« BBC Issues High-Def Sports Timetable | Main | Old People Say ‘No’ To Downloading »
BT Vision Opens For Business
BT’s big drive to grab itself a piece of the broadband TV market is
finally underway. The telecoms operator has unveiled exactly what will be on
offer with BT Vision as its steps into the arena with TV heavyweights, Sky, BBC, NTL and
others. It’s unique proposition is that
it has no monthly fee, as it will be included with newer BT Total Broadband
contracts.
Yesterday BBC took the wraps off its high-definition sports line-up for
2007 and, unsurprisingly, BT Vision is making sports the key offering of its
own broadband TV line-up. From next year, BT will offer 75 per cent of all FA
Premiership games 
and some of the main Scottish Premiership games through a
deal with Setanta Sport and others. They will be made up of a mix of live and
‘near-live’ matches but, disappointingly, they will not kick off until the
summer.
You will need a new set-top box from BT called the V-Box, a digital video recorder (DVR), capable of storing up to 80 hours of content. BT will be giving the £199 box away free to new and
existing customers that sign up for an 18-month broadband contract. That said,
there is an installation fee of £60 and a connection charge of £30. Apart from
sport, BT Vision viewers will get the 40+ Freeview channels. Ian Livingston, BT
Retail chief executive claimed:
“BT Vision is all about giving control to the viewer – control over what
they watch, when they watch it and how they pay for it. We believe that
broadband can transform television and take it into a new era. BT Vision is
ideal for people who want more choice than Freeview delivers but who want that
extra choice without being tied to a pricey, long-term subscription.”
Video-on-Demand services are patchy right now but movies will cost from
£1.99-£2.99, while TV programme replays will cost 99p and live concerts £2.99.
Read more here.
Where can I obtain a set top box.
Posted by: Paul Knott | December 5, 2006 1:13 PM
Hi Paul
You have to sign up for the service at the BT Vision site above. Once you have signed for the broadband contract, you get the box for free (however, there is a £60 install fee and £30 connection charge)
Posted by: Martin Lynch | December 7, 2006 10:20 AM
BT ? WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH, I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO INSTALL BT BROADBAND FOR THE PAST 4 WEEKS, THEY STILL CHARGE ME £45 FOR PHONE AND INTERNET, NOW IF THE PROBLEMS ARISE WITH THIS SERVICE THEN YOU WILL BE PAYING FOR SOMETHING YOU CANNOT GET, I AM NOW ON DIALUP SERVICE TILL THE BT SORT OUT THE HUB PROBLEM SHOULDNT THEY GET THERE BROADBAND SERVICE RIGHT FIRST BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANYTHING ELSE?.
Posted by: Tony | December 14, 2006 8:52 PM
Tony, you most likely dont undertsand how boradband works and/or how to set it up. I have the Home Hub and BT vision at home and it all works perfectly. Their service is fine, yours is an isolated instatnce of stupididty - not to be confused with bad service.
to everybody else; its a good product, i run an IT dept. and have a pretty good clue on technology in general and have found it to be extremely good.
Posted by: tommy | March 23, 2007 12:07 PM
does anyone know how much the sports is going to cost to subscribe on this?
Posted by: andrew edwards | May 17, 2007 10:51 AM
I have had BT Broadband for about a year now and have been totally happy with it. But i have had BT vision installed and its all gone pear shaped. I cannot use my phone when the HUB is connected to the Vision box due to a huge amount of interferance, the download speeds have drastically reduced over the internet, and the Vision box crashes or locks up at least 4 times per day, and BT's technical help can only suggest unplugging or rebooting but not actually how to fix. I can have the phone, i can have the Home Hub, but can't have all three at the minute. Very Disapointing.
Posted by: mark | June 13, 2007 10:15 AM
I have had BT Broadband for about a year now and have been totally happy with it. But i have had BT vision installed and its all gone pear shaped. I cannot use my phone when the HUB is connected to the Vision box due to a huge amount of interferance, the download speeds have drastically reduced over the internet, and the Vision box crashes or locks up at least 4 times per day, and BT's technical help can only suggest unplugging or rebooting but not actually how to fix. I can have the phone, i can have the Home Hub, but can't have all three at the minute. Very Disapointing.
