letter - no price rise but less channels
 

I am currently on the analogue base tv pack and today recieved a letter from ntl showing me how they are changing the packages, they stated that digital tv services are unchanged.

at the moment for 13 a month I get challenge tv and living tv, but starting next month they are moving these to a mid pack for 18 a month, seems the analogue customers get a worse deal again.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

all designed to force you onto digital imo :mad:

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

thats fair enough if everyone could have digital, but we can't because they wont upgrade the damn area.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Well for £18 you will still get more (proper) channels than the digital base pack @£18 so you should count yourself lucky ;)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Done to go with increased costs to provide the channels. Unfortunatally I expect the digital prices to go up soon to seen as sky have just put their prices up and we usually follow suit 4 months later.

Unfortunatally there are less and less channel producers who are willing to send channels out on both digital and analogue and seen as though the goverment want to have all analogue systems turned off by 2011? (something near that date) it means that it is pointless for new channels to go down the analogue route as well as the digital.

I think you will find us upgrading to digital in your area within the next few years (I know where I work in the NW that we have most of BL1, bolton, and other areas that are "non-digital") and I also know what a right royle pain in the arse it is to so completley understand your frustrations, but the price changes are more to do with the cost of providing ther services for you.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Can you get Film Four on analogue in your area?

That's how they forced me to upgrade. They removed Film Four from analogue, so you had to upgrade to digital to keep it. Luckily I was moving house anyway, so I needed a reinstall anyway.

Mind you, I had to fight them as they insisted I took the full pack (for 12 months minimum as well), as this was a new install. Only when I said I would leave alltogether did they agree to me having just the base pack and Film Four.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Here's the latest:

Analogue Base Pack £13.00
BBC1, Cartoon Network, MTV, QVC, BBC2, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky One
BBC News 24, CNBC, E4, Sky News, BBC Parliament *, CNN,
ITV NewsChannel *, TCM, Bloomberg *, Discovery Channel, ITV1,
TV Travel Shop, British Eurosport, Discovery Home & Leisure, ITV2,
UK History

Mid Pack £18.00 (includes channels in Base Pack plus the following)
Challenge TV *, Nickelodeon, The Box, UK Horizons, Living TV,
Paramount Comedy, UK Gold

Family Pack £23 (includes Base & Mid Packs plus the following)
Animal Planet *, Plus, Trouble, VH1, Bravo *, Sci-Fi, UK Style *,
Men & Motors

* denotes that channel is not available in all areas.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

the ones with a * I get itv news but not bloomberg and bbc parliament.

has anyone got the new digital list to put up and compare?

the funny thing is when I go online, it claims digital is in my area, and throws loads of offers at me, of course none of them I can choose :(

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Base Pack (£18 per month) ---about 50 channels
BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Three, BBC Four, BBC News24, BBC Parliament, CBBC, Cbeebies, ITV1, ITV2, ITV News Channel, Channel 4, Five, Channel ntl, buy ntl, Sky ONe, Sky one mix, sky travel, sky travel extra, sky sports news, sky news, bloomberg, british eurosports, ftn, uk history, uk brightideas, the hits, tmf
plus 11 shopping channels!! PLUS 3 guest channels. (march: VH1, CNN and Challenge!)
Family Pack (£28 per month) ---around 120+ channels
loads of them-visit www.ntlhome.com/ntl_tv/family.html
for details

there is also a Mid-Tier Package for £25 month - but that's a bit of a rip off, you only get an extra 10 channels!!

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Cheers Macca.

Wrote this up, hope you don't mind :)

http://www.ntli.info/index.php?page=index_v2&id=37&c=15

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

I havn't had a letter, yet. I currently pay £19.99 for two analogue boxes on the 'Variety Pack', channels available include Sky 1, Living & Sci Fi. Now looking at Macca's post, it would seem that just one box would cost £23 to continue getting these channels, plus at least £7 for the second box - I don't think I'm going to be a happy bunny - that's a 30% increase for the same service:(

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

If NTL Digital is not available in your area ... why not switch and go for Freview .. or Sky ??

