Vodafone has announced Vodafone TV, a new set-top box that pulls live streaming channels from Freely, Netflix, HBO Max, streaming apps and cloud gaming into a single place.
It arrives in October, and on paper it looks like a serious attempt to take on Sky, Virgin Media and the rest.
There’s just one problem, and it’s a big one: Vodafone hasn’t told us what it costs.
That might sound like a detail we can fill in later, but with a bundle like this, the price isn’t a detail – it’s the whole story.
Everything Vodafone TV includes is already available elsewhere, often for less, so whether this is worth a second look comes down entirely to a number Vodafone has chosen not to share yet.
More on that in a moment.
What Vodafone TV Actually Is
At the centre of it all is a small plug-in box running Android TV, with 4K, Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos on board.
Vodafone describes it as “small but mighty”, and it’s kitted out with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of storage to keep things moving.
One thing Vodafone has been quieter about: it didn’t build any of this itself. As ISPreview was first to notice, the platform comes from Netgem, the French company that supplies ready-made TV systems to operators across Europe – and the same company that’s behind the Pleio Freely box.
And Netgem isn’t just providing the software, it’s running the service day to day under a multi-year deal (more on that below).
The pitch is aggregation – the same idea Sky, Virgin and pretty much everyone else has landed on.
Rather than making you hop between apps and inputs, Vodafone TV puts live TV, on-demand, streaming services, games and the Google Play Store behind one interface, with an AI-powered search and voice control (via Google Assistant) to help you find something to watch.
There’s also a companion app, so you can start something at home and carry on watching on your phone when you head out.
And Vodafone is pushing its new SuperMobile and 5G+ service alongside it, on the promise of smoother streaming when you’re away from the house.
Here’s what you get on the box at launch:
Netflix and HBO Max included – though it’s worth flagging that these are the ad-supported tiers (Netflix Standard with Ads, HBO Max Standard with Ads), not the ad-free versions.
Freely built in, streaming more than 70 live channels plus catch-up from the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, 5 and others, with no aerial or dish needed.
150-plus additional live channels on top of Freely’s line-up (presumably streaming channels with adverts).
300-plus cloud games, playable with a Bluetooth controller or using your phone as a pad.
Vodafone Box Office for renting or buying films.
The Google Play Store, for adding thousands of apps yourself.
Subscription+, which lets you bolt on Disney+, YouTube Premium, DAZN, Spotify and Prime Video on 30-day rolling terms.
It’s a lot, and the flexibility of adding and dropping services month to month is welcome. But almost none of it is unique to Vodafone, which brings us back to the question that matters.
Why The Price Is The Whole Ballgame
Let’s do the maths that any sensible person would do before signing up.
Freely is free. You can get onto it today by buying a standalone box outright – the Manhattan Aero is £89.99, a one-off cost with no monthly fee for the core service.
Netflix and HBO Max are both available directly, on whatever tier you like, and you can start and stop them whenever you please.
Add those two to a cheap Freely box and you’ve assembled most of what Vodafone TV offers, on your own terms, with no strings attached.
So the question Vodafone has to answer is simple: why would anyone pay them for this instead?
There’s a real answer, and it’s convenience. One box, one bill, one interface, everything talking to everything else, month-to-month add-ons, the companion app – that’s worth something to plenty of households, especially ones who don’t want to think about it.
We’ve made this exact point about Sky before, in our look at whether Sky is good value: the value of a bundle isn’t only the content, it’s not having to manage the content.
But convenience only wins if the price is right. If Vodafone TV lands somewhere competitive – roughly in line with what you’d pay assembling the pieces yourself, or close to it – then it’s a reasonable proposition, and the tidiness of it all becomes a real selling point.
If it’s priced at a premium, and you work out you could get a Freely box plus Netflix and HBO Max standalone for less, the whole thing falls apart.
At that point you’d be paying extra for the privilege of a Vodafone logo on your home screen.
We simply can’t judge that yet, because Vodafone hasn’t said. More details are promised in the coming weeks, and the answer will tell you everything about whether this is worth pondering or worth ignoring.
The Catch: You Have To Be A Vodafone Customer
Here’s the part that reframes the whole “Sky rival” angle you’ll see elsewhere.
You can’t just buy Vodafone TV. It’s only available to Vodafone customers on a home broadband, 5G Broadband or mobile plan – and, going by the small print, a qualifying 24-month one at that. No Vodafone plan, no Vodafone TV.
That makes this a bonus-bundling play, and it puts Vodafone in the same lane as Virgin Media and EE TV rather than Sky.
Virgin’s TV service sits on top of Virgin broadband and isn’t sold to anyone else – something that came through clearly when we spoke to Virgin Media’s TV boss.
EE TV works the same way. Vodafone is doing exactly this – using TV as a reason to take (or keep) a Vodafone broadband or mobile plan, and as a reason not to leave.
