New Channels (possibilities)

clln

StaticNoise wrote: »

I must say, RTÉ really are a sham. They shouldn't even bother.
DAB is already a failure on their part, but that's an entirely different discussion.

RTE's DAB channels have been on UPC now for a long time,the problem is no timestamped EPG which makes RTE choice useless because it is talk radio,it just says "Quality Speech from home and abroad"
duration 360 minutes.that channel above all others needs a show by show start time.
i wonder are they sorry they started DAB and hope it will just fade away?
is it up to RTE or UPC to provide an EPG?

jack presley wrote: »

yes, they tell you what you want to hear even if they've nothing to back it up.

Not trying to defend that practice but really UPC should pay their Reps a decent fixed wage with no bonus.
if that was the case it would not be long before salespeople who try their best without lying but instead being upfront and honest would become apparent through their sales.
instead UPC incentivise often desperate people to lie to even 'little old ladies' through bonus,salesperson of the month bonus crap etc(as do Sky)

sorry mods but this not worth a new thread,just wondering has anybody received a 2nd MUX test from 3 Rock?
i have read that second MUX did some testing,was it on CH 54 or other?
please PM if you can help to stop me going off topic.
Cheers and thanks!:)

forzacalcio

So still waiting for these new channels...........:D

patrickmooney

I asked yesterday, was told they where confident new channels would be added within weeks. WEEKS! Didn't the CEO say 5 by June?

stargazer 68

Still considering switching to sky but cant decide!

Hugh Cream

upc has no saving graces, nothing that you could point at and say thats why its worth being with them, where as sky has vast amounts of things that you could point to.
im not even sure about the charges but personally, id pay more for sky if it was possible for me to get it.

if i had the choice, the final straw for me would be the channel's going and the lies spouted about replacements.
to anyone who has the choice go with sky, upc is only adequate, adequate is not good enough imo.

bk

Hugh Cream wrote: »

upc has no saving graces, nothing that you could point at and say thats why its worth being with them, where as sky has vast amounts of things that you could point to.
im not even sure about the charges but personally, id pay more for sky if it was possible for me to get it.

if i had the choice, the final straw for me would be the channel's going and the lies spouted about replacements.
to anyone who has the choice go with sky, upc is only adequate, adequate is not good enough imo.

That is bull, there are lots of reasons people might be with UPC.

- The fastest and cheapest Broadband speeds in Ireland. Their broadband starts at 25Mb/s and goes up to 100Mb/s for just €57 per month
- Very cheap phone service with no need for a landline.
- Very cheap triple play (phone + TV + bb) packages that are much cheaper then getting Sky separately.
- Free 17 channel analogue multiroom.
- Digital multiroom and HD prices are cheaper.
- Includes Setanta and ESPN
- Cheaper basic channel bundle
- No need for a dish on the side of your house.
- Much more logical channel EPG for Ireland

These might not interest you, but these are reasons why some people are happy with UPC.

Don't get me wrong, yes UPC needs to improve it's TV service to remain competitive with Sky and Saorview/Freesat.

paulm17781

Dovies wrote: »

Still considering switching to sky but cant decide!

I got Sky a few months ago. Now that I have it, it's a no brainer. Far better service than UPC currently have.

icdg

bk wrote: »

That is bull, there are lots of reasons people might be with UPC.

- The fastest and cheapest Broadband speeds in Ireland. Their broadband starts at 25Mb/s and goes up to 100Mb/s for just €57 per month
- Very cheap phone service with no need for a landline.
- Very cheap triple play (phone + TV + bb) packages that are much cheaper then getting Sky separately.
- Free 17 channel analogue multiroom.
- Digital multiroom and HD prices are cheaper.
- Includes Setanta and ESPN
- Cheaper basic channel bundle
- No need for a dish on the side of your house.
- Much more logical channel EPG for Ireland

These might not interest you, but these are reasons why some people are happy with UPC.

Don't get me wrong, yes UPC needs to improve it's TV service to remain competitive with Sky and Saorview/Freesat.

Article in today's Indo stating the advantages of UPC. Reads like an infomercial for UPC at times, but makes some good points...

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/smart-consumer/smart-consumer-how-to-get-the-best-cable-net-and-phone-packages-2658106.html

shanemhoban

bk wrote: »

That is bull, there are lots of reasons people might be with UPC.

- The fastest and cheapest Broadband speeds in Ireland. Their broadband starts at 25Mb/s and goes up to 100Mb/s for just €57 per month
- Very cheap phone service with no need for a landline.
- Very cheap triple play (phone + TV + bb) packages that are much cheaper then getting Sky separately.
- Free 17 channel analogue multiroom.
- Digital multiroom and HD prices are cheaper.
- Includes Setanta and ESPN
- Cheaper basic channel bundle
- No need for a dish on the side of your house.
- Much more logical channel EPG for Ireland


These might not interest you, but these are reasons why some people are happy with UPC.

