Tiscali threw down the gauntlet to Sky, BT and Virgin Media last week with the
launch of a “triple play” bundle, offering TV, broadband and a home phone
line for less than £20. But as the battle of the bundles intensifies, how
does Tiscali compare with its rivals?
Tiscali
The company claims that its new offer is a fraction of the price of similar
deals from other providers. Its cheapest package costs £19.99 a month for
2Mb broadband – lift the payment to £24.99 and you receive 8Mb – and
includes telephone line rental with free weekend calls to UK landlines and
free calls to ten international countries. It includes the TV Variety Pack
with more than 50 digital channels, including Sky One and the Paramount
Comedy channels. It also offers replay, on-demand services and pay-per-view
movies. The connection fee is £30.
Tiscali is rolling out the service to ten million homes by Christmas. At the
moment, however, it is available only within the M25 and in a handful of
cities. Jason Lloyd, of Moneysupermarket.com, says the only downside of the
deal is its limited availability.
“Tiscali offers thousands of music tracks and films on demand free of charge;
perfect for people looking for content,” he says. “It has a range of new
products at great prices and offers free line rental.”
Sky
About 8.4 million customers receive digital TV from Sky via a satellite dish
attached to their homes. Sky’s cheapest triple play, or “See Speak Surf”,
bundle includes one entertainment mix, Sky Talk Freetime, which includes
free evening and weekend telephone calls, and 2Mb broadband. It costs £16 a
month but you also need to rent a phone line from BT for £11 a month, so the
monthly total is £26.50. Its headline deal costs £26 a month – £36.50 with
line rental – and includes more digital channels and 8Mb broadband.
Mr Lloyd says that Sky, part-owned by the parent company of The Times,
is the best choice for TV content but adds: “When choosing Sky for broadband
you have to use the modem it provides, which costs £30 to £50 to have
installed if you are unable to do it yourself.”
Availability is an issue, too. Though Sky covers most of the country, some
people living in flats will not be allowed a dish.
Virgin Media
The headline offering is “3 for £30”, allowing you to pick three of the
company’s four products in a bundle. As well as bundling broadband, digital
TV and home services, Virgin can also include a mobile phone. Its £30 bundle
includes 85 TV channels, 2Mb broadband, line rental and free UK landline
calls at weekends.
For £20 a month it offers Freeview channels plus phone and broadband. It also
has pricier VIP packages, which include faster broadband, more inclusive
phone calls and more TV channels. But these bundles are available only if
you live in a cable area – about half the UK population – though Virgin
Media plans to increase coverage over the next year.
Steve Weller, of uSwitch.com, says: “The £30 deal is £6.50 a month cheaper
than Sky’s triple-play package, but Sky offers speeds of up to 8Mb, compared
with Virgin’s 2Mb, a wireless router and free national calls at weekends and
in the evenings.”
BT
BT Vision offers Freeview channels and an in-built PVR (personal video
recorder). There is no monthly subscription but you can pay per view for
films, TV programmes and football on Setanta Sports, or subscribe to the
latter for £9.99 a month. Only BT Total Broadband customers can get BT
Vision. There is a £90 charge for installing and connecting the box.
The cheapest BT Total Broadband option (8Mb) is £8.95 for six months and
£17.99 thereafter, if you commit to an 18-month contract. You also receive
free evening and weekend Voip (voice over Internet protocol) calls. Line
rental is on extra £10.50, giving an average charge of £25.47 a month.
Mr Lloyd says that BT is a reliable option with sound hardware, adding: “You
get all the Premier League matches, but at a cost. BT is one of the more
expensive options.”
Talk Talk
At the moment TalkTalk is giving away Freeview boxes with its Talk2
International call plan, which costs £5.89 a month plus £10.50 line rental.
This includes free 8Mb broadband. Although the box has access only to
Freeview channels and Setanta Sports, not other digital channels or
pay-per-view, it does mean that customers can receive phone, broadband and
TV for £16.39 a month, plus a £29.99 set-up fee. Although cheap, you may
want to look elsewhere for a more reliable service. Since introducing free
broadband 18 months ago, TalkTalk has been publicly scrutinised over service
interruptions and delayed connections, prompting Charles Dunstone, the chief
executive, to describe the continuing problems as a “disturbing nightmare”.
Separate services
Whether bundles offer good value for money is open to debate. Generally, a
bundle is right for you only if you use all the products. Mr Weller says: “A
number of factors need to be considered – having all your eggs in one basket
may not be right for everyone. Contracts tend to be longer and poor customer
service in one product area may impact on the others.”
So can any combination of single products beat Tiscali’s £19.99 triple play?
Yes, but only just. A Freeview box from Tesco costs £10, PlusNet offers 8Mb
broadband for £9.99 a month and Madasafish offers line rental plus free
evening and weekend calls for £9.99 a month. So after buying the TV box, you
pay £19.98 a month for phone and broadband – 1p cheaper than Tiscali’s deal.
CASE STUDY: Easy changeover
Joanne AND Carl Nelthorpe, of Stockport, Cheshire, swapped their phone,
broadband and TV service to Virgin Media about seven months ago. They now
have a package including a V+ set-top box, broadband and phone line and pay
£38.75 a month, plus calls.
Ms Nelthorpe, left, says: “Virgin Media was recommended to us by a member of
our family who uses it. We also saw an advert showing the great deals it
offers so we signed up for one of its bundles.”
Previously, the couple used NTL for digital TV channels and BT for home phone
services. “The changeover was really easy,” Ms Nelthorpe says. “We got rid
of the BT line and the engineer came out to set everything up using cabling
that was there from NTL. He also showed us how it all worked – the whole
thing took only about half an hour. So far the service is really good and we
have not had any problems.”
