The news that Telecom would be supporting the soon-to-launch set-top service TiVo with uncapped broadband support is surely welcome.

While it’s another blow for those who don’t want to support Telecom (and for various reasons I won’t go into here, I feel some sympathy with that view), it’s exciting news for NZ audiences who are starting to feel rather ripped off with the escalating price of their entertainment options, and the almost third world services.

One major benefit TiVo will bring is to those who find the MySky box has changed their life (ie, simplified it by making the process of pre-recording their favourite programmes stupidly simple) but also feel enraged that the monopoly is charging such outrageous prices for a product that the consumer never actually owns.

The announced price for TiVo isn’t too bad: 900 bucks to buy the device outright, but you can also pay it off in bite-sized chunks via your Telecom bill.

This effectively means that “renting to own” with the Tivo is only a little bit more than the $15 a month Sky subscribers have to pay for the privilege of RENTING a box that they’ve already paid a huge sum just to have perched in their living room.

Whether the programmes offered via TiVo will at any point match those via Sky is the vexed question. Sky certainly has the genuine programming options pretty much sewn up, even though it has relinquished some of them to Freeview customers.

While it annoys the hell out of me to have to give Sky $65 of my hard-earned to the entertainment provider each and every month just for the most basic package they offer, I still can’t quite bring myself to give up those documentary channels (and wife my would probably sink into a deep depression if she was deprived of the Food or Living channels).

TiVo sure is tempting, though. GARY STEEL