I have had homechoice for about 4 years. It was great for me. Very reliable. I had no problem whatsoever with the TV or broadband. Then Tiscali took it over. I lost my VOD in April 08 due to an upgrade process. Appalling customer service. And then 3 weeks ago a letter out of the blue that they were unable to upgrade me, and my tv and broadband and phone would cease on 16th Oct 08, gave me my mac code and told be to go elsewhere. Well I have. I've got sky, and, whilst I don't think their customer service is great, it's much better than Tiscali, and everything else about sky is so much more slik. I am writing this after a very smooth transition to sky broadband. A great relief to be rid of Tiscali

Phone dead as of seven days ago. Have made 48 phonecalls to their "customer services". Have been told that we cancelled our contract, that it's a BT line, that we have never been a customer, that they have to send an engineer round, that it's nothing to do with them. Was finally promised someone would call me back today with a solution. Guess what, no phonecall as of yet.

Have racked up a massive bill and all I get is rude and ignorant people, some of whom can't understand basic English, all telling me it's not their problem. But they're still charging me...

Tiscali TV hasn't been working for us for four weeks. I have been missing my favourite show, I'd Do Anything and thank God for BBC I-Player. If it wasn't for that, I don't think I would be sane now.

Four weeks is an extremely long time and the responses have not been to the point. Ever since Tiscali took over from Homechoice, we have been overcharged, it takes longer to get through to the customer support department and the responses have been very vague. So vague that the things to do such as "rebooting your box" and "how to select channels" are not even relevant to my question!

I am absolutely furious that Tiscali have taken over...where is HOMECHOICE when you need it?!

I've been a Homechoice customer for over 2 years but will no longer be one in a month due to Tiscali's takeover of them(Read my Tiscali review). Homechoice's broadband service was good however if you had a billing problem or a problem with the tv you had to deal with one of the few people they employed to deal with customer service once you got through to them after a 20minute to an hour wait. After an hour I have been cut off.

During my time with Homechoice they have:
1. Told me they never answer customer emails.
2. Tried to overcharge me by direct debit and refused to send me a direct debit form until I threatened to report them to OFCOM.
3. Then tried to make me pay extra for paying by cheque as I refused to let them overcharge me until I threaten to report them to OFCOM again
4. I have also been yelled at by a customer service operator who I was put through to as he was in the wrong department.

The only reason I chose HomeChoice for my digital TV was because the street I lived in wasn't cabled. I used to have Telewest (now Virgin) at my old address and cannot fault their customer service and delivery. The remote control broke and the service cannot be used without it as the box doesn't have a manual over-ride. After initially ordering a new remote it took 11 calls over 1 month to receive it. Everytime I called I was told it hadn't been ordered and that they would have to start the process again. Once it arrived I had to call to ask for a refund for the lack of TV for a month. They don't offer this as standard. Also when chasing this request I asked for a manager as I wished to complain. Apparently the phones from the call centre operator don't transfer to their managers and I was told I'd be called back. This never materialised. Also when the box goes down so does your broadband unless you have an ADSL modem which I didn't. The TV service isn't very good and the box needs a regular reboot. Also channel surfing is slow to catch up.

To cancel Sky sports you have to give Homechoice 28 days notice, Telewest was 1 day and it was immediate.

Am about to move out of the area and again there is no cable. Have decided to go with Sky as the deal they are doing comes in around £20 per month cheaper which includes free evening and weekend calls (currently don't have this with HC), more channels and have heard they are much better.

When I called to advise of my house move from the area and to let them know I wanted to cancel I asked what I needed to do with the box and remote. I was advised to bin them, hardly very environmentally aware! I then called back two nights later about the TV service being down and asked the same question only to be told I had to send it back to them and they refund the postage. Failure to do so results in a £115 fine. Nobody seems to know what is going on.

I would not recommend Homechoice to anyone unless you are a masochist who enjoys hanging on phones for hours and then being abused simply for making a complaint. Homechoice are, in my opinion, a very amateurish service provider and the services they do provide are nothing special and certainly not value for money. Try any of the other providers first and only choose Homechoice as a very last resort. Buy a FREEVIEW box for a one off payment which allows you to watch the same channels you get from Homechoice without having to subscribe to their service for the next 12 months!

We had a few glitches with the Homechoice at the beginning due to faulty hardware (see comments posted at the time) but generally it's been working well. And we're quite far away from the exchange (2km, according to "Sam Knows")... So it's possible. But the general feeling is disappointment because of the content issues listed above... Plus now it's part of Tiscali, so we live in fear... To be fair, we've enjoyed the Video on Demand and films, but overall I would not recommend it with enthusiasm.

Currently my TV picture freezes several times in an hour and certain channels are unavailable. The message I get on the screen is "channel is unavailable at present, please try later". It's now a good week I have this problem and called the hotline several times. They told me that my service exchange point is Kensal Green and that they have some problems there hence other customers experience the same.
Do you live in Kensal Green area and experience the same problem? Did they tell me the truth?

Just do not subscribe!

The service staff are rude and unhelpful, after talking to them for a couple of hours. They said "this is as good as it gets" and offerred to disconnect me.