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Hi Nem :wavey:

hmm - digital is available, but I don't want digital while the lottery of which box you get & whether it has 'pass though' continues. That's apart from the pixellation, lock ups & loss of sound I have seen reported, which (in my experience) doesn't happen on analogue?

Freeview isn't an option unless Sky1 becomes available & I don't want Sky due to the requirement for the phone line to be connected for the first year. (does this have to be a BT line - mine are both NTL?)

I really like my analogue package, but I suppose I will have to seriously consider my options if this price rise happens - will wait to see if I get the letter, first. :shrug:

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

This price rise is happening. Just the way it is going im afraid. As for sky, you will find them telling you that you need a bt line, but it's BS. You can have either an ntl line or a bt line, but they get paid some money if they "force" you onto bt at the same time! :D

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

thanks for that :) - not wanting to 'shoot the messenger', but do you think a 30% price hike for the same service is good marketing by NTL? OK I know I have various options available - but what about people who can't get NTL digital in their area? Is the objective of freeing up bandwidth by forcing analogue customers to convert to digital worth pi**ing off so many of their customers? :erm:

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

AFAIK, passthru is not really available on the Digi boxes

but there are other solutions around that will achieve the same thing ;)

The boxes can lock up, had some that do, but have got both 4000 and 2000 boxes that tend to behave, with BB through the STB.

some people have bad experiences with some boxes, but in general, they are ok. If that's all that is stopping you ... take the plunge .. :D

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Like I've said previously, it's nothing to do with freeing up bandwidth but to do with the fact that analogue will be switched off by 2010 (or earlier if the Govt. get their way)

ntl make very little on TV revenue to be honest, as most of it goes to sky (who make a lot of the channels/hold the rights to a lot of them) so most price increases are due to increased costs of providing the service.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

thanks Nem, to be fair the 'passthrough' on analogue is really only an option to connect an external aerial to the box, so that one can watch a cable channel & record terrestrial at the same time, I presume a digi-box can also do this?

It will be interesting to compare prices - currently pay £19.99 for two boxes & £16 for two phone lines - as digital includes the phone rental it may work out cheaper than the new analogue tariff?

Also have SACM, so wouldn't have to use the stb for broadband, which is a bonus.

take your point about the TV revenue, but as analogue allegedly takes 8x the bandwidth of digital, I wouldn't be surprised if if was at least part of the reason for 'discouraging' analogue customers. Not saying you are wrong, just got my cynical head on atm :)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

The only requirement is for the Sky digibox to be connected to a phone line for the first year if you want to tkae advantage of the free box and £1 installation. It doesn't have to be a BT line, my Sky boxes are connected to a NTL line. I know of several people that have disconnected the digibox from the phone line just after installation and have not been contacted by Sky. What is the problem with having the digibox connected to the phone line anyway?

There is a company near me that is sometimes offering used Sky digiboxes complete with minidish and installation for £100. These boxes come with a viewing card for FTA & FTV channels or you can take any Sky package and they don't need connecting to a phone line.

EDIT. I used to have both Sky and NTL DTV but got rid of NTL when Sky altered Sky+ subscription prices. I had hung on with NTL hoping that their DTV would improve but it didn't, just got worse. I had to have my NTL STB changed five times (never had to have a Sky box changed) and was continually having problems with freezing and pixallation on the NTL box. Last summer was an absolute nightmare with the NTL box which engineers put down to the very hot weather and said that there was no long term solution.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Interesting comments - thanks Ianathuth :)

The phone line reluctance was because I wasn't sure if it had to be a BT line - & you & Hells Child have clarified that - cheers. :tu:

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

That's a tad disappointing but the base pack still works out better value than digital IMO. The only big loss to me would be UK Gold and to a lesser extent VH1 :(

edit - it would be quite nice if they could redo the numbering as the current ones will look daft when none of the channel packs that they are in order with exist.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

The analogue base pack looks good value. They have decent channels for a lot oess than the digital base pack which is basically Freeview plus shopping channels.