Don't get me wrong, yes UPC needs to improve it's TV service to remain competitive with Sky and Saorview/Freesat.

i think he is referring to upc's tv service not the rest of there packages, if your comparing sky tv v upc tv there is no comparison, sky wins hands down

Rosser

paulm17781 wrote: »

I got Sky a few months ago. Now that I have it, it's a no brainer. Far better service than UPC currently have.

How's Channel 4 & Setanta working out for you?

dunworth1

Rosser wrote: »

How's Channel 4 & Setanta working out for you?

and dont forget utv

Infoanon

Rosser wrote: »

How's Channel 4 & Setanta working out for you?

Are Channel 4 and UTV not on Sky - news to me ! and as for Setanta - apart from some 3pm premiership matches it has nothing else

Sky means ITV2/3/4 Atlantic/Watch/CBS/Sony/All the discoveries etc etc,+1's,interactive etc etc

On TV Sky is miles ahead - but as a 'package' UPC has a broadband service that is a win win

Back to the thread - On UPC's own twitter page its been mentioned that negotiations are in progress to add Oireachtas TV....

Hugh Cream

bk wrote: »

That is bull, there are lots of reasons people might be with UPC.

- The fastest and cheapest Broadband speeds in Ireland. Their broadband starts at 25Mb/s and goes up to 100Mb/s for just €57 per month
- Very cheap phone service with no need for a landline.
- Very cheap triple play (phone + TV + bb) packages that are much cheaper then getting Sky separately.
- Free 17 channel analogue multiroom.
- Digital multiroom and HD prices are cheaper.
- Includes Setanta and ESPN
- Cheaper basic channel bundle
- No need for a dish on the side of your house.
- Much more logical channel EPG for Ireland

These might not interest you, but these are reasons why some people are happy with UPC.

Don't get me wrong, yes UPC needs to improve it's TV service to remain competitive with Sky and Saorview/Freesat.

the guy never mentioned phone or broadband, you mentioned that, and like I said I'D personally pay the extra to be off upc.

in fact talking about broad band and phone, its not available to everyone, thats pathetic, even more reason to fukk them off.

amateurish.

bk

shanemhoban wrote: »

i think he is referring to upc's tv service not the rest of there packages, if your comparing sky tv v upc tv there is no comparison, sky wins hands down

Hugh Cream wrote: »

the guy never mentioned phone or broadband, you mentioned that, and like I said I'D personally pay the extra to be off upc.

Of the nine points I make, you are both ignoring the 6 points I made about the TV service also being cheaper.

Plus most people nowadays have phone and bb as well as TV and you can't just ignore the significant savings available if you get all three from UPC.

Sure, no argument, Sky's TV service quality is superior, but is also definitely a lot more expensive. Many people don't care about TV enough to pay a premium, specially in these recessionary times.

Hugh Cream wrote: »

in fact talking about broad band and phone, its not available to everyone, thats pathetic, even more reason to **** them off.

amateurish.

No it isn't pathetic or amateurish. UPC has invested billions in their network to enable phone and broadband, giving us incredible speeds of 100Mb/s for very reasonable prices. They are the only company doing this in Ireland, Eircom certainly aren't doing this.

UPC are driving speeds up and prices down in the phone and bb market and they are doing a brilliant job of it.

UPC are by far the best thing to happen to the Irish phone and BB market in the past 10 years.

Very Important MOD message: With my MOD hat on, Hugh Cream, please remember this is a family forum, anymore language like that and you will be banned.

Vunderground

Infoanon wrote: »

Are Channel 4 and UTV not on Sky - news to me ! and as for Setanta - apart from some 3pm premiership matches it has nothing else

Sky means ITV2/3/4 Atlantic/Watch/CBS/Sony/All the discoveries etc etc,+1's,interactive etc etc

On TV Sky is miles ahead - but as a 'package' UPC has a broadband service that is a win win

Back to the thread - On UPC's own twitter page its been mentioned that negotiations are in progress to add Oireachtas TV....

Setanta has IPL cricket in HD. That's way more than 'nothing'.

Infoanon

Vunderground wrote: »

Setanta has IPL cricket in HD. That's way more than 'nothing'.

The IPL cricket is also on ITV4 - and its mainly on subscription SS1

bk

icdg wrote: »

Article in today's Indo stating the advantages of UPC. Reads like an infomercial for UPC at times, but makes some good points...

http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/smart-consumer/smart-consumer-how-to-get-the-best-cable-net-and-phone-packages-2658106.html

Interesting article.

