FOXTEL HALTS NEW ACTIVATIONS BLAMES MICROSOFT DOH !
Still Happy to take credit card payments
By Mr_Internet
1 November 2010
Melbourne Australia
Foxtel Australia has just quietly launched their exclusive deal with Microsoft for TV Services over the Xbox 360. a week early, these new services due to go live on 8 November went live today 1 November 2010.
QUALIFICATION
Customers must have a 1.5mb Internet service, an Xbox gold membership account from Microsoft, a valid credit card, and live in an area serviced by the Foxtel xbox360 service.
Currently that area is slightly larger than the service area for Foxtel allowing customers that live in apartments or fringe areas that cannot get Foxtel to benefit even more from these new packages.
PACKAGES
Service is offered with 30 stations available in 5 different packages the selection is quite good offering a mandatory basic package for $19.50 per month, and additional entertainment, sports, movies, and ShowTime channels at packages ranging from $10 to $15 per month.
These can be chopped and changed and there are no contracts and no set-up charges. The total for all xbox360 packages is $75 per month as compared to $150 for the satellite service. Quality is able to be selected from low medium or high on the Xbox 360 Foxtel application, minimizing download speeds. Initial attempts to subscribe to the service has shown errors but Foxtel staff are keen and patient (almost bubbly) when contacted with problems logging it. Unfortunately Microsoft has announced a fast and mandatory global Xbox 360 update tomorrow 2 November, so it is not sure if that has been foreseen and managed by Foxtel when they did their staff training (on the current set-up) Foxtel staff that were contacted were not aware of the new imminent update from Microsoft.
All models of Xbox360 are supported including the new controller-less Kinect system but Foxtel says the Kinect (controller less set-up will not work with Foxtel at this time).
One benefit of this new service will be in areas such as homes and apartments not able to get regular Foxtel services.
Information is availble form the foxtel deidcated website here
Problems
Initial attempts to register by many customers have failed. It is not known how wide spread this issue is, but Foxtel is investigating.
Update:
2nd November 2010
Well there is either a problem or a problem . After foxtel took credit card details and investigated the problem customers had with their new ‘service’ senior techs we forced to call customers back to say it was an admin issue foxtel was having and not over loading as first reporting. Techs said registration should work now (which it did), in my case my mistake was to not then got to the xbox 360 with the tech on the phone.
Unfortunately the application never appeared in my xbox 360 nor has it for other customers .
Further calls to Foxtel took place and customers were now told the trial had not started yet. In my case I explained I had spent now 2 days with techs and I had registered and given credit card details.
I was then told it was a mistake and I would be notified by email and an icon in my xbox 360 would appear when the services was available. Well 30 minmues later an email appeared see below.
Further calls to support says these emails (as well as previous calls with techs) were all incorrect, and the service now I am told to be offered and supported by Microsoft not Foxtel, will begin on 8 November.
Foxtel had no support numbers or anything for Microsoft. The Foxtel website only offered Foxtel numbers and offered no Microsoft hand off
Foxtel continue to be plagued by miscommunication and problems on their service launches with staff and managers unable to answer the same questions twice with the same answers. For a service targeting new users and new subscribers Foxtel and Microsoft will have to do much better.
—–Original Message—–
From: no-reply@wc.foxtel.com.au [mailto:no-reply@wc.foxtel.com.au]
Sent: Tuesday, November 02, 2010 11:14 AM
To: ME
Subject: FOXTEL on Xbox 360
Welcome to FOXTEL on Xbox 360 <my name went here>
You have successfully registered to start renting FOXTEL On Demand programs.
To get started, follow these three simple steps:
1. Go to the Xbox LIVE Video Marketplace and download the FOXTEL application
2. Navigate to the FOXTEL application on your Xbox 360 console and open it
3. Sign in to your FOXTEL profile with your username, which is: mrinternet.
To make changes to your FOXTEL on Xbox 360 service, such as upgrading to view Live and Catch Up TV, please visit www.foxtel.com.au/secure/my-foxtel/my-xbox/default.htm.
Congratulations on registering with FOXTEL on Xbox 360 <myname again> it’s great to have you with us!
Regards,
The FOXTEL Team
Tech Net TV - 
nice site