There are no good points to HomeChoice service whatsoever. The technology is not ready for the mass market and they're behind the scenes support network is haphazard in the extreme. I have spent more money in phone bills trying to get the service working than I've actually paid to HomeChoice for the service itself. It is a joke that this company is still running and my advice to anyone is get out now!

My service is constantly freezing and and in 2 months the service went down 4 times due to HomeChoice servers not working. This can last for a couple of days or a few hours. As a percentage of 2 months it is quite large and therefore unacceptable.

I don't recommend HomeChoice. Hope you don't find their service too bad because you are stuck with them for a minimum of 12 months. They will charge you for any unused period if you want to get out of the contract.

What to expect from HomeChoice:

1. Ordered HomeChoice and made an appointment for the installation, in two weeks time.

2. Shortly before the appointment I received an email telling me there was a "cabling problem" and that HomeChoice couldn't provide me with any service.

3. Tried to get connected with another provider, but I couldn't because of an "incompatible service" (HomeChoice of course) connected to my BT line.

4. Spent two weeks trying to get HomeChoice to disconnect their service from my line so I could use another provider.

5. I was eventually told that the "cabling problem" was a mistake and they could provide me with the service after all.

6. After more than a month of hassle and just wanting internet at home, I took the path of least resistance and let HomeChoice install the service.

7. After waiting two more weeks for the engineer I was finally connected.

8. The internet connection was OK, but seemed slow at times.

9. The system often needed to be rebooted before working.

10. TV was TV, but changing channels was agonizingly slow, and often involved clicking through several screens of "up-grade your service NOW" ads from HomeChoice.

11. After a couple of months I was unexpectedly forced to move (landlord wanted to move back into the flat). HomeChoice said they could provide the service at the new number and address.

12. Waited two weeks for the engineer to install the service at the new address.

13. He didn't show.

14. Rescheduled the installation and waited two more weeks.

15. Engineer finally shows. He dawdles around for an hour before finally concluding that the signal isn't strong enough, and then says he won't install the service.

16. Two weeks later I receive a £150 bill for an early cancellation fee.

17. Called their customer care team, and I was referred to a little provision in the contract that says if you move and HomeChoice can not, FOR WHATEVER REASON, connect the service, then you will be assessed an early cancellation fee equal to subscription for the remainder of the fixed term.

18. I've now paid HomeChoice more than £200 for only 2 1/2 months of actual service.

19. Bottom line: If you want to pay high end prices for low end service, and don't mind sending your money to a company that seems to be more interested in making profits from you than by providing the customer with a quality product, then HomeChoice is the ISP for you.

The HomeChoice phone and broadband service are excellent. Excellent value for money. The TV service is prone to freezing, however, the customer service and technical support are excellent. When I had problems with my TV, they actually called me twice to keep me updated, and I never had to wait for more than a minute when phoning their support line!

I think Homechoice digital TV is excellent so far. I only got it yesterday but anyway, the internet is superbly fast for me. I'm connected at 4.38Mbps. Hopefully, I shall go up soon as the engineer said. The TV is okay, although I don't really use it, but it seems wicked! The man gave me so many cables and goodies.

All I can say is I'm sorry to those whom had a bad experience, for the time being for me everything is running smooth, and THE CUSTOMER SERVICE DEPT PICK UP INSTANTLY!!!

It takes about 10 - 20 minutes until you speak to someone from the HomeChoice Digital TV technology helpline (our Customer Care team is committed to answering 90% of all calls within 15 seconds, as per the HC website is a joke!)

The TV service stops several times during peak times. Hence you have to reboot the box which is annoying.

I experienced the broadband service not working a couple of times, and in one instance it took 2 hours until it was up and running again. Last night the service didn't work at all! Apparently they can't fix it, so an engineer has to come round... IN 4 DAYS TIME! For the entire weekend I won't have TV or broadband!
I complained to customer care, but for a refund I have to call back once it is up and running again! Surely it should be their responsibility to take care of their customers! In the end they always blame it on BT
Well, that's my experience after 1 month... 1 down, 11 to go!

In summary, I would recommend Homechoice Digital TV to those who want an all-in-one package, but beware that there are many faults with the service, and if all goes pear shaped, don't expect a fast, efficient and helpful service. Until these wrinkles are ironed out Homechoice remains a second class service.

Terrible customer service and support - have spent literally hours on the phone waiting to speak to someone at Homechoice. Misleading advertising on which digital channels you will receive. You cannot break the contract and have to subscribe for at least one year, no matter how bad the service is. Technical faults have been numerous - 'set top box' continually switches itself off which means loss of the digital channel you might be in the middle of watching or loss of the thing you are downloading from the internet. It also means the internet doesn't work even if you just want to surf. The connection has been generally very slow and I'm not convinced that offering TV, internet and phone through the same medium offers a good service as the signal doesn't seem to work effectively, seemingly unable to cope with all three at the same time.

Homechoice seems to spend more advertising in order to lure new customers but virtually nothing on making sure that current customers are happy and receiving a decent service. I would advise anyone to get a cheap 'set top box' if you can get Freeview as it has a much better selection of channels than Homechoice and you only have to pay once for the priviledge (of the box itself).