Differences between NTL cable and MMDS services.

garethmc

Hi Folks,

Does anyone know the differences between NTL Digital Cable service and their MMDS solution? As far as the home user is concerned is the only difference cable v.s. Dish/MMDS aerial?

I presume both services have an STB that you simply connect to your TV or PC TV tuning card?

I need to know the differences for testing purposes. I don’t think the cable service is available in my area so the only solution is MMDS. I need to be sure that MMDS provides the same service as digital cable.

Thanks
Gareth.

chorus techy

Well the differences are minimal:

1) No multi-room viewing : since analogue is no longer broadcast (and even when it was, it was scrambled), you will need a seperate set top box for each TV if you want to watch more than one channel on them.

2) A lot less channels : because ntl use 2.4 GhZ, which is very crowded, they can't manage to cram as many channels down the MMDS as they can the cable.

3) Picture quality : the picture quality is usually a little worse over MMDS, due to atmospheric conditions, lack of space (more compression), mis aligned antennas etc. etc.

Hope this helps...

icdg

One other difference to note about Digital MMDS is pricing wise.

With Cable, you pay for the analogue service, then pay on top of that for the "big basic" digital package (Go Digital).

With MMDS, you pay for a package that has the same channels as the analogue cable service, but is broadcast in digital (so you get an EPG, etc), then pay extra for a "big basic" package (Digital Choice). So that your basic service is in digital only...

thund3rbird_

this is the full line up available on ntl digital MMDS.

I've listed them as they appear on the epg - these are not all part of the basic package. anything above the basic pack costs extra.
haven't time to sort them into the different packages - took me long enough to list them

mmds has
basic pack (15 or 16 chs including setanta)
choice (adds on around 40 extra tv and all the radios)
and then the add ons (sports / movies / disney etc)

the link to choice that cableguy posted shows the older choice package
loads were added to it just before Christmas as well as increasing sky movies from 2 to 9 channels


full lineup:
TV CHANNELS
RTE1 RTE2 TV3 TG4 BBC1 (NI) BBC2 (NI) UTV (NI) CH4
E4 SKY ONE SKY MIX ITV3 BBC3 BBC4 UKTV GOLD
PARAMOUNT FTN ITV NEWS SKY NEWS CNBC CNN
BBC NEWS 24 DISCOVERY TRAVEL & ADVENTURE
DISCOVERY CIVILISATION ANIMAL PLANET NAT GEOGRAPHIC
HISTORY BIOGRAPHY BBC WORLD SKY MOVIES 1 - 9
CINEMA 1 & 2 FILM FOUR FILM FOUR+1 FILM FOUR WEEKLY
TURNER CLASSIC MOVIES SETANTA SPORTS SKY SPORTS 1 2 & 3
SKY SPORTS XTRA SKY SPORTS NEWS AT THE RACES NASN
EXTREME SPORTS MUTV E! UKTV BRIGHT IDEAS QVC
HOME & LEISURE BRAVO MEN & MOTORS PERFORMANCE
RTE2 THE DEN BOOMERANG NICKELODEON NICK REPLAY
NICK JR CBBC CBEEBIES JETIX(FOX KIDS) DISNEY
DISNEY +1 TOON DISNEY PLAYHOUSE DISNEY TOONAMI
CARTOON NETWORK MTV MTV HITS MTV DANCE
TMF EWTN TV5 ADULT CH PLAYBOY PREMIERSHIP PLUS
PAY PER VIEW CHANNEL

NI = Northern Ireland regional version

RADIO CHANNELS
RTE RADIO1
2FM
LYRIC FM
TODAY FM
RnaG
BBC RADIO ULSTER
BBC RADIO 1 - 4
BBC 5 LIVE
BBC WORLD SERVICE
CLASSIC FM
WRN
KISS RADIO
KERRANG
SMASH HITS


as regards cable - dont have the full list but I think it's around 100 channels
maybe someone with ntl cable that has their digi will post that list

to answer the original question MMDS has around 30 channels less & you only get digital - there is no analog but if you have a separate UHF aerial it can be used to get the 4 Irish separately
the set top box (current version) has one scart & no RF out. it comes with a split scart to connect to both a tv & vcr.
garethmc - if you phone them they have leaflets with all the channels / packages that I'm sure someone in sales would post out to you

PS
if you are in dublin, near the coast & have an aerial you might be able to pick up some of the uk channels directly from Wales but you will have HTV & S4C. BBCs will be BBC Wales

celticfc

thund3rbird_ wrote:

as regards cable - dont have the full list but I think it's around 100 channels
maybe someone with ntl cable that has their digi will post that list

List is here.

thund3rbird_

celticfc - have replied to your pm



forgot to mention in my orig post that the channel numbers are the same as on cable digital