Chorus Letter

KCASEY

I just received a letter from Chorus advising me that the were going to give me more Channels and increase the price by €2 per month.

I wonder if this is a marketing effort in advance of UTV/C4 arriving on the Sky platform in Ireland ??

Any other conspiracy theories out there ????

DMC

What new channels do they say they are offering?

KCASEY

As best I can remember -

CNN
Paramount
Boomerang
UK Gold
UK Horizon
TCM
VH1 (for old fogies like me)
Granada+
Men and Motors
History
Biography

And a few more giving 15 extra as part of the basic package. The one thing they won't give is Radio !!! - I'm thinking of buying a 2nd hand digibox and just connecting for Radio (expecially since the BBC channels appear on the EPG with no card !!)

watty

Originally posted by KCASEY
- I'm thinking of buying a 2nd hand digibox and just connecting for Radio (expecially since the BBC channels appear on the EPG with no card !!)

Also worthwhile with no card (about 60 radio) are:
Euronews,
CNN,
Sky News,
Simply Nostalgia/Nature/Einstein between shopping stuff,
Boomerang,
TCM,
Motors TV
Extreme Sports
Chart Hits /Shop TV (2 chs)
Travel Channel has some good travelogs (Not SkyTravel)

Life has old almost unwatchable Bonanza videos
ITV News might be back FTA soon

Other "Free" are
Health Channel,
BBC Parliament
S4C2~digidol
BEN,
Fashion,
Game Network
About 22 shopping channels !
Community
Job, Phone Game, Ringtone and Dating channels
God, God2, CIC, Wonderful
B4U Music
Various Asian Channels (PCNE, MTA etc)
About 3 inshop music/ad channels via "Other Channels" Costcutter, McColls, etc.

ALSO completely free...
A UK FTV card is free if you have UK postcode address and adds all the BBC TV (One BBC1, 4 BBC2, CBeebies/Choice/3, CBBC/BBC4, BBC News24), One ITV on EPG and all the others via "Other Channels" (but not ITV2), C4 (not E4) , Five and S4C~digidol (if you ring S4C and ask). No phone line needed. Installs and works perfectly in Ireland on any Digbox, with Phone call from Ireland with your box details to enable it in the slot.

ozpass

I'm all confused now! Are we talking Chorus or Sky? Or both?

watty

Sorry....

Some of us were marvelling at how expensive Chorus Digital MMDS is.

And of course unlike Chorus, with Satellite you own the box and can cancel and still have nearly 50 radio and a lot of TV (about 8 useful channels with NO card and 40 stupid ones!).

The government should legislate and take over ALL the MMDS transmitters (NTL, Chorus and any others Casey?). Call that the Irish DTT system and have the following FREE to anyone that buys a box:
RTE1, NET2, TV3, TG4, Sky News, TV5, BBC World TV, Proposed Dail Channel and proposed RTE NEWs24 and Euronews.
Must carry Free Radio:
Today FM, RTE1, 2FM, Lyric, RnaG, BBC1 .. BBC 7, Virgin, Jazz Fm.

Then Casey, NTL, Chorus or who ever (Except BSKYB) can rent the space for the other channels (The irish alternative to Sky) , the following being must carry PAY TV:
BBC1 NI, BBC2 NI, UTV, C4 (Basic pack)
Then they can have
Entertainment Pack
Sport Pack
Knowledge Pack
Movie Pack
(all available separately).

Analog to cease AT ONCE to allow full 120 Channels Digital MMDS.

Split RTE into TWO companies:
RTE Communications to manage the D-MMDS, TV and Radio transmitters and links only for OBS. (The Irish alternative to Astra/Eutelsat)

RTE Studios to do everything else that RTE currently does. (The Irish alternative to BBC !)

Then there would be real Sky Competition, and better service.

The D-MMDS solves the capacity problem UK DTT had of not enough space for viable Pay TV system.

Any area still on analog Cable by end 2003 should lose its NTL/Chorus cable franchise and get an MMDS coverage or simply cable fed by D-MMDS head ends at each street or area. (probabily cheaper than Digital Cable anyway).

irishguy

Originally posted by KCASEY
I just received a letter from Chorus advising me that the were going to give me more Channels and increase the price by €2 per month.

I wonder if this is a marketing effort in advance of UTV/C4 arriving on the Sky platform in Ireland ??

Any other conspiracy theories out there ????

is this just digital ????

spongebob

The ODTR laid down a load of conditions for their last price increase. If you go Here and search for the words

chorus increase

together in document content you will see the chain of events form last year and the resulting conditions

If you feel Chorus did NOT meet the conditions in This Doc here you should raise the matter in the contact form in the www.odtr.ie website.

I suspect they will try to argue that they are compliant with the following conditions on page 2 of that document

Approval of the price increase application is subject to the following conditions:

· By end 2001, completion by Chorus of the first phase of the network rectification programme and the agreement of a programme to restore all networks to licence standard;
· Completion of the agreed programme to restore all networks to meet the quality standards set out in the licences by the end of the third quarter of 2002;
· Make available digital services in all its cable/MMDS licensed areas by 2004 in accordance with the terms of its licence;
· Introduce standard packaging of basic analogue service in terms of the minimum number of programme services by the end of 2002 in all cable systems;
· Implement the agreed code of practice for handling consumer complaints;
· Institute changed procedures to ensure that all complaints and fault reports are followed up. Chorus has agreed to implement this with immediate effect.
· Provide data to allow the ODTR to measure performance of specific customer service related parameters. The ODTR will publish results on a regular basis

I suspect that most of their customers will regard Choruses compliance with the above to be somewhere between risible and non-existent. I suggest you rebutt them in detail..although the standard programming seems to have been implemented... in the letter anyway.

It should save ye a few yoyo's a month each.

M

sceptre

Originally posted by Muck
I suspect that most of their customers will regard Choruses compliance with the above to be somewhere between risible and non-existent.

And probably most of their recent ex-customers. The crap picture quality (and channels disappearing on a regular basis) on Chorus cable in Limerick city was the reason I finally got rid of Chorus about 2-3 months ago. If I hadn't, even a relatively small price increase like this would have been enough for me to drop them.

I've always thought it was odd that Paramount was an extra on Digital - it's in the standard lineup for analogue cable and has been for a long time.