The usual pitch is that IPTV costs a tenth of Sky. The saving is real, but it is not the whole story, and pretending otherwise leads to disappointed customers. Here is the comparison with the drawbacks included.
The money
A UK satellite or cable package with sport and films typically costs well over £60 a month once the introductory discount ends, on an eighteen or twenty-four month contract. Add a second box or multiroom and it climbs further. Most contracts also allow a mid-term price rise.
A prepaid IPTV plan at £49.99 for twelve months is about £4.17 a month, paid once. Over a year that is roughly £50 against roughly £720. Even allowing for a streaming stick and a TV Licence, the gap is large.
Where traditional pay TV is genuinely better
This is the part most IPTV sites leave out.
- Reliability. A satellite feed is engineered end to end by one company. IPTV depends on your broadband, your wifi and the provider’s capacity at peak time. It is more variable, particularly during major fixtures.
- Accountability. Sky and Virgin are regulated UK companies with published complaints procedures and Ofcom oversight. If something goes wrong you have formal recourse.
- Integrated recording. Traditional boxes offer proper series recording, pause and rewind of live television across all channels. IPTV catch-up is usually limited to supported channels and a few days.
- Bundling. Cable in particular bundles broadband and phone, and the combined price can be better than it first looks.
Where IPTV wins
- Cost, by a wide margin.
- No contract. A prepaid term simply ends. There is no cancellation call, no notice period and no mid-term price rise.
- Breadth. International and specialist channels that UK providers do not carry at all.
- No installation. Nothing drilled into the wall, nothing to remove when you move house, no engineer appointment.
What you need for it to work well
Roughly 15 Mbps for HD and 25 Mbps for 4K, and stability matters more than raw speed. A wired connection to the television beats wifi every time for live sport. Our guide to internet speed for IPTV covers this in detail, and fixing buffering covers what to do when it stutters.
Who should switch, and who should not
If you mainly watch sport and films, you are comfortable installing an app, and your broadband is solid, IPTV will save you a great deal of money for a similar experience.
If you need guaranteed reliability for one specific event, you want a single company accountable for the whole chain, or your broadband is weak and cannot be wired, traditional pay TV is the safer choice and it is worth what it costs.
If you are unsure, test it during a live match before cancelling anything. Never cancel an existing subscription until you have proved the replacement works in your house.