Sky Box Installation Fees
Sky are to charge for installation of the standard Sky box for new customers from July 1st this year. The new charge will be £30, but the equipment will still be free for new customers.
New customers taking up Sky Plus or Sky HD will also pay £30 instead of the usual £60 fee.
Customers who sign up for Sky Multiroom will still receive free installation of all their equipment.
To order a standard Sky box and subscription before the price increase please visit Sky Tv.
This small price increase for the standard Sky box corresponds with the abolishment of the Sky Plus £10 subscription fee, and leads me to believe that Sky are on a push for more Sky Plus customers. With Freeview Playback branded PVR’s on the market now and BBC Freesat to launch early next year (possibly with more PVR’s), it makes sense for Sky to remove the Sky Plus subscription fee.
Visit here for the latest Sky Digital Offers
Sky Plus Subscription Fees
Good news for all potential and existing Sky + subscribers.
From July 1st 2007 all Sky plus users, regardless of their channel package, will get full Sky plus functionality with no extra monthly fees.
At present subscribers only get Sky plus functionality for free when they subscribe to either Sky Movies or Sky Sports in their package, and if subscribing soley to either 2, 4 or 6 mixes there is a £10 subscription fee added to the monthly charge.
For further information about the Sky packages or to start enjoying the benefits of Sky Television please visit Sky Tv.
Sky Anytime
Viewers with Sky HD boxes now have access to Sky anytime - video on demand functionality, and it’s a free service.
There is content available from the favourite channels like National Geographic, Sky One, Sky Movies and Sky Sports. More content is expected to become available over the coming months.
To access Sky Anytime (video on demand) you need to press the Tv Guide button of the Sky remote, followed by the red button for the on-screen prompt labled Anytime Tv. Here you will find a selection of programmes available. New Sky customers may have to wait up to a week for the full programme listings to download.
Those Sky subscribers with Sky plus should have or be presently receiving the software upgrades to their boxes to enable Sky Anytime features. Unfortunately this will only be available to customers with the later Sky plus boxes, 80Gb hard drives or larger.
For those who don’t want to use the Sky Anytime services the feature can be disabled by accessing the service menu and pressing number 6 on their remote.
Further information is available at the official Sky Anytime website.
Sky+ Video On Demand
  Sky+ and Sky HD subscribers will soon have the use of video-on-demand programming. Sky intend to have this feature fully up and running later this year.
Viewers with Sky Plus and Sky HD receivers should find this a huge benefit, as this will mean a choice of certain programmes available instantly and without any requirement to wait for the next programme viewing time that we’re currently used to with Box Office. It is unknown which programmes will be available on the new video-on-demand feature, but a safe guess would be some of the Sky Movies and Box Office channels.
Sky are yet to announce whether this will be a chargeable feature or use it as an extra added incentive to take up the Sky+ or Sky High Definition services.
Subscribers will still be able to record the same amount of programmes and carry on using the live pause function in the usual way, and the present useable allowance of disc space will remain unchanged. The Sky+ and Sky HD box has a pre-determined amount of hard disc space specifically set aside for future innovations like video-on-demand. Updates and programme downloads won’t disrupt standard viewing, or use the telephone connection, but will simply be over the air in a similar manner to usual software upgrades.
Another new feature that subscriber’s can look foward to is an adaptation of the remote record SMS facility, which should soon be accessable through any internet connection.
Free to View Satellite
The BBC’s proposed gem Freesat should come as welcome news to viewers in poor television reception areas. This could potentially show a huge range of benefits to licence fee payers and unlock a whole host of new possibilities for equipment manufacturers and consumers alike.
Free satellite Tv to be known as Freesat can be nothing but a huge step in the right direction for many, and shows the potential to futher unlock an already competitive market place. We could end up seeing a greater rise in the development and standards of new equipment, with more choices including High Definition receivers and PVR’s (personal video recorders). Other major television service providers may also find this a useful way to reach more viewers and expand the viewing experience of television as we know it.
One off the main assets to Freesat could be the possibility of subscription free HD (high definition) Tv services in the future. This could in-turn make it one of the industries leading television platforms and uptake may become huge if this was to happen.
This is just one example of the potential changes in television we could expect to see in the coming years. Let’s keep those fingers crossed for Freesat launching in the near future!
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