Wanted also to comment on the point about channels renewing/not renewing their analogue carriage. ntl is never going to get people off analogue and onto digital if it keeps renewing the analogue contracts. It should be doing far more to get people onto digital and a better value digital base pack would help.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Analogue cable seems to be a bit of a rip off really, because quite a few channels are timeshare channels. I used to hate waiting till 8pm to watch bravo because the programs i liked on that channel were on before 8pm plus i didnt want to stop watching trouble because there were some shows that i liked but were on after 8pm thats why i went to sky.

How much are the premium channels on ntl analogue e.g. sky sports, sky movies.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

sky sports 1 I think is 13 a month same with no 2 if you have both together I think its 18 a month and you get sky sports 3 free with either 1 or 2

incidently we only have sky sports 1,2,3 no sky sports extra

also only 2 movie channels that I am aware of we dont get sky premier 1,2,3,4 etc.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Good point abut the 'time sharing' - it also happens with 'discovery home & leisure' & the proper 'discovery channel'. :)

Sky Movies 1 costs me £14 a month :erm:

- anyone want to come back & tell me what a 600k BB on SACM, 2x digibox, 2x phoneline on full 'family pack' package would cost me, from NTL - what I have on analogue is currently £74.98? per month.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

BB - £24.99
Extra digibox - £15.00
Family Pack - £28.00
Extra phoneline - £6.00

NB there are deals out there m8. :)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

This is what I got from the NTL site

Setup total:Monthly total:£ 0.00 £73.99

INTERNET OFFERS 600K Broadband Internet £24.99 per month
TELEPHONE PACKAGES It's as simple as 3-2-1 Standard.ÂÂÂà ‚£9.50 per month
(Remember you need an ntl telephone package before you can buy our tv package or dial up service)
2nd TELEPHONE LINE 2nd Phone Line£6. 00 per month
TELEVISION PACKAGE Family Pack£18 .50 per month
EXTRAS Additional set top boxes£1 5.00 per month
Install charge£ 75.00 one time
Installation Discount-£75.00
one time Total£0 .00
one time Total Monthly Charge£ 73.99
One-time Charges £0.00

Here is a link http://sales.ntl.com/newdesign/offers.jsp

fill out the postcode and then read the offers and add/remove what you want

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Many thanks Julian, Nemesis - looks like the price isn't going to be a problem;)

Cheers Guys :)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Don't forget that if you have itemised billing that is an extra £1.00 per line as well Gaz. :)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

ok - thanks, I do get an itemised bill, so I guess that will apply. Price-wise, overall it looks like changing to digital would not be a problem. I will wait for the letter to arrive, call them in a suitably aggrieved manner & see what they can offer;)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

As for the "Box lottery", if you ask the installation person nicely they usually have a couple of different types of box in the van and will fit whatever they have that you ask for...

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

They will indeed - if the box you are fitted with doesn't have an internal by pass, the install techs now have external bypasses which can be fitted. :)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Didn't want to start a new thread about this. Does anyone know what UK Horizons will be replaced by on analogue? (it closes in 2 weeks to be replaced by UKTV People and UKTV Documentary)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

In terms of what UKTV are doing, UKTV Documentary will replace UK Horizons on the satellite. UK People is taking up a new position and not replacing anything else.

So I would assume that Documentary will be on analogue?

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

UKTV Documentaries will replace UK Horizons on ntl analogue.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

guys apperently it is a price rise, I was corrected by my sister, its only 11.50 at the moment so ntl took channels away and added 1.50 to the price.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Just to give you an idea of what has happened to the analogue pack/prices within last 2/3 years so you can get a better idea (this is Celtic araea but it is quite close, I believe, to other areas):

Analogue base pack (generally known as Starter Pack) £11.99: No Sky1, UK Gold, VH1 or The Box.

For an extra £2.00 you could add on Sky1 & The Box (Starter Plus Pack)

There was an older pack which included UK Gold & VH1, but newer customers could not get that.

Sky1 then added Base Pack, E4 added later then Cartoon Network, TCM, UK History & MTV added even later to Base Pack.

