really simple to switch if off.
Here are my results


The phone is great.

My advice would be to go for it.

watty

Don't let UPC cut your coax. The Sky box is yours and still gets all the free UK channels and all main channels except Irish TV.

Unless you want Sky Sport, you can consider Aerial for 6 to 9 Irish TV www.saortv.info free and have all the important UK channels free on the Sky box. Saves even more money.

Sky 1 is most watch pay Channel, only gets 2% viewing time.
ALL skysports together get less than 2% viewing time.

You can have UPC BB and phone without the TV and save even more.

Your Sky box and dish is yours and it gets all the Free and Freesat channels (without subscription), which added to the Free Digital Aerial signals (RTE2 soon in HD) and other channels soon not on Sky or UPC gives you over 92% of what people watch on UPC cable.
http://www.techtir.ie/saortv/freesat

For historic reasons PayTV has 80% pentration here due to bad Irish TV reception and people wanting BBC/ITV/C4 etc. Typical payTV saturation in UK and rest of Europe is thought to be about 56%. Now with Soarview there are 6 good digital channels today and soon 3 more and all the main UK channels are now free on Satellite at higher quality than UPC. It's likely about 1/3rd to 1/2th of people don't realise that the main UK channels are now all free and it's likely most people don't know Saorview not effectively has more coverage than analogue and higher quality than Cable.

Sky & UPC won't have RTE 2 in HD for a while and may never have the other Irish Digital channels, or not till 2013 or 2014.
Saorview Channels http://www.saortv.info/channels/ (all free via Aerial)

Even if you do get UPC PayTV you can have Sky Box in a different Room (it's yours), or same TV as backup. and have Saorview channels on all the Tvs from Aerial.

There are Free channels on Satellite not on UPC. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free-to-air_channels_in_the_UK

It's not official policy for UPC to cut your dish feed coax, but many installers do, especially MMDS installers. It's criminal damage and removal of a free TV service you are legally entitled to.

The Red Button (Wimbledon, Olympics etc) On BBC and Sky News still works with no Sub on Sky Box.

johntommy

Thanks for info

bcirl03

Thanks Ranicanda and watty.

Mrs bcirl03 wont let me go down the free route, afraid the kids will get withdrawal symptoms from the kids pay channels.

I'll be making sure the sky gear aint touched if I decide to dump Sky.

watty

On "Free" there is
pop, tiny pop, pop girl
Milkshake (Five)
Citv
Trte, RTEjr (Irish Childrens Channel only via aerial later this year). Sky only has 5 of the potential 9 Irish Channels. (RTE1, RTE2, TV3, TG4 and 3e)
Cbeebies, Cbbc
Possibly others. Does she want them turned into cabbages?

Well you will have an HD box almost like Freesat if you cancel Sky after a year (but recording disabled). So if you have a 4 mixes or whatever equivalent to a Family pack is these days that will be close to cost of a PVR and a bit less than twice a basic Freesat HD box, so money not wasted.

bcirl03

watty wrote: »

Does she want them turned into cabbages?

I couldnt agree more

alas she is the boss (dont tell her I said that) and if the kids are happy she is happy.....

Thanks.

TC