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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ProDave" data-source="post: 2893" data-attributes="member: 175209">A very well thought out and presented response, and I agree entirely with you on all you say about Sky and the lock-in to their unique digibox.But this anti competitive thing goes even deeper.  Consider ITV Digital, or to be specific Terestrial Digital television. In fact consider the way Digital television is available on any platform in the UK.The ONLY reason I have a Sky Digibox is because at the beginning of this year, I started looking for a way to receive all the free Digital television channels, without paying for subscription television.  What I found was Sky's "free minidish and digibox" available to non subscribers for a £100 install fee was just about the only way to receive them.  At the time I bought it, ITV was not on Sky, but everyone predicted it would be "soon" so I proceeded, and had hoped that ITV2 would also be included.  It actually came as a supprise to me that all the normal terestrial channels were on digital satellite, as in the analogue days they wern't. Satellite TV then was only about Extra channels in addition to the normal terestrial ones.Now initially I had looked at getting a digital terestrial set top box, but what did I find?  None available.  If you Subscribed to OnDigital as it was then they would LOAN you a free box, but try and buy one, I couldn't find one on sale.  I could have bought an integrated digital television, but chose not to as the only ones currently made are larger than I want.So this non availability of digital terestrial set top boxes is also anti competetive as well, just trying to con you into having a subscription I think. I wonder how many ITVDigital subscribers think they are paying for BBC Choice, Knowledge etc?So at the moment, the free to air viewer in the UK does not have much choice.  The Sky Digibox is the best compromise, but it is a compromise.  Oh how I agree with you, why couldn't we just have a free to air digital receiver for the free channels, and plug in a CAM if you want to subscribe to the pay channels.But the fact that most of the "free" uk channels are encrypted using Sky's own system, and require a Sky box and free card to decode them, locks you into this system.  Okay you can also have a free to air Satelite receiver (that would allow me to watch ITV2) but I don't want another seperate set top box just for that, and it would be no good on it's own as it wouldn't receive the BBC Channels.What about cable.  The Government want to ensure all the basic channels are available free on ALL Digital platforms. So consider this.  A friend of mine has NTL, just for telephone and internet, he chose not to have the digital TV because he is not interested in Pay TV.  So shouldn't he be able to BUY a cable set top box and watch all the free digital channels?  If the government are serious about what they say, then the answer is he should be able to ,but I bet he can't.</blockquote>

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