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Originally Posted by orangebird
It's not really a fair comparison though is it?
NTL pay for your stb, your installation, and all your maintenance costs whilst you have the package.
Freeview, you have to pay for and maintain (outside the manufacturers warranty) the service and hardware yourself.....
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i think the comparison is pretty good. Freeview boxes cost peanuts and prices are still falling. The only maintenance involved is with an aerial. That's the worst case scenario becasue if you have a loft aerial or inddor aerial there's pretty much zero maintenance.
Also, you imply that NTL always pays for installation, when I believe that there is actually a charge for this - free installation is a special offer i think, rather than something everyone can have all the time. Also, even if you get free installation they can still bill you if the install is complicated.
On top of that the NTL service didn't have any volume control back when I had it and you are locked into a 12 month contract.
Much extra bbc content is missing even on radio channels and many boxes crash, are slow or lack basic outputs.
My freeview set-up cost me a grand total of 49 quid almost three years ago including all maintenece, hardware, installation, wiring, servicing etc etc (and i am not especially good with electronics). At current NTL prices the cost would be 700 quid!
Of course the NTL service is better than Freeview in some ways becasue it has more channels, and you do get a crap phone line (whether you want it or not). But the charges just keep going up and up, and the service still isn't up to standard. The vast majority of Freeview boxes are near perfect and very very reliable indeed (especially compared to NTL hardware). I expect most boxes will easily outlive your average tv. Also, they keep boosting the signal quality in many areas, so there are less and less people needing aerial upgrades.
Hopefully the government will force terrestrial channels to go Free to air on satellite as Ofcom have proposed. Then with any luck there will be almsot no one (other than NTL employees) left on the base pack.
The fact is that his post wasn't totally fair, but yours is much worse.
I know you're just trying to defend you beloved NTL, but the way to do this isn't though misleading people about the facts or implying that Freeview is costly to buy/maintain. I know this has been said beofre, but please don't fight innacurate posts with even more innacurate ones.