Tv & broadband bundle fix

Nickgdw

What can be done to repair the tv & broadband market? Currently have sky tv (which is too expensive) and virgin bb (router is rubbish).  However when I tried to change (initially by looking at simply swapping them over) I found that, with the exception of sky, you cannot get digital tv without taking the provider's bb as well. This seems to be extremely anti-competitive and effectively kills the market. For example I cannot het bt's unbreakable wifi and virgin's good value tv package as virgin insist on taking their bb.

JJ_Egan

VM are a stand-alone provider via their own network , why should they give their products away .

BTs unbreakable wifi is just some add on discs easily bought .

Rubbish router buy a better one .

BT  add ons Sky TV and sport etc.

Market is not really killed its just that you don't want to pay the price .

TimSynths

Buy a better router. Problem solved. 

Nickgdw

JJ_Egan said:

VM are a stand-alone provider via their own network , why should they give their products away .

BTs unbreakable wifi is just some add on discs easily bought .

Rubbish router buy a better one .

BT  add ons Sky TV and sport etc.

Market is not really killed its just that you don't want to pay the price .

Who's asking vm to give anything away? I want to pay for their tv without being compelled to use their bb.

I wasn't commenting on the quality of bt's bb (virgins router I can vouch is pretty awful, and with a crazy super-trooper light for reasons that escape me), merely using it as an example of an option that is denied to the consumer.

Of course I don't want to pay the price (you've seen the name of this website, right?). But more importantly I believe the consumer should be able to choose whichever provider they want for each separate service, without compulsion. Bundling them as an 'option' would lead to providers offering better prices. Ergo: broken (or at least very restricted) market.

Neil_Jones

Nickgdw said:

What can be done to repair the tv & broadband market? Currently have sky tv (which is too expensive) and virgin bb (router is rubbish).  However when I tried to change (initially by looking at simply swapping them over) I found that, with the exception of sky, you cannot get digital tv without taking the provider's bb as well. This seems to be extremely anti-competitive and effectively kills the market. For example I cannot het bt's unbreakable wifi and virgin's good value tv package as virgin insist on taking their bb.

Freeview counts as Digital TV and you don't have to take anything else from them.  Same with Now, you can just have the TV on its own and keep the broadband wherever it is now.

As for "I believe the consumer should be able to choose whichever provider they want for each separate service, without compulsion. Bundling them as an 'option' would lead to providers offering better prices. Ergo: broken (or at least very restricted) market" - even on te BT side of things most providers will not let you have broadband on its own, they will insist on you taking their phone line package as well (even when they do, it often attracts a premium)