I hope that helps to make a better judgement on whether the price "increase" is justified, personally I think it is good value for money.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Are the 2 film channels going to stay on Analogue?
I know they removed the PPV ones a while ago (an incentive to upgrade is all I can reason why).

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

While for the digital base pack, the price has gone up from £10 to £15 to £18 over the last three years and the only extra channels added have been Sky1, those on Freeview and a whole load of shopping channels.

We do not get E4, Cartoon Network, TCM, or MTV - to get those you would have to pay £28!

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

There have been a few channels added to the Digital Base like Hits & TMF but I wouldn't disagree that the better value for money is the analogue base pack but then again once you look above the base pack the better value for money is the digital. That is just my humble opinion, of course. :D

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Not in the near future, as far as I know. They did discuss doing it a couple of years ago but nothing came of it. You will still get the 3 movie channels previously known as Premier, Moviemax & Cinema.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

well I dont get vh1 or ukgold, and mtv is a heap of junk (rarely music on)

but good point about E4

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

I just got my letter today, it clarified one thing I hadn't realised, that the phone line rental is now to be included in the price for the TV pack, not paid seperately, as at present.

Also CS assured me that the cost for my extra stb & extra phone line will remain the same.

This means if I go on the 'mid' pack, the price I pay will remain virtually unchanged.

Also as I currently subscribe to Sky Movies 1, the new pack will include Sky Movies 2, plus freebies of Sky Cinema 1 & the Disney channel.

So the only downside is that SciFi channel, which I currently get, is not available in the 'mid' pack, but it is only £5 pm extra to upgrade to the 'family' pack', so I might do that.

- not as bad as I thought :)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

The new packs that are being introduced to analogue customers won't necessarily mean a price increase. Some people will see an increase, some no change and some a decrease. It's a matter of consolidating the many packs that are available in different parts of the country into one simpler pack structure, like we did on digital in 2002.

There are no changes to the channels actually available in any area - we're not removing any channels - so everything that you get now will still be available.

You don't have to wait for your letter to change your pack, if you would prefer to change now, just call CS. The packs are available in most areas now (the others will have them available very soon).

When you get your letter, you don't have to take the pack that we've concluded is right for you, just call CS to change it.

If you want to look at your specific charges now and how they will change and what pack is best, PM me and I should be able to help.

Cheers
Sam

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

As always Sam, thanks for your help and input. Appreciated. :)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

I'll second that:tu:

I'd also like to say that it was the first time I have had to contact CS, I called twice, both times I got through within a couple of minutes & was dealt with courteously & efficiently. They talked through the various options in pretty much the same terms as Sam did. So credit where credit is due - well done Sarah & Jaqueline.:)

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

sam b, So I wont be billed more for march than feb, and I expect to still have challenge tv in the base pack?

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

my letter said that changes would be effective from 10th April - and that Challenge will then be in the Mid pack. I should think you will only have a change to your billing after that - if I've worked it out correctly, my bill goes up by only a penny a month.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

I am not happy with the new channel line up, all the channels we want are being spread over the 3 Packs, so to get the current channels that we watch will cost us £23 per month and "lucky" for us they are throwing in some extra channels!.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

that is true - the 3 channels I watch most are Sky1, Living & SciFi, all of which I get in my current 'Variety' pack . As you say to get all of these I will need to have the new 'Family' pack at £23 a month.

My current bill for 2 stb's, 2 phone lines, the 'variety' pack & Sky Movies1, is about £50.

My new bill including the new 'mid' pack will be about £50.

However, as I take Sky Movies1, I will also now get Sky Movies2, Sky Cinema1 and the Disney Channel.

Plus even though I will have to go for the 'Family' pack to get SciFi, I'll get Men & Motors, as well.

So, it's a fiver a month extra, but, for me, a reasonable deal on the channels?

