GigaTV is Vodafone’s television service. If you decide to do this, you have two options: GigaTV Cable and GigaTV Net. TECHBOOK presents the offers and reveals how they differ.
So can we! Vodafone (formerly Kabel Deutschland, then Unitymedia) always thought something like this when Telekom once again made positive headlines with its TV offer, Magenta TV. Like in 2020, for example, when the RTL streaming portal was incorporated, which now operates under the name RTL+. Lo and behold, in the spring of 2022, Vodafone launched its GigaTV, another optimized TV offering that is competitive. Potential customers have two options: GigaTV Cable, i.e. television via a cable connection (as it was already the business model of Kabel Deutschland and Unitymedia) or GigaTV Net, meaning television via the Internet.
GigaTV Cable – a Vodafone landline is required
With GigaTV Cable, Vodafone wants to “seamlessly connect classic linear television with on-demand content such as TV media libraries, its own recordings and streaming platforms”. Prerequisite: a Vodafone cable connection and the GigaTV cable box. Anyone who is not yet a Vodafone customer and orders landline, Internet and TV as a complete package currently pays EUR 19.99 for the first six months, and EUR 34.99 per month thereafter. The provision fee of 69.99 euros does not apply. This offer refers to a bandwidth of 100 Mbit/s. If you want more, you pay more.
As usual, the next two band strengths, 250 Mbit/s and 500 Mbit/s, cost 19.99 euros in the first six months, after which they are 39.99 euros and 44.99 euros respectively. And with 1000 Mbit/s, the price from day one is 39.99 euros. The minimum term of the contract is always 24 months. The price for the connection in your own home is 14.99 euros per month. Anyone who rents an apartment building usually pays less because the cable fee is passed on to all tenants and is already included in the utility bill. At least for now. Things will look different from June 30, 2024, when the apportionability of the TV connection fees via the ancillary costs will be abolished.
Read more here: Official! Fees for cable TV fly out of the utilities
The actual TV offer for the basic package, simply titled GigaTV Cable, costs EUR 9.99 per month for the first six months, then EUR 14.99 from the 7th month. In return you get 95 TV channels in SD and 57 TV channels in HD (of which only 27 can be received free of charge), as well as a media library offer (up to 28), the GigaTV Cable Box 2, with which up to 600 hours Recordings and time-independent television are possible, as well as the GigaTV mobile app, which enables, among other things, mobile television via smartphone or tablet and also simultaneous television on two devices.
DAZN can also be booked
Another package is called GigaTV including Netflix and costs EUR 19.99 per month for the first six months, and EUR 25.99 per month from the seventh month. GigaTV including Netflix offers, as you might have guessed, a Netflix subscription in addition to the services of the basic package. The third and last offer goes by the awkward name GigaTV Cable Vodafone Premium. It costs EUR 14.99 per month for the first six months and EUR 19.99 per month from the seventh month. In addition to the basic package, there are 20 additional HD channels without commercial breaks. All options have a contract term of at least twelve months, with a price advantage of at least 24 months. A one-off provision fee of EUR 49.99 is added in each case.
In addition to the three packages mentioned, further options can be booked. These include Vodafone Premium Plus, which is free for the first two months, then costs EUR 6.99 a month and includes up to 14 additional channels in SD and HD quality without commercial breaks. The notice period for this option is four weeks. And sports are not neglected either: DAZN including the DAZN app costs 24.99 euros a month, but you are bound to it for at least a year. And with the multi-room option, you can watch television on up to two other TV sets at home. Price: EUR 5 per month for a period of twelve months.
Also read: TV over the Internet – IPTV offers in comparison
GigaTV Net is cheaper, but cannot quite keep up in terms of content
As already mentioned, there is another way to receive GigaTV – via the Internet. At Vodafone, this offer is called GigaTV Net, the package structure is similar to that of cable transmission. Giga TV Net with the Apple TV 4K streaming box costs EUR 9.99 in the first six months and EUR 19.99 from the seventh month. Included are 54 channels in HD and 66 in SD, free Apple TV+ for 3 months, of course the box with Siri voice control and the GigaTV and Apple TV app.
GigaTV Net incl. Netflix also includes Netflix, of course, and the Apple box is replaced by the GigaTV Net box. Price: EUR 19.99 per month for the first six months, EUR 25.99 from the seventh month. What remains is the package, called the box, GigaTV Net Box. This costs EUR 9.99 in the first six months and EUR 14.99 from the seventh month.
As with the cable offer, the three Internet packages also have a minimum term of 24 months. There is also a provision fee of 49.99 euros. Additional options can also be booked, such as foreign channels such as TV International Turkish (eight Turkish channels) and/or TV International Englisch (several channels in English) for EUR 9.99 per month.
Which way you finally decide, cable or internet, depends of course on the infrastructure. Not everywhere is cable at all. You can check the availability directly on the Vodafone website. In turn, everyone has to decide for themselves the question of price. Vodafone television via the Internet is the cheaper option, but it doesn’t offer quite the range of options that the cable version promises.