Sky TV, NTL phone

JuncoPartner

Does anyone know whether the Sky boxes are compatable with NTL's phone service?
Also as a side, what connections do the sky hd and regular sky box use to connect to your tv?
Cheers

Kotek Besar

JuncoPartner wrote:

Does anyone know whether the Sky boxes are compatable with NTL's phone service?

Haven't tried NTL's own VoIP service (wouldn't want to, it's very expensive. NTL is my ISP however, and I use Blueface for VoIP, and that works fine with my Sky+ box.

JuncoPartner wrote:

Also as a side, what connections do the sky hd and regular sky box use to connect to your tv?
Cheers

Scart, in the case of the regular Sky digibox and Sky+, not sure about the HD flavor boxes though..

JuncoPartner

Im not too pushed on the price of calls on ntl as I wouldnt use it much at all. Once it works for the sky callbacks Id be happy as a pig in stool. Hopefully someone can confirm this for me.

I read in an old topic that a hdmi cable comes with the Sky HD box.

mustang68

You do get a HDMI cable, but its not very long, you can pick up a generic brand one, don't bother with the expensive cables.

JDxtra

...but why have NTL and Sky?

Kotek Besar

JDxtra wrote:

...but why have NTL and Sky?

NTL for the internet, Sky for the TV..

watty

benifa wrote:

Haven't tried NTL's own VoIP service (wouldn't want to, it's very expensive. NTL is my ISP however, and I use Blueface for VoIP, and that works fine with my Sky+ box.

You arn't comparing like with like; Blueface is a loss making 3rd party insecure VOIP with no QOS management, that is why it is cheap. You can be VOIP spammed. There would be a similar price to NTL if Blueface was charging a viable price.

NTL's offering uses a packet cable protocol and can be secure and can use QOS management, also only goes on their own network, so quality would be closer to a landline. NTL's charges are less than eircom.

Kotek Besar

watty wrote:

You arn't comparing like with like; Blueface is a loss making 3rd party insecure VOIP with no QOS management, that is why it is cheap. You can be VOIP spammed. There would be a similar price to NTL if Blueface was charging a viable price.

NTL's offering uses a packet cable protocol and can be secure and can use QOS management, also only goes on their own network, so quality would be closer to a landline. NTL's charges are less than eircom.

You raise some interesting points Watty, but I do believe that comparing one VoIP provider with another is comparing like with like. Whether the company makes money or not is of little interest to me.

Blueface's service can be relied upon, is excellent quality (comparable to that of a fixed line), has unique features that no other VoIP provider has, is competitively priced and has good support / customer service. We all know what NTL's customer service is like - it's been discussed no end and continues to be.

NTL's phone prices are cheaper than Eircom's - they ought to be - they're VoIP! Now that is a non like-for-like comparison..

JuncoPartner

Before this topic goes completely off topic... The question still remains "Can I use an NTL phone line with SkyTV?"

Cheers

Kotek Besar

JuncoPartner wrote:

Before this topic goes completely off topic... The question still remains "Can I use an NTL phone line with SkyTV?"

Cheers

As said JuncoPartner, theoretically, yes, it will work. But if you want confirmation, you'd better wait for someone to come on who's actually done it before.

JuncoPartner

When the guys come out to do the sky install do they test the line first or whats the craic? Like if its not going to work then I will cancel Sky altogether and just get NTL digital, Id rather not have them drilling holes and putting up a dish if its all gonna have to come down.
Hoopfully the phone line will work anyway and that wont be an issue.

Kotek Besar

JuncoPartner wrote:

When the guys come out to do the sky install do they test the line first or whats the craic? Like if its not going to work then I will cancel Sky altogether and just get NTL digital, Id rather not have them drilling holes and putting up a dish if its all gonna have to come down.
Hoopfully the phone line will work anyway and that wont be an issue.

If Sky engineers are coming round to do a full install, then that's exactly the problem you face. If you really don't want them to be installing then taking it all down if it won't activate using NTL's VoIP phone service, tell the guy before he install that you have VoIP, rather than Eircom. He may tell you that it definitely won't work, so either you can cancel the installation, or continue but have a "no phone job" (that'll cost you a 40 euro one-off fee though). If you choose the latter, at least try to activate through the phone - if it works you'll save 40 euro..

watty

It should work, unless NTL don't understand T.38, G.711 etc. It depends on how they have configured. It certainly can work if NTL has done all the right settings.

The NTL and Blueface isn't the same kind of VOIP technology. Only calls on the same VOIP network cost nearly nothing. To call outside to NTL or Blueface numbers it goes via eircom and they don't do any pricing favours.

NTL voip can in theory ignore contention and is not subject to routing issues. Blueface can be seriously affected by contention and routing to give poor quality. Of course for a particular person Blueface may be fine and for another due to bad cable segment or incompatible handset NTL may be poor. But overall on average Metro, Magnet, Smart & NTL VOIP customers on their OWN networks will have better quality thhan a 3rd party VOIP supplier. It's just mathematics and physics and engineering, not opinion.

canine

I recently cancelled Sky tv for financial reasons ,is it possible to get it switched on and off for certain periods

watty

yes, for a couple of months.
Resubscribe and after a month give a months notice.

As long as you don't accept any sky HW upgrades or callouts etc, simply have a Card and Box.

This is VERY OLD thread. Please make new ones.