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

its more then a penny price rise, ntl are been clever, those who dont pay by direct debit currently pay about that price anyway per month so it looks the same, but the quoted price excludes the amount you pay if you dont pay by direct debit so then the base pack will be 14.50 per month and thts without challenge tv, atm its 13.50 per month with challenge tv. My current bill is 11.99 for the base pack but I pay by direct debit.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

You won't see any changes until the date shown on your letter. Your channels will change on that date and your next bill will reflect the change in price.

Picking up on another point about charges for those that don't pay by direct debit. This has always been £2 and isn't changing so you can ignore that when looking at what's changing. We always quote pack prices that are for those that pay by Direct debit, as do a lot of other companies, so there isn't any intent to mislead with this. Comparisons should both exclude these charges.

Cheers
Sam

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

I may ring up ntl and tell them to just leave me with the terrestial channels and I keep the phone and internet, if they refuse this option I will give them a final chance and threaten to cancel EVERYTHING, I only watch 2 channels that I cannot get with a tv aerial, they are E4 and challenge tv.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

No way im going digiTV, Premium services, box hooked up to the blower line and NTL/sky have a direct feed to your bank account,
Why the need for all the channels they didnt have enuff movies to not continually repeat on 3 channels. all you get on digi is more repeats.
And why do you think the boxes are hooked up to a phoneline

TV licence is going, you all got what you wanted and its gonna cost big time as every channel will end in PPV. Regular tv veiwers will be paying no less than £100 a month. You wont even need to subscribe, just switch to the channel and watch the £ÃÆ ’‚£Ãà¢Ã¢â€šÂ¬Ã…¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚£'s rolling out your account.

my analog base pack is £4 a month get sky1 and cartoon network and some other junk, only have it for cartoon network cuz of 2 kidz, if they take that channel away bye bye cableTV.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

NTL digital boxes don't connect to your phone line.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

communication is still bi-directional. PPV eastenders etc will be on your screens sooner than you may think.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

how do you get away with just £4 a month?

oh you excluded line rental and worked it out that way

sorry

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

You say that like it's a bad thing. Why? I long for the day NTL are able to offer video on demand -- but it's still many years away, I think.

And Eastenders is probably a bad example anyway, as the BBC wouldn't be allowed to charge...

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

BBC are allready at the table on what to replace the licence with, and it for sure will not be adverts.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Dunno what you mean my cable bill is completely seperate to the phone bill

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

nitronutter this is how my bill is laid out

starter pack - tv and telephone 11.99 (always the same)
telephone call charges (variable)
billed in arrears period charge cable modem 34.99
billed in arrears 21 days @0.53 sports 1 11.13

I think its good how they only charge me for the actual days I had sky sports 1 for, but the compulsary purchase of a so called base tv pack annoys me, all the channels aired on it are free to ntl I believe so its all 100% profit, someone could correct me if I am wrong. Obviously the removal of challenge tv has nailed the coffin for me, that and E4 are the only 2 channels I watch.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Do you get Sky1 and E4? If so, NTL have to pay for them. Also, £9.50 of the price is phone line rental, so you are effectively paying £2.49 per month for Sky1, E4 and the rental of your set-top-box. That is a lot better value than digital base pack subscribers who have to pay £8.50 per month for exactly the same thing!

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

And this is how my bills are laid out:

Cable Account
TV Package Calypso £4.00
Cable modem 1Meg £34.99

-----------------------------------
Telephone bills are a completely seperate entity its very rare it the 2 bills arrive together.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

if sky1 is a pay channel then why isnt it optional?

not everyone wants to watch 3 hours of simpsons every day :(

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

It is not optional on Sky, if you subscribe to Sky you get Sky1.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

I've lost my letter. When were these changes due to take effect? Is it this weekend?

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

It depends on where you live - it's a phased rollout so everyone's different. There aren't any moves this weekend though. Let me know where you are.
Sam

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Hi Sam

I'm in Winchester.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

You will be moved to your new pack on 4th April. The change will happen overnight on the 3rd so you will see any changes to channels on the morning of the 4th.

Cheers
Sam

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

Thanks.

Re: letter - no price rise but less channels
 

It used to be way back when on Analogue (4 years ago). I think sky forced them to make it compulsory in a price rise some years back.