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You have to pay eternal attention to developments that could become a 10X factor in your business - Andy Grove - Only the Paranoid Survive
BT is falling short of Vision target
BT'S VIDEO-ON-DEMAND service, Vision, is falling short of expectations and almost certainly won't hit the company's target of having between two and three million couch potatoes signed up by the end of next year.
BT boss Ian Livingstone set the mark when the telco launched the IPTV system, but with only 443,000 users signed up by the end of June it seems that might have been a little too ambitious.
BT Vision's chief executive Marc Watson has now revised that number down to just one million and extended the deadline for meeting that figure indefinitely,
Despite the success of media services offered by its rivals such as Sky and Virgin Media, BT has been unable to turn its massive broadband audience on to Vision.
Watson puts the blame on Sky's domination of premier sports as well as the lack of a coherent and alluring marketing message to punters.
"We have not yet found the best way of explaining what the benefits are to consumers, and what [BT Vision] stands for," he told the Financial Times.
Watson hopes that Ofcom will soon bring in rules that will force Sky to hand over access to its premium content to BT Vision, giving it a much needed hook to entice a wave of new sign-ups.
The uptake of web-based open video streaming services such as BBC Iplayer and Four-on-Demand has almost certainly contributed to the poor adoption of BT's Vision, especially as these alternatives become available across more and more devices. µ
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it doesnt matter how many channels you have.
the programmes are just meaningless junk designed to insult your intelligence and bombard you with consumer products.
but, by time you have browsed all the channels, you can begin again and rebrowse them!
what fun.... :P
Maybe I'm wrong but I thought this was limited to people who have BT as their ISP. I'd consider it but not if I have to change ISP.
I was a BT Vision customer for a few months and in the end got rid of it.
The software on the box was full of bugs (the standby button on the remote only intermitantly worked, it was slow), it would take ages to boot from power on, and it was locked in to the god awful BT Broadband.
The only feature I did like was the PVR functions but I tended to use the Freeview on the TV over the BT Vision box as the upscaled quality was poor and the HDMI often didn't work properly (not to mention I got pretty much the same quality via SCART!).
I would have been happy to keep the service if it wasn't for the major fact it was tied to BT. I'm now on Virgin Media and find their service is second to none and the broadband is much quicker (probably about 3 or 4 times quicker now I'm on 20 Meg compared to the supposed 7.2 Meg I was supposed to get which in reality was about 3 Meg).
To be honest, unless BT open Vision up to other ISPs it will be always be behind Sky & Virgin.
Rob
No shit, the only surprise is that 400k people have signed up! I'm amazed it's that many considering how bad the product is.
Lets not forget that you have to have a BT line, and one of their midsleading and poorly performing BB packages before you can even consider signing up.
Why on earth would anyone want that unless they couldn't get anything else?
Assuming that BT vision itself is a decent product, you still have to buy two substandard products to be even elligable. A none starter.
I tried to get this when it first came out a few years ago. Typical BT and its depts not all reading from the same page, I was told that I couldnt as my ADSl was only rated to 2meg. I informed the sales team that I was on 8meg and speed tests proved this but they didnt want to know.
They were reading from an out of date list, ot hadnt got the lastet memo from HO I guess. This often happens when BT launch a new product, its best to wait a few months till all staff get let in on the secret.
So bought a Topfield PVR and never looked back. Looking at what Vision offers today, they can keep it. Waste of time.
I use BT Vision for catch up TV and not had a problem with the viewing.
Granted the software on the Vision box is poor but I can live with it.
My prime complaint was the stitch up by BT accounts who stole £190 from me just before last Xmas when I was promised a free box. Not forgotten this unpleasant treatment and it stopped me recommending BT to friends.
For those of us which were conned into it with offers of free box and programming, later to find getting billed through the arse requiring navigating BT's (still) abysmal billing systems just to get the offer intended. Sheesh, even Virgin manage a single monthly bill, not three totally disparate and seperated systems comprising a quarterley one (BB), quarterly by monthly payments (Land line), and monthly (Vision).
Box is buggy, crashes weekly, recordings are lost far too frequently especially when handling an almost full dsik. 4od and ItvPlayer replay content is charged for (vs free on web? really? its insulting).
However it has potential. The HD upscaler is suberb, and ability to download HD OnDemand rather than stream is a good stopgap till ironically, BT speed up thier lines. I really like the OnDemand content (no adverts = woohoo), when it works. Unfortunately by the time the billing system is replaced (a BT issue as a whole), and the box software is torn apart and replaced with something that isn't WinCE (the crux of the stability issues by far), my 18 month contract (!!!!) will be up and I will have fled just because of the hassle.
BT Vision box should adapt and offer Cisco Telepresence style video conferencing. I.e. Utilise the 2.5mb upload limit of ADSL2.(Like Be Unlimited upload plus)
That would be cool. Maybe through releasinng a PS3 Video conferencing app.
If you run Vision against a full Sky package (including line rental, broadband etc.) it's just far too expensive.
I don't even like Murdoch and his series stealing network but BT's numbers just don't compete for a full telly & phone/net package.
Also would BT ever drop their stupid "3 cheap months" offers? It just makes them look dishonest.
Compete on price in a real sense, make the yearly cost transparent then you'll actually shift some units and subscriptions.
As a BT shareholder and customer for Broadband/vision and telephone I think that BT need to put ALL 3 SERVICES ON ONE BILL ADD EUROVISION + UK GOLD THEN REDUCE PRICES BEFORE THE MARKET LEAVES THEM BEHIND.ONCE YOUR REPUTATION AND SERVICE QUALITIES COME INTO QUESTION (SEE THIS BLOG AND THE INTERNET IN GENERAL).WAKE UP BT BEFORE IT IS TO LATE.I HOPE THE CHAIRMAN READS FEEDBACK OCCASIONALLY BEFORE IT IS TO LATE.