UPC customer care has massively improved from the old NTL/Chorus days, where you would often have to wait an hour to speak to an operaator and then they were often useless.

Now you get through to UPC customer care almost straight away and the second line customer care (loyalty department, twitter folks, etc.) seem to be able to quickly and easily fix most problems.

And UPC should be congratulated for that.

However they still have lots of things to improve.

1) They seem to have a variety of different pricing and policies that seem to differ widely depending on if you are a new or existing customer, if you sign up online or over the phone and if you talk to the loyalty department or not.

They should really simplify and stream line their policies and make them more consistent, to reduce confusion.

2) They should move to a support system where you only ever deal with the first customer support person you speak to. That the customer support person is responsible with ensuring your problem is satisfactorily dealt with. Rather then passing you on to another department.

This is a new way of doing customer support, but it has been found to lead to much higher customer satisfaction.

However it means a lot more training is given to cs and they get greater autonomy and access to tools and information that the loyalty and engineering departments have.

3) Installers should have spare modems, phones and set top boxes in their vans, so if it is found that the order was wrong, the installer doesn't have to leave and come back later with the correct equipment.

In fact the installers should be able to install extra services during the visit if requested by the customer. For instance if the customer orders just TV, then the installer could mention the great deals on phone and BB packages and then install them then and there if requested by the customer.

Installers should be encouraged to do this and rewarded for extra sales they make.

An Tarbh

Infoanon wrote: »

The IPL cricket is also on ITV4 - and its mainly on subscription SS1

not this year it wasn't, majority of games were on Setanta Ireland and Setanta HD.

Hugh Cream

bk wrote: »

Of the nine points I make, you are both ignoring the 6 points I made about the TV service also being cheaper.

Plus most people nowadays have phone and bb as well as TV and you can't just ignore the significant savings available if you get all three from UPC.

Sure, no argument, Sky's TV service quality is superior, but is also definitely a lot more expensive. Many people don't care about TV enough to pay a premium, specially in these recessionary times.




No it isn't pathetic or amateurish. UPC has invested billions in their network to enable phone and broadband, giving us incredible speeds of 100Mb/s for very reasonable prices. They are the only company doing this in Ireland, Eircom certainly aren't doing this.

UPC are driving speeds up and prices down in the phone and bb market and they are doing a brilliant job of it.

UPC are by far the best thing to happen to the Irish phone and BB market in the past 10 years.

Very Important MOD message: With my MOD hat on, Hugh Cream, please remember this is a family forum, anymore language like that and you will be banned.

i live in the center of dublin and upc do not provide either telephone nor internet, actually the small number of hd channels they do have is also unavailable to me, thats pathetic, its also pathetic that no one at upc has any clue when or if it will ever be available.

as for your points about pricing that you said i avoided, i said id willingly pay extra to have sky, id gladly pay the difference.

btw in all seriousness, i genuinely dont know, but curse words lead to bannings on here?

Infoanon

bk wrote: »

That is bull, there are lots of reasons people might be with UPC.
- Free 17 channel analogue multiroom.
- Digital multiroom and HD prices are cheaper.
- Includes Setanta and ESPN
- Cheaper basic channel bundle
- No need for a dish on the side of your house.
- Much more logical channel EPG for Ireland

Re the points above:
a) Multi room analogue is € 3.50 a month
b) UPC HD cannot be compared to Sky HD - there are 40 more channels on Sky including Sky Sports/Movies
c) Not all packages include ESPN
d) UPC basic and Sky basic are both € 23 - UPC max is € 35 incl ESPN/Setanta while Sky is € 33 and includes a lot more channels - Watch/Atlantic but not ESPN/Setanta
e) No need for a dish is a major reason for sticking with UPC imo
f) EPG on Sky is a mess - UPC did themselves no favours when they moved BBC1 from 105 and there are a lot of gaps now

Other issues:
Sky has interactive,24/7 customer care,access to free channels eg ITV2/3/4,more radio stations and better picture quality
UPC own your equipment but that means they also repair it !

There are plusses and minuses to both services -

Back to the thread ! - UPC have stated on twitter that they are in discussions with RTE about adding the saorview channels (I to hope these are not the 'new' channels coming very soon....)

jack presley

Unfortunatley when UPC say they are 'in discussions with', it usually comes to nothing. They've been in discussions to get us new channels for months now and we've had nothing, they were in discussions with Sky over Sky Atlantic and that came to nothing. Maybe they need to get better negotiators?

Cantona's Collars

Infoanon wrote: »

Back to the thread ! - UPC have stated on twitter that they are in discussions with RTE about adding the saorview channels (I to hope these are not the 'new' channels coming very soon....)

