Free to air decoders are cost-free as the name suggests, once you own one! you don’t need to worry about monthly payments and recharges to watch your favorite local channels. On the contrary, paid decoders ship with monthly charges where you need to cope with at least UGX 10,000 or more to watch the same local channels spiced up with a few external stations too.
In case you have always wanted to buy a digital decoder for your TV in order to have full access to all channels. We have a section of tips as to why you should buy a free to air decoder instead of a Startimes, GoTV or satellite dish paid decoder.
The Price of a free to air decoder
A brand new GoTv full kit goes for around 85,000/= in Uganda and the price of a Startimes decoder still teases around 35,000/=. Contrary to the paid versions, a nice free to air decoder costs around 70,000/= in Uganda depending on the manufacturer. Majority of the decoders don’t cost beyond 110,000/= which makes them a little costly but worth it with no monthly fees.
No monthly charges
All PayTv providers have a monthly charge attached to their bouquets. The story with free to air decoders is on the opposite track of monthly recharges. Once you buy a free to air decoder, don’t expect to pay any monthly fees whatsoever in order to watch your favorite local channels.
A 100% clear reliable connection
During serious environmental disorders like rain and heavy winds, expect you TV decoder to have a jumpy connection and scratched CD like images. However, forget this if you have a free to air decoder because no central servers exist between your decoder to the provider.
On a paid decoder, a central server provides you with a TV connection and changes in weather can disrupt this connection making it unreliable to conveniently watch TV. So, with a free to air decoder, no servers exist in your connection and all you get is a 100% reliable connection to conveniently watch TV.
Affordable for a lifetime
Worried about paying for TV together with your monthly utility bills, choose a free to air decoder and only worry about the latter. As a fact, once you get yourself a good free to air decoder, don’t expect any additional fees till when you are tired of watching TV and feel like watching international premium channels off a Satellite provider.
Clear TV Quality as sent by the broadcaster
High Definition (HD) is the quality many TV Stations broadcast in and send out as a signal. However, paid decoders have central servers that determine the quality you receive on your decoder.
With a free to air decoder, you get the proper picture quality as sent from a broadcasting station. So, if your favorite local channel has HD programs, get ready to catch them in the same quality if your free to air decoder is further an HD version as well.
In a nutshell, free to air decoder are good, but we highly suggest that you should get an HD free to air decoder. Either way, most decoders are HD compatible the same way LED TVs ship inbuilt free to air decoders on purchase. Nonetheless, look out for the full list of free to air channels in Uganda we shall list in our next article.