Posted by: mark | June 13, 2007 10:15 AM
I think that the product is great but the support is not partly due to the fact that BT have outsourced their Technical Support in Newcastle to Sitel (An American Conglomerate) dealing with Call centres and technical problems !
Posted by: Alan Brown | August 3, 2007 10:10 AM
IT manager my arse! first i suggest you learn how to spell and second be careful you don`t burn the burgers
Posted by: john | August 13, 2007 8:28 PM
BT Total Broadband for a year. Went for BT Vision - so far, I'd say a big mistake - ok so I can record, but I already had a perfectly good Humax Freeview box for that - problem is that the 'On demand' service just doesnt want to work - keeps dropping the prog selected after a few mins or simply states - please try later - maddening! Not over impressed - anyone else get over this problem? Please help!!
Rich
Posted by: Richard | August 27, 2007 3:10 PM
Well, firstly I think before releasing another "buggy" service, they should spend some time and effort improving the services they currently provide.
I have had BT ADSL for around a year, and have regular problems with it. Firstly, wireless seems to drop connection randomly without notice, requiring a restart of the system. A new Network adapter and software has not corrected this indicating the fault is with the Hub, BT however do not believe this and tell me to re-install my drivers, which seems to be their response to any problem.
Secondly the hub itself crashes at random occurances. This is the new black hub with updated firmware, yet again BT told me twice to update the firmware on it (which I have done to no avail)
The most annoying fact is that the IT Technical support department talk to you like a child, I am a very competant IT Systems administrator and know my stuff when it comes to computers, but I get the impression they just read recommended solutions from a screen?
Sort your act out BT...
Posted by: Ross | September 2, 2007 10:34 AM
I've been with BT Broadband for four years now and I've not had a single problem in all that time. The hub has worked perfectly and I have good download speeds for my exchange/area.
I've just signed up for another year and hopefully, I'll have BT Vision up and running in the next couple of weeks. Every provider seems to have at least some problems - just thought I'd post up my good experience with BT as a counterbalance.
Posted by: Martin E | January 12, 2008 6:19 PM
Just got BT vision, not happy - the freeview side of things works fine the problem is with the on demand service, the programme will start to play but will then freeze for a few seconds then start again, then freeze again and so on, it seems to be consantly buffering itself which as i understand shouldn't be a problem with broadband, the nice people at bt tell me that because the v box is new it is going through a line stabilisation period what ever the hell that means and that it could take up to 10 days to sort out, anyone else had this problem?
Posted by: sam | January 18, 2008 8:13 PM
I had hassle with the On Demand service, the picture would freeze and sound disappear for about 7 seconds in every 10. Helpline were good, stepped me through everything easily and patiently but the problem would recurr. Finally (!) solved it by doing away with the HomePlugs and running CAT5 ethernet cable direct from Vision box to HomeHub. Since then the service has been excellent and the picture quality has improved. All in all, the BT Vision box and service is far superior to Sky, best thing I've done in the past year is dump Sky!
Posted by: David | February 23, 2008 9:47 PM
I'm an existing BT Broardband customer and have been for years and today installed their Vision service. Everything works fine except for their VOD service. I rang support thinking it was my connection speed and after much arguing and a phone call back from one of their support staff it transpires their is a 10 day stabilization period before VOD will operate properly and that's even with my already connected 8meg ADSL line. Wish they could put this snippet of information in one of their booklets and it would have saved me over an hour on the phone.
Posted by: Phil | February 27, 2008 4:26 PM
I have had the same problems with BT Vision as many others, however I have just been told by BT, that if the line to your home will only take 50 vision boxes and bt sell 60, 10 homes will have problems, so they are saying, they will sell the product, even if the line won't take it. As this happened to me. It worked at the begining but cos I am the one at the end of the phone line, it won't work.
Posted by: Les | July 20, 2008 5:21 PM