It seems to me from a brisk reading of the various threads on this subject that HC has a "market" but only one where there are no competitors (ie: those who live in high rise flats who can't get cable) and with the advent of TV by broadband even this niche is disappearing for them.

Bennat i too was considering jumping ship but have been seduced into staying for four more months after following up Masai's comment about the free max pack (thankyou). It surprised me that they were prepared to give me four months free TV/broadband because i was not a long term customer like Masai.

I think this offer by HC says alot about the damage the free broadband offers are having on their increasingly limited product.

So go on who doesn't think HC is in trouble?

If i wanna get 4mths free on max pack what do i need to do? Might as well get a little something for free before I leave! Any advice from anyone?

Glad I could be of service I totally agree with what you say. In essence they are giving away nearly £200! I'm not complaining as Im totally skint ATM (cheers HC!).

I've actully asked how much it will cost to escape from my Homechoice contract. Don't use the TV, I have Sky, can get a better deal on internet services.

You may not have a choice, most do, and they're the people Homechoice need to win over.

I'm also a bit disappointed that you see fit to deride competition that you haven't ever used. I've had all of them, Homechoice wins for customer service only in my experience, in every other way it loses to the competition.

Now it looks as though they're going down the same route as ntl of offering discounts to retain people because the services aren't good enough to keep them

I'm also wondering how the LES1000's to exchanges will be able to cope with the increased load of HD on top of SD and internet services, and how a company that is hardly awash with cash after spending tens of millions building out a network will be able to afford the required investment.

My thoughts precisely. And if the Sky broadband propostion does turn out to have proper IPTV then HC really has no USP left at all.

HC only make sense if you need the TV services as well, thats why Sky, NTL and HC have a potential advantage over vanillia ISP's. If you have Sky, why don't you cancel the HC service and use Sky's broadband service, surely it would be cheaper?

I was a NTL customer for several years and I had personal experience of how bad they can be. It took them 10 days for my phone line to be connected, engineers didn't turn up One walked out my front door leaving it open ('back in a minute'...) a hour later I realised he had abandoned the job.
NTL broadband has been promised for *eight* years in London, thats right you still cannot get cable broadband (or interactive TV for that matter) in large parts of London.

Unfortunately I'm under contract so I'm a bit stuck.

As far as ntl go I have an idea of how bad they are, I worked for them for over 2 years in networks. Complaining about their products not being available isn't the same as complaining about the products. Your installation issues are I would imagine pretty rare.

The fact that HC do triple play is irrelevant to their longer term survival though. Cable companies do triple play and they both went through bankruptcy protection. Whatever HC do they needed desperately to grow their customer base rapidly, I'm not convinced they've done this inspite of the big advertising spend.

I've no doubt that HC will eventually be bought, when the price is right. They certainly don't have the customer base or income to be sustainable in their own right nor are they likely to achieve this now, and will probably be acquired for their technology.

Can I point you to http://informitv.com/articles/2006/0...rkshomechoice/

Video Networks failed to secure additional funding, the nationwide rollout is not happening right now. It's actually fair to say it won't be happening for a very long time looking at the advert parading the fact that it's exclusively available within the M25.

The company is pretty heavily indebted which isn't conducive to rolling out new areas or products.

Well this issue has gone far enough for me, paying out the last 4 months of contract and I'm off.

I've Be, Bulldog and UKOnline's ADSL2+ services available to me, the TV service is no use due to lack of subtitles and the internet service is on this exchange not competitive.

Good luck with Homechoice guys I hope you get your HD / ADSL2+ soon

bulldog are no longer providing a service to the public, they are going the route of providing isp's

<sarcasm+pedant>Bulldog are providing ISPs with what?</sarcasm+pedant>

To be totally honest I can't see why anyone would want to stay with Homechoice for the Internet alone unless the inclusive calls also swings it for them. If you are in the HomeChoice area the availability of >8Mb broadband is pretty much garunteed these days, especially since BT's service upgrade.

I'm staying because I can't get Sky in any cost effective way and NTL:Telewest still haven't filled the ducting in our road with cable or fibre so they can't even offer me analogue cable.

I agree with the above....HC may not have the channel lineups that sky have...buy they dont have rubbish either.
NTL/Telewest is not available in my area and I take the sky by wire for the sports...for me Homechoice offers good value for money...just want the HD and I'll be deliriously happy

Hi all,

I had Homechoice up until April 2005, when I moved out of London.

One of my bugbears with the service was the poor picture quality. It was soft and blurred, even if fed through an RGB Scart. We were promised at the time that the switch to MP4 encoding would solve this problem. However, this switch failed to happen whilst I was a customer.

My question is: what is the picture quality like now? Have they switched to MP4?

Thanks

It's better but not good enough if you have a decent screen.

I've recently uograded to a 1080i capable screen so that I can run high res video through it from a computer.

The down side is that HC is poor, HC through Tivo exceedingly so.

It looks like Sky may have to come back

Homechoice's poor picture is one reason why I don't have a HD screen yet. Channels look sub-standard compared to channels on Freeview and a HD service looks like the only option.

Interesting article on IPTV:

http://www.gartner.com/press_release...148795_11.html

Also http://www.iliad.fr/en/presse/2006/CP_Sigma_310506.pdf

High Definition IPTV over ADSL2+ along with a HD DTT tuner, about £20 / month.
Last edited by BBRealist : 04-08-2006 at 14:17