BT secure sole rights to Euro coverage and possibly including terrestrial tv access

http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/sport/rugby/rugby-news/bath-rugbys-european-champions-cup-162501

Interesting development - well known that Sky subscription levels are dropping prompting a revamp of their sports channels and Union appears to be a possible casualty as they focus on football.

Definitely looks like Sky are moving away from club rugby

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/27/sky-sports-channels-prices-football-golf-cricket

Rugby doesn't make the cut as one of their themed channels according to this, so makes sense that they haven't got the Euro rights

BamBam wrote:Definitely looks like Sky are moving away from club rugby

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/27/sky-sports-channels-prices-football-golf-cricket

Rugby doesn't make the cut as one of their themed channels according to this, so makes sense that they haven't got the Euro rights

Or maybe they will take a big interest in the PRO12/14 (unfortunately)!

Forgot they had the rights to Pro12, I stand corrected

Good news. I can cancel my Sky subscription. The only thing Sky now have is England's autumn internationals. I can just pay for a month's subscription.

Exiledinborders wrote:Good news. I can cancel my Sky subscription. The only thing Sky now have is England's autumn internationals. I can just pay for a month's subscription.

Take a look at Now TV, used to use this when I just wanted a month

Just wondering, but how do people rate BT Broadband? I'm not pleased with Sky - I get connection interruptions too often.

mikey_dragon wrote:Just wondering, but how do people rate BT Broadband? I'm not pleased with Sky - I get connection interruptions too often.

It's meh. Sky and BT use the same line to connect you to their networks. It's much if a muchness unless you go to Virginia but they have truly woeful customer service.

I use BT broadband purely to get free access to the rugby.

mikey_dragon wrote:Just wondering, but how do people rate BT Broadband? I'm not pleased with Sky - I get connection interruptions too often.

Mine has never been down. Virgin used to be down a lot. Only problem is that they don't offer any of the speeds Virgin do.

Sky have pro12, top14 and super rugby. There's a good chance they'll bid for pro12 (or the rumoured new name - Atlantic Rugby Championship) exclusivity.

I've always heard positive things about Virgin Broadband actually, it's disappointing that the likes of Sky and BT can't provide strong or fast enough wifi though.

profitius wrote:Sky have pro12, top14 and super rugby. There's a good chance they'll bid for pro12 (or the rumoured new name - Atlantic Rugby Championship) exclusivity.

Catchy name .

mikey_dragon wrote:Just wondering, but how do people rate BT Broadband? I'm not pleased with Sky - I get connection interruptions too often.

Used to have Sky broadband, had nothing but drop outs and speed "throttling", even though they deny it. Was always surprising that when I complained it picked up, yet at 4pm EVERY WEEKDAY the speed dropped down, by the same margin.

Have had Orange (EE now) and others, but they are all the same... CR@P!!!.

Swapped to BT infinity (2 years ago) and have been great. Only once, have I lost connection, and that was due to a Muppet engineer "accidentally" pulling my cable out at the exchange. Fixed when reported.

BUT a word of warning.... ALL broadband speeds are subject to how good your Wifi is (assuming you go wireless), and ALL routers supplied free by the suppliers are really basic and RUBBISH. The BT Home Hub 4 I originally had was rubbish, and dropped out all the time. This is because they are limited to the connections they can make, and their range isn't very good. SKY WONT let you change routers and embed the connection string (password) in the router making it difficult to find. You can get apps on line that decrypt this for you, but if you change the router you are in breach of their contract and they will knock you off. I experienced this. Complaining that if they didn't give you cheap cr@p routers you would not have to replace with your own doesn't work. So I kicked Sky into touch and went with BT. I quickly changed the BT Home Hub for a proper router TP Archer C9, and since then I can configure it as I like, so that IO get proper connections, and have not experienced a single drop out or drop in speed (ok.. have been one or two, but all for reasonable reasons, like my wife un plugging it, and a power cut, etc...).

So, to answer the above.... Yes BT "own" the network and others share it, so BT has vested interest in ensuring you get a robust connection, but if your really want to stop the Wifi dropouts, invest in a proper router and bin the ISP free ones (if they're contract allows you).

People should refer to them as Openreach (who own the network) and BT Retail who provide a retail service to compete with Sky, talktalk etc.

I'm with Sky at the minute and their Sky Q Hub is a pile of poo, it uses mesh networking but devices seem to hate roaming on them and i get constant drop outs. Virgin is being installed in our area so i'll be moving to them - might even see what their true FTTP offerings cost. We have to have more than one wireless device in our house as wireless AC won't reach the other end so i'll be buying a wifi mesh unit. Probably the new Amplifi mesh (I use Unifi kit on all our sites and they work well) and using a bog standard cable router.

For those who have a contract with EE, i believe you can add BT Sport for £5 a month and then chromecast it to your TV although it means you can't record shows.

nathan wrote:People should refer to them as Openreach (who own the network) and BT Retail who provide a retail service to compete with Sky, talktalk etc.

I'm with Sky at the minute and their Sky Q Hub is a pile of poo, it uses mesh networking but devices seem to hate roaming on them and i get constant drop outs. Virgin is being installed in our area so i'll be moving to them - might even see what their true FTTP offerings cost. We have to have more than one wireless device in our house as wireless AC won't reach the other end so i'll be buying a wifi mesh unit. Probably the new Amplifi mesh (I use Unifi kit on all our sites and they work well) and using a bog standard cable router.

For those who have a contract with EE, i believe you can add BT Sport for £5 a month and then chromecast it to your TV although it means you can't record shows.

True... its Openreach who own the network (that is BT Openreach - I know the monopoly commission made BT split/sell this off, but its still BT under a different guise.. )...

Still advise anyone who is experiencing bad Wifi to look to getting a proper router instead of the rubbish ones supplied free. You'll be surprised what a difference it makes. But check your contract allows it first. Most do, but SKY definitely doesn't.

I am with Sky, well Now TV, the service is average but the administration is woeful. I have not been able to actually see a bill for 10 months, just get given a final figure which changes monthly. Got fed up of this so cancelled the payment, they have now threatened to cut me off, forgetting that I cannot monitor what they are charging me for. I have told them that I am happy to pay the bill, when they tell me what all the extras on it are. They do not seem to be able to. So I have just changed to a 4G based hub with 3 Mobile, I think they have just bought out Relish (probably never heard of it unless you live in Central London or Swindon) and are going big into truly mobile internet. Not a bad deal £30 for 100GB per month on a monthly account.

It happily works with gaming consoles, my son was up over the weekend and was playing World of Tanks without incident and that was on a 3G signal. I am very impressed so far.

I thought i might be the only world of tanker lol, great game, but like any game refuse to pay for anything. Makes grinding to next tier tanks a bit of a pain but better grinding than paying.

Try Armoured Warfare, more modern than WoT and therefore you cannot just rely on armour, easier to grind through the tanks as well.

BT customer support is a complete and utter joke - when you get through clueless clowns at the other end.
Switched TV to Virgin and whilst not perfect is much better.

Also BT Email is based upon antiquated Yahoo and is hopeless at trapping spam.
Again moved everything over to GMail as BT became impossible to use.