How Does Tiscali Compare To Sky and Virgin Media?

By Anna König Staff Writer Wednesday, 24 October 2007

Tiscali TV: How does it compare to Virgin Media and Sky? Number of TV channels Tiscali - 52 Sky - 128+ Virgin Media - 140+ Method of delivery Tiscali - Broadband to Set-top box Sky - Satellite to Set-top box Virgin Media - Fibre-optic cable to Set-top box Approximate like-for-like costs Tiscali - £19.99 Sky - £26.00 Virgin Media - £30.00 Best bundled broadband speeds available Tiscali - Up to 8Mbps Sky - Up to 16Mbps Virgin Media - Up to 20Mbps I want to... read an impartial review of Tiscali's TV bundle I want to... compare Sky's broadband and TV bundles I want to... compare Virgin Media's broadband and TV bundles Related Stories & News About Tiscali See our other recent related Tiscali news & stories: Is Tiscali Any Good? They're the UK's cheapest broadband provider, but is Tiscali actually any good? Julia Kukiewicz answers the question we've all been asking: Is Tiscali any good? Tiscali contract length reduced to 12 months Tiscali's 18 month minimum contracts on all their broadband packages may have been responsible for the downturn in Tiscali's customer sign-up rate, prompting them to lower it across the board to just 12 months for all broadband packages. Tiscali tops customer satisfaction survey While their reputation for customer service was sometimes sketchy, cheapest UK broadband provider Tiscali has down an about turn and been voted the best broadband provider for customer service in a recent poll.

TISCALI, the champions of low-cost broadband, has finally launched its new digital TV service, and with prices starting at a mere £19.99, it’s set to take on Virgin Media and Sky head to head!

We’ve examined the new Tiscali package, and compared it to Virgin Media and Sky's ‘bundled’digital TV packages to see how it shapes up against them.

Price
Tiscali’s prices start from just £19.99, with customers getting line rental, free UK and international weekend calls, 2Mb unlimited broadband, over 60 TV and radio channels (including Sky One!), and access to over pay-per-view 1,000 movies on demand!

The Tiscali package also includes a free 7-day catch up service for BBC, C4 and FX.

Like Sky+ this allows viewers to record, pause and rewind TV. Unlike Sky+, the ‘box’ will not cost users £99.

A similar service is available with Virgin, however it costs £150 to set up, and an extra £5 is added to your bill every month.

The Tiscali box is probably the best value for money here, however the number of channels you can ‘record’ from are a lot more limited than the Sky+ and Virgin Media set top box.

Virgin Media and Sky both offer similar ‘bundle’ packages to Tiscali – Virgin for a more expensive £30 a month, and Sky for a cheaper £15 a month.

Virgin Media offer unlimited, 2Mb broadband, over 85 digital TV channels and free weekend UK landline calls. This bundle does not require line rental.

With Sky, however, you do have to pay an extra £11 a month in line rental, bringing the total monthly cost up to £26. This includes free evening and weekend calls to UK landlines, 2Mb broadband, and a choice of 2 out of the 6 ‘mixed TV packages’.

Number of Channels
If you are not fully satisfied with Tiscali’s 60 TV and radio channels, you can consider ‘bolting’ on a few extra.

For only £6 extra a month (£25.99 in total) you can add on a ‘Music Pack’ onto your Tiscali package, which includes channels such as VH1 and MTV. A ‘Kid’s Pack’ is also available for the same price. Children can be entertained with Nickelodeon, Boomerang and Cartoon Network.

For an extra £22 a month you can have the privilege of watching Sky Sports, however this does bring the monthly cost up to £41.99.

Sky customers however can add either Sky Movies or Sky Sports to their Sky package for an additional £18, bringing the total monthly cost up to £35 a month. If you add one, you can get the other as well for just an extra £7, bringing the total monthly cost up to £42.

This is only a penny more expensive than if you just bolted one of the extra channels onto Tiscali, leading us to conclude that Sky is probably the better package for those who want both sports and movies.

Tiscali’s number and range of channels (including the much coveted Sky One!) are a good half way house between a full Sky package, and the rather limited Freeview. However, although Tiscali boast that they are offering a massive 70 channels, 18 of these are radio channels, so strictly speaking only 52 channels are TV channels. Also it’s likely that some of these will be the same as what you would get with Freeview (i.e. Price Drop TV and E4).

Accessibility
Tiscail’s new TV package is only available to 52% of the UK (both Virgin Media and Sky have much greater coverage), as each telephone exchange needs to be adapted to supply the service.

Currently around 680 telephone exchanges are now Tiscali LLU enabled, mostly in London, the Midlands and Yorkshire.

Tiscali is hoping to reach 10 million homes by the end of 2008, although in the meantime, the limited accessibility will put a cap on the number of customers who can sign up.

Method Of Delivery
Tiscali are delivering their TV service by broadband, compared to the cable service offered by Virgin Media, and the satellite medium provided by Sky.

Tiscali’s service CAN be viewed on TV, not just via a PC.

It is worth noting that the Tiscali digital TV service can only be taken as part of a bundle package of broadband, phone and TV – not on its own like Virgin Media and Sky.

So, Tiscali’s TV service really does seem set to take on its main competitors of Virgin Media and Sky, head to head.

If you are a big sports fan, it’s probably worth going with Sky’s ‘Sports bolt-on’ package, rather than bolting Sky Sports onto Tiscali.

But we believe the supremely good-value Tiscali digital TV bundle is a great package if you are seeking more channels than current Freeview fare, but not the hundreds offered by Sky’s clearly superior offering.

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