Free to air- Community Cable

oh_davey

Last week NTL altered our apartment block's cable tv service.

When I moved in I did not wish to subscribe to a NTL cable service as
I am content with having just a few free to air stations such as RTE, BBC,
ITV. I could receive these without using the NTL decoder box as I believed
that these were a basic right (as when I lived in Dublin before, they were
free on community cable).
Do we legally have to pay a service for extra stations we don't want just to
receive the basic free to air stations particularly since we pay for a tv licence
already.
If anybody knows anything more about this I would appreciate your advice,
surely it must be against Irish or European regulation as regards the provision
of a basic TV service
Thanks guys!!
It's my first post so forgive me if I sound a little narky!!:pac:

paulm17781

There are no free channels on cable. You can use an aerial to get RTE et al. but if you are connected to a cable system, you must pay for it.

It's absolutely not a basic right, they are providing the channels and you have to pay to receive them on their cable.

Ranicand

oh_davey wrote: »

Last week NTL altered our apartment block's cable tv service.

When I moved in I did not wish to subscribe to a NTL cable service as
I am content with having just a few free to air stations such as RTE, BBC,
ITV. I could receive these without using the NTL decoder box as I believed
that these were a basic right (as when I lived in Dublin before, they were
free on community cable).
Do we legally have to pay a service for extra stations we don't want just to
receive the basic free to air stations particularly since we pay for a tv licence
already.
If anybody knows anything more about this I would appreciate your advice,
surely it must be against Irish or European regulation as regards the provision
of a basic TV service
Thanks guys!!
It's my first post so forgive me if I sound a little narky!!:pac:

Brian CivilEng

I believe that the posters on this thread do not understand the original posters query. There are Community Cable companies operated on a not for profit basis around Dublin. These distribute a few FTA channels such as BBC, Ch 4, CNN etc. to a small area for a nominal fee. For example I live in Raheny and currently receive one of these services. There is nothing illegal about these services, they are licensed and everything is above board. The management company of the apartment block pay the cable company for this service, and it is included in our management fee.

My understanding of the original poster's query is that he used to receive cable television from one of these community services in his apartment, however ntl have now replaced the feed to this apartment block. Therefore he is now receiving the ntl analogue package which is not free and ntl are demanding payment for it.

My advice to the original poster is to check with the management company of your apartment block and see if you can be reconnected to the community tv service. It may be possible that ntl were connecting a neighbour to their service and accidental connected your apartment aswell, and all it needs is for the management company to reverse the connection.

oh_davey

Thanks to all of you but particularly abitofacomedian for understanding my query. It does appear that we had not been connected to NTL but to a community cable service instead.
I will take your advice and contact the management company (I had contact with the janitor before but he uses sky;) )

Anyone else reading this should understand that it is not about stealing cable.
Why be forced into paying for an extra service & stations you don't need.
There should always be a basic service, now I know it is not an entitlement but there is alternative means.

Ranicand: That VCR hack was really amazing, do you think tesco's finest marshmallows are ok:)

paulm17781

oh_davey wrote: »

Anyone else reading this should understand that it is not about stealing cable.
Why be forced into paying for an extra service & stations you don't need.
There should always be a basic service, now I know it is not an entitlement but there is alternative means.

By the same token, why should a company go to the expense of running the cable to you, then not charging for a service? We have aerials for what the license fee covers, the rest of the channels are not free to anyone.

Ranicand

oh_davey wrote: »

Ranicand: That VCR hack was really amazing, do you think tesco's finest marshmallows are ok:)

Sorry about that but it was funny.:D

oh_davey

Get that. But the infrastructure ideally should be put there by the construction company
and included in the cost of buying an apartment. Then it would be more possible to choose how you want to receive your tv stations.
The maintenance company who you pay a premium to should in turn, maintain and hire a contractor to upgrade this network when necessary.
What we are doing is paying for the building contractors to save money and rewarding particular companies which hold a monopoly.
The only thing I could perhaps agree with would be if some of those foreign stations disagreed with us not paying them a licence fee. But do you really think that BSkyB and NTL pays them all a fee. Perhaps a nominal fee to BBC and few others.

paulm17781

oh_davey wrote: »

Get that. But the infrastructure ideally should be put there by the construction company
and included in the cost of buying an apartment. Then it would be more possible to choose how you want to receive your tv stations.
The maintenance company who you pay a premium to should in turn, maintain and hire a contractor to upgrade this network when necessary.
What we are doing is paying for the building contractors to save money and rewarding particular companies which hold a monopoly.
The only thing I could perhaps agree with would be if some of those foreign stations disagreed with us not paying them a licence fee. But do you really think that BSkyB and NTL pays them all a fee. Perhaps a nominal fee to BBC and few others.

TV broadcasting is a lot more complex than you realise.

Just because there is a cable, how do the channels get to it? It has to be picked up and broadcast to you. AFAIK, legally very few channels are free to air. I *think* ITV etc. have to be paid for. RTE is part of our license fee so it is free (but we pay for it). The British channels we do not pay for but can receive, I don't think it is legal to receive them but someone more knowledgeable will confirm. There is no point using community cable when you can get an aerial, especially if I am right that we are only entitled to the RTE ones.

NTL and BSKYB do pay for most of them. There are a lot of free channels on satellite but I don't know what off hand.

icdg

oh_davey wrote: »

Last week NTL altered our apartment block's cable tv service.

When I moved in I did not wish to subscribe to a NTL cable service as
I am content with having just a few free to air stations such as RTE, BBC,
ITV. I could receive these without using the NTL decoder box as I believed
that these were a basic right (as when I lived in Dublin before, they were
free on community cable).
Do we legally have to pay a service for extra stations we don't want just to
receive the basic free to air stations particularly since we pay for a tv licence
already.
If anybody knows anything more about this I would appreciate your advice,
surely it must be against Irish or European regulation as regards the provision
of a basic TV service
Thanks guys!!
It's my first post so forgive me if I sound a little narky!!:pac:

There is no law or regulation entitling you to a minimum number of TV channels. Even reception of RTÉ is not guarenteed, even if you're paying the licence fee (which you should be). The television licence is simply authorisation from the government to possess equipment capable of receiving television signals.

If your apartment block is lucky enough to have a CATV system which the management company is providing for free, well fair enough. But you've no legal right to receive this service, or any other, for free or otherwise.

Brian CivilEng

I know we'd be lost without the community cable here, I cannot get a decent signal for RTE/TG4 on an internal aerial. I can't find TV3 at all (although that's no loss). Our apartment building doesn't allow external antennae of any sort so the only way of receiving the terrestrials. Personally I'd prefer to pay ntl for the extra channels but that's not possible in our building.

From my understanding of how the community cable works this is a system that has been grandfathered in, so the rebroadcasting fees would not be much. Especially since there are no channels which are not FTA on satellite. It is run on a not for profit basis, so the subscription costs are very low. In Raheny it's €50 a year if you pay them directly.

oh_davey

I didn't expect to get such a response to a post.. thanks to everyone!
It has surprised me as it is the first time I have used boards and I will help
myself anyone I can.
I am waiting for a response from the maintenance company as regards community cable.
Thanks to PaulM for returning my threads. I do understand some stations have to be paid for but many would just rely on creating a large audiences to generate large advertisement fees.
Anyway, it is too general. But it is interesting an interesting topic. And how the licence is perhaps broken down. But hey, that would be too much to get into:)
Thanks ICDG and once again abitofacomedian, you are very helpful!!