Sky plays a different game. Sky Stream will sell to anyone, on any broadband, from any provider – you don’t have to be a Sky broadband customer to get it.
That’s a fundamentally broader offer. So while the headlines will pit Vodafone against Sky, the two aren’t really chasing the same customer in the same way.
Vodafone is competing for its own subscribers’ loyalty, and for households already weighing up a Vodafone plan, far more than it’s competing for the open market.
To be fair, Vodafone leans into this. It’s billing itself as the only mobile network operator in the UK to bundle TV with both mobile and mobile broadband – a nod to the fact that you can get this on a mobile plan, not just fixed home broadband.
Whether that flexibility matters to you depends on how you get your internet. But the underlying point stands: this is a perk for Vodafone customers, not a service for everyone.
Vodafone Didn’t Build This – Netgem Did
Here’s what really stands out, and it’s easy to miss under all the Netflix-and-HBO-Max noise.
Vodafone didn’t build this platform. It licensed it – from Netgem, the same company behind the standalone Pleio Freely box we’ve covered plenty.
This isn’t a Pleio, to be clear: it runs on Netgem’s platform, which the company supplies to operators, so expect something related but not identical to the box you can buy yourself.
Either way, the whole thing runs on Netgem’s tech – the interface, the Freely integration, the 150-plus channels, the box office, the 300-plus games.
And Netgem isn’t only supplying the software: under a multi-year deal, it’s operating the service day to day, content and all. Vodafone’s job is essentially to put its name on the front and sell it to its customers.
That’s a real contrast with everyone else. Sky, Virgin Media and EE TV all built their own live-channel solutions and chose to own that layer.
Sky has Sky Stream and its own guide, Virgin has its Stream box, and EE TV took its own route too (with a second option being an app on Apple TV).
Vodafone looked at all that effort and decided not to bother, taking an off-the-shelf platform instead.
And because it’s built on Netgem’s platform, Freely comes baked in for the free-to-air channels.
For anyone who hasn’t followed our Freely coverage: Freely is the broadband-delivered successor to Freeview, run by Everyone TV (the same people behind Freeview and Freesat).
It delivers the main public service channels and dozens more over the internet, in a single guide with seven days of catch-up, no aerial required.
It’s been growing fast, and it’s increasingly seen as the way free telly will work once the old Freeview aerial network eventually winds down – a shift the government has pencilled in for no earlier than 2034, as Freely takes over.
And this is potentially good news for Freely. One of the biggest challenges facing the platform is simply getting onto more devices.
As we explained when we dug into the cost of running Freeview’s transmitters, the broadcasters behind Freely care enormously about being built into as much hardware as possible – because Freely is the one place where they control the guide, the channel order and how prominently BBC One and ITV appear, rather than leaving it to Amazon or anyone else.
Every new box with Freely inside is another win on that front – and Netgem selling this same platform on to operators is a route onto plenty more of them.
Building a live-TV platform is expensive and hard to get right, and Netgem’s platform already exists, already works and already carries the channels people expect. So why reinvent the wheel?
What About The Games?
Vodafone is making some noise about the 300-plus cloud games on the box, playable without a console. It’s a fair feature to have, but it’s worth keeping expectations in check.
Gaming on streaming boxes has quietly become a standard checkbox rather than a reason to buy.
There’s a neat irony here, too. The Netgem Pleio – which is still a rival standalone Freely box – comes from the very same company now running Vodafone’s platform, so Vodafone’s cloud gaming is coming from the same place that powers the Pleio’s.
Elsewhere, the Manhattan Aero recently added a cloud gaming service of its own with more than 1,000 titles, and Amazon keeps pushing its Luna service on Fire TV.
Against those, Vodafone’s 300-plus games looks fairly modest.
The bigger question is whether anyone really wants to game on their TV box in the first place. It’s still not clear there’s a large audience of people who’ll pick a TV platform because of the games on it, rather than the telly.
Nice to have, then – but unlikely to be the thing that sways anyone.
So, Is It Worth It?
For now, the honest answer is: ask again when we know the price.
If Vodafone TV is competitively priced – at least as keen as the big Sky bundle, and ideally close to what the individual pieces would cost you separately – then it’s a tidy, flexible package with a sensible Freely foundation, and it’ll be worth a look for anyone already with Vodafone.
If it’s expensive, it’s hard to see the argument over simply buying a Freely box and adding Netflix and HBO Max yourself for less.
Either way, this isn’t really a Sky rival in the way it’ll be sold. It’s a loyalty perk for Vodafone customers, in the mould of Virgin Media and EE TV – and a nice boost for Freely along the way.
It’s also one more sign of how the market is consolidating around a handful of big players, something we saw again when Sky agreed to buy ITV’s media arm.
Vodafone TV launches in October. We’ll update our coverage once the pricing is confirmed.
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