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tisdalj · 13-10-2006, 09:15

Sorry for another long post. There is a question at the bottom if you can't be bothered to read the rest.

I went to the house (it's actually a maisonette) last night to measure up. All the furniture has been removed, so I got to have a good look at what connections are in the living room. There's hundreds of them!

What I found was a cable coming into the house direct from a satellite dish. The vendor is taking the dish, so if I was to get Sky I would need a new dish and to run a cable around 3 walls - something I don't really want to do as it is quite a thick cable, but as I'm not that bothered about watching TV the vendor mentioned that I could pay Sky a one-off fee and have a dish and box, but just get the free-view channels. This would save me some money per month and allow me to pay for BT internet/phone.

I also found a standard Aerial point, but again this was on the wrong wall and I would need to run another thick cable around. Plus, as it is a communal aerial the vendor says freeview is not receivable. (They actually seemed to think that NTL scamble the signal so you have to use NTL.)

Most interesting find was 2 NTL boxes. The first was just a phone line, located next to the standard phone outlet. Why don't NTL use the standard one?

The second was an NTL box with 2 aerial-like sockets on. It was located on the wrong wall for my TV, but following the cable back to it's source, it comes into the living room quite close to where I intend to put my TV, but the wrong side of a door. I did notice, however that the cable from this box is quite thin, so running this up and over the door frame into the correct position shouldn't be a problem and won't be very visible. So I think in light of this, NTL could be the winner.

My only remaining question is: Am I correct in assuming that as the NTL box has 2 sockets on it, one will be used to connect the STB, whilst the other is used to connect the modem? Or does the Modem connect into the NTL phone-line box?

13-10-2006, 09:15	#14
tisdalj Inactive Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 8	Re: NTL or Sky in new house??? Sorry for another long post. There is a question at the bottom if you can't be bothered to read the rest. I went to the house (it's actually a maisonette) last night to measure up. All the furniture has been removed, so I got to have a good look at what connections are in the living room. There's hundreds of them! What I found was a cable coming into the house direct from a satellite dish. The vendor is taking the dish, so if I was to get Sky I would need a new dish and to run a cable around 3 walls - something I don't really want to do as it is quite a thick cable, but as I'm not that bothered about watching TV the vendor mentioned that I could pay Sky a one-off fee and have a dish and box, but just get the free-view channels. This would save me some money per month and allow me to pay for BT internet/phone. I also found a standard Aerial point, but again this was on the wrong wall and I would need to run another thick cable around. Plus, as it is a communal aerial the vendor says freeview is not receivable. (They actually seemed to think that NTL scamble the signal so you have to use NTL.) Most interesting find was 2 NTL boxes. The first was just a phone line, located next to the standard phone outlet. Why don't NTL use the standard one? The second was an NTL box with 2 aerial-like sockets on. It was located on the wrong wall for my TV, but following the cable back to it's source, it comes into the living room quite close to where I intend to put my TV, but the wrong side of a door. I did notice, however that the cable from this box is quite thin, so running this up and over the door frame into the correct position shouldn't be a problem and won't be very visible. So I think in light of this, NTL could be the winner. My only remaining question is: Am I correct in assuming that as the NTL box has 2 sockets on it, one will be used to connect the STB, whilst the other is used to connect the modem? Or does the Modem connect into the NTL phone-line box?