EE TV

Does anyone have EE TV and if so are the Now TV and/or TV Player Plus subscriptions incorporated into the EPG or are they apps loaded onto the box? Is Sky Sports only available via Now TV or can it be subscribed to seperately?

EE TV's days are numbered, when the BT Takeover completes. It'll be replaced within months with BTTV.

That doesn't answer my questions.
In any case how do you know they will simply just replace it?

The EE box is basically a Smart Freeview HD box with apps, more akin to a Smart TV than a YouView box that BT, TalkTalk and Plusnet provide.

Some of the on-demand apps are at https://broadband.ee.co.uk/ee-tv/ee-tv-on-demand

Note that the EE box doesn't provide ITV Player or All4.

Thanks

As reported, they're apps. I presume the same will be true for this upcoming tranche of pay channels, so they wont be able to record from it.


I will say though that the EE TV box is probably the best EPG/guide interface I've used - it's lovely and fluid. The replay feature is wonderful too - just a shame they've limited it to the 2 PSB muxes.

As Mr Cornwall up thread notes, it is probably a moribund offering but then it's not like EE are actively feeding anything in to it, so I imagine it'll continue to function for years to come.

Incidentally, have BT laid out what will happen to EE as a brand after they takeover? Will the BT Mobile MVNO operation be merged in with the master network? Will Freeserve/Wanadoo/Orange/EE Home Broadband customers be transferred to standard BT broadband packages?

The iPlayer functionality will only continue as long as they continue to ensure the platform (i.e. the boxes) are licensed to Freeview HD. That is an ongoing annual payment from the manufacturer to Freeview.


At least one manufacturer of Freeview HD boxes has left the market and ceased to license their boxes, and thus iPlayer has stopped working on them.

I'm not saying EE will do this - in fact I very much doubt that EE/BT will let this happen - but don't expect all functionality to continue without active participation from the manufacturer.

The current EE prices would suggest a move to the Plusnet brand, although I wouldn't be surprised if those customers are integrated into the main BT brand so they can sell quad play deals, which they wouldn't be able to do with Plusnet. (they offer tv, but no mobile deal.)

In brief from Shareholder communications I understand that the three EE services will be subsumed as follows ....

Mobile ....
EE to take over MVNO BT Mobile, rebranding as EE a BT Group Company contracted to provide the group mobile quad-play services. BT want to retain the EE brand as it's supposedly popular.

Broadband ....
Unclear but subsumed under plusnet most likely in my view, the brand needs a boost. EE Broadband has always been offered as a 'basic' service.

TV ....
Merged into BTTV for quad-play offerring, with the boost of numbers for the bottomline. I'd expect the Plusnet TV service to follow suit. Plusnet customers getting a deal on BTTV's product directly.

It's clear that BT will not want to complicate their offerring with residual EE branded BB or TV services. The box might be retained though as an alternate route to market. The novel replay facility will be killed almost immediately though, it's hated by broadcasters as it takes catch-up out of their control.

Thanks for your insight, DVB Cornwall. It's worth remembering that EETV is bundled in with subscriptions (usually sold as FREE), which will cause problems if they try to migrate customers to Plusnet where even the basic box is £5pm.

I suppose what might happen is customers being given a stupidly good deal to move over (as happened to Be and O2 customers when Sky bought them out). Operationally it's much simpler since EE Broadband is just a BT Wholesale product (Orange abandoned their LLU equipment years ago), whereas an LLU to LLU switch requires an engineer booking at the exchange.

Incidentally, there was a suggestion, not wholly dismissed, that BTTV would get significant space in EE's retail stores to plug the service, and possibly sell in store. If that does happen it could be a very useful and unique 'shop window' for the product. It'd be hard for either of the main pay tv competitors to get a similar presence, without backtracking to the early 1990's and the then Sky sales in Currys and Comet.

Not really. EETV has a display in most EE stores. It doesn't stand out particularly, because every mall I visit has a permanent Sky stand somewhere in there, and some have a similar Virgin one. Virgin Media also have a chain of shops, although last time I went by they were stripping the TiVo display unit out.