Bt Broadband And Firestick

[smurfchops]

Before l start, l am not technical at all. I have BT Broadband and am quite happy plodding along with it, OH thinking of getting a Firestick from Amazon to watch Sky Sports. Will this affect my BT Broadband router as I do not want to change anything, just want a simple life .... also when I watch Catch Up, is this using up more of my WiFi every month as BT mentioned they could see l am using more WiFi than usual. Hope this makes sense ..... answers in layman’s terms please....

[Buenchico]

As long as you know your wi-fi password, connecting your Fire TV stick to your router is an absolute doddle. You don't need to change anything on your router. Skip to 5m 45s in this video to see how easy it is (or watch the whole video for detailed information):

[bhg481]

To answer the second part of your question; yes, catch-up does use your broadband, so your usage will be up if you're watching it more than usual.

[Buenchico]

Anything which comes to your TV via your broadband connection (whether that's direct to a 'smart' TV for catch-up services, etc, or via a third-party device - such as an Amazon Fire TV stick - will contribute to your data usage). However very few broadband contracts have data limits on them these days; they're nearly all 'unlimited'. So, unless you've got a very old broadband contract with BT - which still caps your data unless you pay an additional fee - the amount of data you use shouldn't matter at all.

The only other consideration is the speed at which that data reaches you (rather than the total amount of data used). If you're still connected to the internet entirely by copper cables (using 'ADSL'), and particularly if you're some way from your local phone exchange, then you might still have a fairly slow broadband speed, meaning that there might be problems if you were trying to use catch-up to watch Corrie in one room (through your smart TV) while your OH was watching footie in another one (using the Fire TV stick connected to a different TV).

However most people now have fibre connections bringing the internet as far as the box out in the street (and then copper cables just for the last few metres into the house), meaning that several people can all be streaming different content simultaneously without any problems.

If you want to check your broadband speed, go here:
https://www.speedtest.net/
A download speed of 10 Mbps would probably be adequate for two people streaming video content simultaneously (even if, say, they were both watching services like Netflix in HD).

[smurfchops]

Thanks everyone. Also we have two TVs.. should two Firesticks? :)

[barry1010]

Yes, two firesticks. Don't forget other types are available if you don't want to be tied to Amazon. :) You can also get Sky Sports on a Now TV box - as that is owned by Sky I believe it will be much easier to watch Sky Sport on that than on a Firestick

[smurfchops]

Thanks everyone ... and can l watch Sky through a Firestick without a Sky subscription?

[barry1010]

No. Well you can but it involves sideloading apps and it is illegal.

[barry1010]

And it isn't guaranteed to work. Sky has ways of blocking those methods so you could faff about and find it doesn't work at all or only for a short while.
If you use a Now TV box a Sky pass is £25 a month (this goes up after 12 months) or £9.98 a day. If you have BT TV you can subscribe to Sky Sport through them.

[Buenchico]

You'll need some sort of a subscription to view any Sky channels, irrespective of the device you use.

As Barry has indicated, Now TV is owned by Sky, so their own TV stick might be the best option to stream Sky channels. You get a choice of 'passes', which you can buy singly or use together. An 'Entertainment' pass costs £9.99 per month and gets you these Sky channels:
Sky News
Sky One
Sky Atlantic
Sky History
Sky Arts
Sky Nature
Sky Witness
Sky Comedy
Sky Crime
Sky Documentaries
PLUS these channels:
MTV
Comedy Central
Fox
Discovery
National Geographic
SYFY
Gold
PLUS
you get access to loads of 'box sets'.
(You can also pay £3 extra for 'Boost', which allows you to watch in HD on up to 3 devices simultaneously. I've got a Now TV Smart Stick, together with an Entertainment Pass, myself and I'm very pleased with what I get for my money).

A Sky Cinema Pass costs £11.99 per month and gets you access to all 12 Sky Cinema channels.

A Sky Sports pass £25 per month for the first year and then £33.99 per month after that. You get access to all 11 Sky Sports channels.

(There are also other 'passes' for kids' TV programmes and for US reality TV programmes).

A Now Smart TV stick costs £24.99 and, even without any 'passes', it turns a 'non-smart' TV into a 'smart' one. (i.e. you gain apps for free services such as BBC iPlayer, ITV Hub, Youtube, etc, together with apps that you can use to subscribe to BT Sport, Netflix, etc). There's no long-term commitment involved with using any Now TV 'passes'. You can cancel your monthly payments (and then pick them up again later, if you want to) at any time.

[TrevorThePug]

I’m new to BT but why would you need a stick? The MyBT section of your Youview box has the Amazon App so couldn’t you just connect via that?

[TrevorThePug]

Sorry misread the Q. Ignore me :(

[smurfchops]

Thank you everyone for all your help x