[SMHarman]

The alternate Sky, requires a sat attached to the side of your property, not always allowed, possible or desired, even when this is possible the asthetics of some high occupancy tower blocks with sat dishes all in a row / hanging off each balcony are something the competition should be ashamed of.

So NTL, why tie. I'm very anti this, being as I have had BT ADSL (up until recently), a pre broadband decision and then for other reasons, this has tied my voice / voice data to BT as NTL do not offer residential ADSL, yet despite not being able to offer me the BT product they state their product is a proxy for I had to pay for their phone line.

Others have had problems with not all services being available on their line (CLI being the most visible one), again forcing people to an inferior product.

The gripe I had most with on this, is despite not ever using the line and having nothing plugged into the line I have had bills with call charges on them and NTL have accused me of making these calls (perhaps your 2 year old unplugged a phone from another socket, plugged it into ours and then started calling people - Hmm, in a room where he is not allowed to go, where your phone socket is behind a sofa that takes 2 adults to move - I don't think so).

The cross-subsidy issue (phone subsidising DTV) is an interesting point. Is that still the case if the line is not used - I guess so as it is an extra £130/yr in the bank and no need to support it at all. At the moment Sky is free install and free box? Why is DTV not profitable? Can DTV not be seen as a way to get cable into peoples houses and sell BB / Telco on top.

So a bad thing IMHO as I have paid NTL about £500 more than I needed to because of the DTV/Telco thingy.

At the moment though I am on the free phone line for a year package so placated, I guess I will speak to retentions in another 7 months time.