Vodafone T-Box Service Withdrawal (incl DOCSIS 2.0 & 3.0 Modems)

Forums › One NZ (including Farmside) › Vodafone T-Box Service Withdrawal (incl DOCSIS 2.0 & 3.0 Modems)

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#2630246 4-Jan-2021 15:08

Fog:

Not looking forward to loosing my T-Box, but is there anything available that will fully replace it.

Short answer: no.

Long answer: there are other options, each of which come with new features but also restrictions.

A service from Sky requires a dish on the house, a box per room with all the pricing that goes with it. Plus a great ugly power sucking box with an unknown future (Sky have already said they are working on new methods).

VodaTV is actually very good and has a mobile app but not yet for AppleTV, AndroidTV etc. But there are restrictions on what content can be 'recorded' - a lot of FTA can't be recorded, recordings have forced expiry etc - plus there are ongoing bugs as with any iptv service.

After that the options become quite fragmented

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Antoniosk

cyril7

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#2630251 4-Jan-2021 15:36

antoniosk:

SNIP

A service from Sky requires a dish on the house, a box per room with all the pricing that goes with it. Plus a great ugly power sucking box with an unknown future (Sky have already said they are working on new methods).

I think you are possibly referring to the very old and ancient Pace STB, a smaller unit with less power consumption has been in service for 3-4yrs, other than that I agree with your sentiment, a decent streaming option needs to be sort, either Voda fully sort the VTV or Sky provide a service via a box or app.

https://skytv.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3324/~/sky-box-hardware-specifications

Cyril

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#2630273 4-Jan-2021 17:15

32w is greedy compared to modern options, and is similar to the t-box....

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nztim

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#2630281 4-Jan-2021 17:42

cyril7:
antoniosk:

SNIP

A service from Sky requires a dish on the house, a box per room with all the pricing that goes with it. Plus a great ugly power sucking box with an unknown future (Sky have already said they are working on new methods).

I think you are possibly referring to the very old and ancient Pace STB, a smaller unit with less power consumption has been in service for 3-4yrs, other than that I agree with your sentiment, a decent streaming option needs to be sort, either Voda fully sort the VTV or Sky provide a service via a box or app.

https://skytv.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3324/~/sky-box-hardware-specifications

Cyril

My Complaint with VTV and Skysports now (aka streaming) is that for sport a 2 minute delay is simply unacceptable

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

WyleECoyoteNZ

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#2630325 4-Jan-2021 20:30

Fog:

Not looking forward to loosing my T-Box, but is there anything available that will fully replace it.

Not sure if its been mentioned, but with the Vodafone TV, some content can't be recorded.

I have a T-Box with the Sky Starter, Entertainment and Sport packages, and at this stage are leaning towards a Sky Sub and My Sky to retain the same functionality.

It'll have to be a very good offer to keep the TV services with Vodafone.

Eva888

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#2630391 4-Jan-2021 23:00

@sanson I’m not shooting the messenger here, just giving you some feedback on how many people are feeling. Sharpening the pencil isn’t quite enough.

It’s not great news. I don’t want new shiny gear when it is a downgrade from the TBox that works perfectly well for Sky which is what we got it for in the first place. More importantly it has functions that allow me to record everything and a clean, crisp programme screen which VTV lacks with its hard to view dull grey.

Friends need to restart theIr VTV nearly every day...why don’t they complain you ask? Fear...because the last foray with the help desk lasted with weeks of frustration and emails to the top.

The VTV I used in a Hastings motel last month wasted more time than was worth watching, needing to muck around with and reset randomly because of error messages and freezing. Bad experience and others' complaints are not endearing it.

The closest thing to the package we have now is going back to Sky and getting My Sky and another ISP.

Shiny new, should be at minimum as functional as what we signed up for, work properly and an improvement on the old model. You have taken away the most useful functions of what was a dedicated Sky box which most were happy with. I already have Netflix etc on a smart tv and on a kodi box.
I don’t need the VTV box extras Netflix etc if having them takes away from the Sky experience I had before.

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quickymart

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#2630437 5-Jan-2021 08:35

I think you mean @sansom ?

Eva888

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#2630544 5-Jan-2021 10:18

quickymart:
I think you mean @sansom ?

Yep and can’t edit it now.

Fog

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#2630558 5-Jan-2021 10:53

Eva888. After reading your post I am even more worried about loosing my T-Box. All these comments help in deciding how to tackle the apparent downgrade of service.

sansom

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#2630754 5-Jan-2021 14:40

Hi @Eva888,

Thank you for taking the time for your feedback. Please bear with my lengthy, and completely, unashamedly Vodafone point of view… it’s also my personal view as I’m very passionate about this product!

Firstly, to provide some context, the fact the Tbox service will stop working this year is not by choice. If we could keep it ticking over, we would. Unfortunately, this platform is based on 20-year-old technology, and due to a few issues it will stop working soon.

Given the imminent platform closure, we’re writing to all our Tbox customers offering VTV as our recommended replacement option. We will provide replacement TV box(es) and installation services at no cost (worth at least ~$300 per customer).

