Tag Archives: freeview

Cutting the Cord and Dropping the Dish: Full Fibre Broadband Upgrade

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As regular readers of GNC will recall from the first episode, I need to upgrade my current broadband connection to something faster in order to move from Sky TV to Freeview and streaming. My existing data connection is provided via an old-school copper telephone line and maxes out at around 30 Mb/s. This isn’t much better than the minimum needed to stream 4K UHD, so with two gaming children in the household, an upgrade is definitely needed. It will help considerably on those days when both my wife and I are working from home and need to be on Teams calls.

Fortunately, full fibre connections have been advertised for my neighbourhood so for relatively little additional money (extra £8), I’m able to go from 30 Mb/s to 500 Mb/s. Order placed!

And today’s the day that I get that new connection. I’m not too sure how it’s going to work and how the fibre connection will be made as it’s all underground. I’m hoping that there won’t be too much digging up the path or drilling holes in walls (spoiler alert: there isn’t).

“J” from BT Openreach turned up right on time and got to work. On opening up the master socket (that’s where the phone line comes into the house) in my hallway, he was able to run a fish wire through a duct from my house back to a junction box. You can see the yellow wire disappearing down the duct in the picture. No digging or drilling required at all but the weather was terrible – I did feel sorry for him when he was out in the rain.

The fibre was then pulled back from the box to the hall, where J fitted a new termination unit in the place of the master socket. He then did a bit of configuration work and collaboration with colleagues to turn the connection on. By the way, I make no apologies for the wallpaper.

After that, it was simply a case of getting a new modem / router out of the box and plugging it in. Total downtime was about an hour. Great job by J.

Inevitably, I had to enter the new password for the wireless network onto all my devices to get back online – I didn’t know I had so many – and I use Devolo’s GigaGate bridge system to deliver high speed connections round the house to devices that think they have a wired connection. Even though it’s about 7 years old now, it still works really well.

I’ve been running a few speed tests and I’m getting the advertised 500 Mb/s. When I started in business back in the 1990s, the whole office ran off a 2 Mb/s network and now I have 500 Mb/s to my home. How times have changed.

Streaming apps on my TVs are definitely snappier when starting programmes. So far, it’s all looking good and the journey away from Sky TV seems well in hand. Next up is some new hardware.

Cutting the Cord and Dropping the Dish

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After a few months of prevarication, I’ve decided to cut the cord and leave Sky TV. As Sky provides broadcast services via satellite, it’s perhaps more appropriate to describe it as “dropping the dish” but the point is the same. After nearly 25 years as a subscriber, I’m leaving Sky to rely on terrestrial broadcasting and streaming services.

For those unfamiliar with the UK’s TV services, there are broadly three ways to receive TV channels. There’s the digital terrestrial broadcast service known as Freeview that’s received via aerial, which offers channels provided mainly by BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Then there’s Sky which transmits (mostly) via satellite, offering the previous channels plus a whole pile of its own content including dedicated film and sports channels. Bringing up the rear is Virgin Media, which uses cable for its offering which is similar to Sky.

Anyone who watches TV in the UK has to pay £169.50 per household for a TV Licence. This is a tax that funds public service broadcasting like the BBC. It doesn’t matter how you watch programmes or if you only watch subscription channels, you still have to pay for a TV Licence. In my opinion, it is a good thing.

Virgin and Sky both offer DVR services but Sky offers Sky Q, a clever system that provides a mesh Wi-Fi network that uses TV boxes as access points. I have to say that it works well, allowing me to watch programmes recorded on the main DVR at TVs throughout the house while my children game away on their PCs and PlayStations. This has been one of the main reasons to stay with Sky but it’s reached a tipping point that I can’t ignore.

The decision to move away from Sky TV was driven by a couple of reasons:

  • The annual bill for Sky TV was nearly GB£900 – about £73 per month – and I was out of any contract lock-in.
  • I’m paying for subscriptions for some streaming services, e.g. Disney+, Amazon Prime Video.
  • Relatively few programmes were Sky exclusives.
  • All TVs at home are smart TVs or have Rokus.
  • Children now spend time gaming or watching social media online rather than broadcast TV.
  • Availability of full fibre connection to the home.

The plan is to:

  • Cancel the Sky TV package – done.
  • Upgrade to a 500 Mb/s fibre connection – installation is coming soon.
  • Buy a Freeview recorder from Panasonic, Humax or Manhattan. I’m still researching the best option.
  • Look out for freebies, pay monthly and monitor use of streaming services. Cancel if they’re not being used.

Cancelling Sky TV required persistence as they tried to tempt me with all kinds of offers. I did consider Sky Stream, which is their IP offering, but there weren’t really any savings to be made. All that changes is the delivery mechanism from satellite dish to broadband/fibre. If you are in the same situation as me, keep politely powering through when you’re on with the service agent.

Right now, I’m in the 30 days notice period so I’m scrambling to finish any recording programmes on the Sky box. Technicians are coming in a few days time to upgrade the connection to full fibre. It’ll be interesting to see how that goes as I’m not sure how they’re going to bring the cable in as everything is under ground here and they can’t simply drop a cable from an overhead line.

My plan is to write a series of articles, this being part 1. I’m expecting the upgrade to fibre and selection of the Freeview recorder to be the next in line, with a final opinion piece to report how well it’s gone overall. Stay tuned!

Freeview HD Coverage Checker

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As the UK slowly moves towards turning off the analogue terrestrial TV signal and switching to digital transmissions, it’s been overtaken by consumer demand for high definition (HD) broadcasting. The satellite and cable providers, namely Sky and Virgin Media, have been quick to offer HD on their subscription services, but the terrestrial digital broadcast system, Freeview, has been somewhat slower to offer HD. Some regions of the UK, e.g. Northern Ireland, will not have HD terrestrial broadcasts until 2012. Consequently, there’s been a great deal of uncertainty and misinformation.

So it’s fortunate that ConsumerChoices has added Freeview HD coverage to its HD Coverage Checker. By putting in your postcode and your house number, you’ll be presented with all the HD options available to you, including satellite, cable and terrestrial. In addition, for Freeview (terrestrial), the website will tell you which transmitter to use, how far away it is and the likely signal strength. If Freeview HD is not yet available in the area, it will give the expected date for it to be turned on.

With Freeview decoders now available in a range of products including set-top boxes and HD TVs, there’s often a small price premium to pay for the HD decoder over the standard definition. By using the HD Coverage Checker, you can make informed decision whether to go HD and pay more, or stick with the standard definition decoder.