[Rillington]

It's an interesrting time for UK cable but it always is isn't it.

To me, the main problem for cable is the TV product which is always way behind Sky. The problem is that people pay more for cable TV but get fewer channels and fewer services and there always seems to be problems (the PRESS RED issue is the latest, last year it was the STB changing at random). Sky has done it very well and gives free add-on insentives to people who take premium channels such as Sky+ and content via broadband. Telewest charges extra for their PVR and I would imagine ntl will too. Therefore, with Sky you would pay £40 per month for the premium channels and the Sky+ but with cable you are paying £60 to £70 for the same because you are also forced to have the telephone line plus you don't get all the interactive stuff which you get with satellite such as Sky News interactive, News 24 interactive, Sky Sports interactive etc and, of course, the broadband Sky Sports stuff is only for satellite customers.

As well as all that, the channel line-up continues to lag way behind Sky. Once again, a number of major channels are now missing - examples include ESPN Classic, Player, TCM2, cartoon Network 2, CITV, True Movies, Sky Three, Travel, Artsworld, Performance, The Chart Show music channels and if you include all the less attractive channels and niche channels for specific groups such as ethnic minorities, the gay channels plus all the radio stations then Sky has more than double the number of channels that cable has, possibly even triple the number, for a lower price per month.

Yes I know people will say that VOD is something Sky cannot do directly but many areas can't get it and it is a chargeable add-on rather than an extra as part of the subscription like Sky's broadband content is.

To me, the problem is that cable is always playing catch-up to Sky and that cable seems to be about 2-3 years behind Sky in terms on TV rather than being innovative and ahead of Sky.

In terms of telephone, again BT offers stuff as part of the line rental which ntl charges for, such as caller display and an itemised telephone bill so if I changed I'd be £2 per month worse off with ntl telephone than I would be with BT and that's before the higher ntl call charges (yes 1p/call isn't a vast amount but it soon adds up) and the fact that ntl is to charge people to call custoemr services, something BT again offers free. I have never had any problems with the reliability of the BT service, never had a bad line and never had a problem making a telephone call. Can;t comment about ntl telephone line but I;'d be amaed if it was as reliable given that when I had a cable telephone service a few years ago I found it almost impossible to make an outgoing call.

As for internet, I would have to change ISPs which I am not going to do but ntl intenret always seems to get it wrong and gets a laod more flack than other ISPs do - examples include the download cap. It is true that cable internet is up there with the other ISPs but they never seem to quite get thigns right. Can't comment on reliability but I'd never have ntl internet.

What happens in the next year or so when the merger with TW is sorted followed by the introduction of the Virgin brand remains to be seen but cable is still the inferior product when compared to its rivals and is seen to be the inferior product by people at large plus the fact you pay mroe and get less with cable than you do with Sky/BT. I guess we'll see what happens in the future but it will take a lot more than the introduction of ther Virgin brand to turn thigns around for cable.