Saorview is simply Irish tv only digital,UPC and Sky already have these channels with the exception of the news channel and the new kids channe which isn't any great addition anyway.The kids stuff is already broadcast on RTE 2 so the addition of these 'extra' channels will be a bit of a con if they are meant to replace the ITV's on UPC.

dunworth1

zerks wrote: »

Saorview is simply Irish tv only digital,UPC and Sky already have these channels with the exception of the news channel and the new kids channe which isn't any great addition anyway.The kids stuff is already broadcast on RTE 2 so the addition of these 'extra' channels will be a bit of a con if they are meant to replace the ITV's on UPC.

it RTE 2 HD most people want

Trotter

dunworth1 wrote: »

it RTE 2 HD most people want

I've emailed UPC twice asking when we'll have it on UPC Digital but no replies..

An Tarbh

Trotter wrote: »

I've emailed UPC twice asking when we'll have it on UPC Digital but no replies..

I've given up on emailing them, they've never replied to anything I've sent them.

Hugh Cream

it amazes me that people still defend upc, their actions, or lack there of alone are horrific.

patrickmooney

I think it's disgraceful - I subscribe to UPC to provide me with the best possible IRISH cable TV service. I like how their EPG has all the Irish channels grouped together along with Irish kids channels and community ones alike. But they simply don't care about TV. It's months now since ITV was dropped and no replacements have been lined up. They lied to us about the timeframe for a replacement. How much notice have they had about Saorview launching yet they've failed to negotiate carriage of the new channels and missed out of the first sporting HD broadcast from our national broadcaster this weekend.

bk

Infoanon wrote: »

Re the points above:
a) Multi room analogue is € 3.50 a month

That is assuming you pay for it, but I won't say anymore on this subject, must of us know the truth of this matter.

Infoanon wrote: »

b) UPC HD cannot be compared to Sky HD - there are 40 more channels on Sky including Sky Sports/Movies

I didn't say they have equivalent channels, just that UPC HD is cheaper and if the channels you want are on UPC HD (e.g. BBC1 HD), then you might be happy to pay the cheaper price.

Infoanon wrote: »

c) Not all packages include ESPN

True, but a definite bonus for those that do.

Infoanon wrote: »

d) UPC basic and Sky basic are both € 23 - UPC max is € 35 incl ESPN/Setanta while Sky is € 33 and includes a lot more channels - Watch/Atlantic but not ESPN/Setanta

But it depends on your outlook and needs. Lets say you have a big family with varying tastes, docs, kids, music, etc. Then the Sky Basic pack is no good to you, as it only includes one variety pack. You'd have to pay €33 from Sky to get a channel that would suit everyone.

On the other hand while €23 for UPC only gives you 40 channels, it gives you at least one if not two channels of every type and usually the most watched example of that category. Perhaps enough to satisfy the needs of a big family.

however maybe you live alone and only watch docs, in which case Sky would be better.

Infoanon wrote: »

e) No need for a dish is a major reason for sticking with UPC imo

True

Infoanon wrote: »

f) EPG on Sky is a mess - UPC did themselves no favours when they moved BBC1 from 105 and there are a lot of gaps now

True

Infoanon wrote: »

Other issues:
Sky has interactive,24/7 customer care,access to free channels eg ITV2/3/4,more radio stations and better picture quality
UPC own your equipment but that means they also repair it !

All true.

Infoanon wrote: »

There are plusses and minuses to both services -

Exactly, that is what I'm trying to get across, I agree that there is lots UPC needs to do to improve (see my post above about customer care), but I'm just trying to play devils advocate to Hugh Cream's comments and explain why many people are happy with UPC.

In TV UPC offer a cheaper if not quiet as good TV experience as Sky, but good enough for many people.

bk

Hugh Cream wrote: »

i live in the center of dublin and upc do not provide either telephone nor internet, actually the small number of hd channels they do have is also unavailable to me, thats pathetic, its also pathetic that no one at upc has any clue when or if it will ever be available.

Yes there are pockets of places all over the city that have the issue. However generally it really isn't UPC's fault. Usually it happens because one of your neighbours (or management company in the case of apartments) won't leave UPC enter their property to upgrade the cable as is needed to deliver phone + BB + HD.

Trust me, UPC badly want to upgrade your cable if they could, it means more money for them and less complaints.

Also people in UPC do know the precise reason why, just the cs people don't have this info and couldn't share it with you for privacy reasons.

Minstrel27

Rosser wrote: »

How's Channel 4 & Setanta working out for you?

Channel 4 is on Sky. Setanta Sports is hardly something to be bragging about. Now that the Premier League is over what do they have? Top Gear?

An Tarbh wrote: »

not this year it wasn't, majority of games were on Setanta Ireland and Setanta HD.

The IPL was on ITV4 this year. Not free in HD but free all the same.