VTV is developed by Vodafone Group, has a good track record, and is used in millions of homes around the world. VTV users find that they have more (legal) content available than through any other device on the market. VTV’s combination of 3 day live TV rewind, On Demand Pay TV, and on demand apps including TVNZ On Demand, 3Now, Netflix, Neon, Amazon Prime video, iHeartRadio etc. mean it’s rare to need to record live TV. However, if you still want to record programmes, VTV does provide cloud recording for 90% of live programmes (across Freeview and Pay TV channels combined).

If VTV is installed well |(best via Ethernet, or via strong 5GHz Wi-Fi signal) and the home is connected to the internet using Fibre or HFC, there should be no freezing or connection issues. Also, the VTV box should not need to be restarted. Some customers have had issues when they first try to set it up themselves, but we have been able to sort out most of these cases (we have found that VTV doesn’t play nicely with a couple of TV/AV system setups, and some mesh Wi-Fi systems, but it’s very rare). We will have dedicated support for Tbox customers as they go through the process of moving to VTV and we are also going to release enhanced online help and user guides for VTV. I will also provide help on Geekzone if you have issues getting through to our agents on the phone.

We are not able to supply a like-for-like replacement option for the Tbox. It simply doesn’t exist. A couple of close-ish disk PVR options are Sky’s current MySky box, and the TiVo box. While we believe VTV is the best option, we are working with Sky to provide an alternative where we organise a swap-over to MySky if that’s what you’d prefer. In terms of TiVo as an option, we run TiVo as one of the largest pay TV providers in Spain, but we are now moving away from TiVo to the VTV platform exclusively in Spain also. The hard-disk based PVR days are numbered!

So, in summary:

We can’t avoid this change and are working on the best possible replacement options.
We recommend VTV as the best option, used by millions, and we are offering this box and professional installation at no charge.
VTV provides cloud recording and 3 day rewind in a box that we are offering for free (no MySky charge). It also has Sky content on demand, TVNZ on demand, 3Now, Netflix, Neon, Amazon Prime Video etc. But if you must record that 10% that can’t be recorded by VTV due to cloud recording rights, then you will need a disk-based PVR. We are therefore working with Sky to provide a MySky-based offering.

[PS: edit - I write this while still on holiday on a beautiful day, and my other half is getting grumpy so I may not respond to any further comments for a while!]

Hamish

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#2630783 5-Jan-2021 16:29

sansom:

We can’t avoid this change and are working on the best possible replacement options.
We recommend VTV as the best option, used by millions, and we are offering this box and professional installation at no charge.
VTV provides cloud recording and 3 day rewind in a box that we are offering for free (no MySky charge). It also has Sky content on demand, TVNZ on demand, 3Now, Netflix, Neon, Amazon Prime Video etc. But if you must record that 10% that can’t be recorded by VTV due to cloud recording rights, then you will need a disk-based PVR. We are therefore working with Sky to provide a MySky-based offering.
[PS: edit - I write this while still on holiday on a beautiful day, and my other half is getting grumpy so I may not respond to any further comments for a while!]

The fundamental problem is VTV is still streaming, it is still 2 minutes behind live due to the shear nature of encoding/decoding

For live sport that's far from ideal - Prime example is the RWC (when it worked properly) was delayed - I got FB updates of something happening before it came of screen

I think offering on-sold MySky for those who want it is the best option as a replacement

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

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richms

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#2630785 5-Jan-2021 16:32

nztim:

The fundamental problem is VTV is still streaming, it is still 2 minutes behind live due to the shear nature of encoding/decoding

For live sport that's far from ideal - Prime example is the RWC (when it worked properly) was delayed - I got FB updates of something happening before it came of screen

Satellite or DVB-T also has encoding and decoding, its not the problem. Its how they have structured their back end to distribute it that is the problem.

Remember mixer (RIP)? It had incredibly low latency streaming capabilities, that is what they need for live sport. The vodafone tv boxes are not a workable solution when even when not buffered out massivly you can still hear other people in the area woohooing before things happen onscreen.

Richard rich.ms

Eva888

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#2630816 5-Jan-2021 19:18

@sansom

Thank you for taking time out of your holiday to give such a lengthy response which understandably favours the Vodafone point of view.

The VTV box you will provide is replacing the means of delivering the product we are already paying for and ultimately belongs to Vodafone therefore it’s not free, or a bargain saving us $300.

The My Sky offering is a sensible option until it’s ultimate extinction and this could become an enticement depending on how sharp the pencils are and no enforced contract.

Finally, no matter how great in your option the new box is, current Vodafone internet speeds at least for me are atrocious and unlikely to stream it efficiently. Technicians twice have 'improved' it to 48.40mbps download and 4.6 mbps upload as of yesterday.

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#2630818 5-Jan-2021 19:24

@Eva888

Finally, no matter how great in your option the new box is, current Vodafone internet speeds at least for me are atrocious and unlikely to stream it efficiently. Technicians twice have 'improved' it to 48.40mbps download and 4.6 mbps upload as of yesterday.

What technology are you connected to?

antoniosk

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#2630840 5-Jan-2021 21:53

Linux:

@Eva888

Finally, no matter how great in your option the new box is, current Vodafone internet speeds at least for me are atrocious and unlikely to stream it efficiently. Technicians twice have 'improved' it to 48.40mbps download and 4.6 mbps upload as of yesterday.

What technology are you connected to?

john:

https://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=49&topicid=280674&page_no=2#2630828

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