Well done Freesat on hitting a million customers in just 18 months! 250 000 customers were gained from November to March and other figures released show that 40% of that magic million are ex-Sky subscribers. Freesat is available on select models from the Panasonic range of Viera TVs and select range of LG TVs and sold as receivers and recorders from the likes of Bush, Ferguson, Goodmans, Grundig, Humax, Metronic, Sagem and Technisat.

Customers thus have a good choice of manufacturers from which to choose from but what do they actually get?

Currently Freesat only offers two HD channels (BBC HD and ITV HD) and approximately 140 other channels but they have their work cut out to increase their market share.

Sky offer more than 30 HD channels, but at a cost, Virgin offer 10 HD channels and the new kid on the block, Freeview HD offers 3 HD channels.

Freeview HD is in its infancy and only is only broadcast from 6 transmitters throughout the Country as of todays date 4 June 2010, London; Manchester; Leeds and Bradford; Durham and Teeside; Glasgow and Edinburgh and Birmingham. Freeview hope to bring more HD transmitters online before the World Cup but given the fact that the timetable is only due to complete in late 2012 they cannot truly offer a potential customer a valid choice unless they are lucky enough to be in range of one of the current HD transmitters.

Virgin are the only current cable provider and rather like the situation with Freeview HD, unless you are in an existing cable area you really are out of luck. Which is a pity because the cable option offers you TV/Broadband/Telephony at competitive rates and the Broadband in particular is served as a 1:1 contention ratio - offering you a fixed speed, unlike Broadband that is delivered through the phone.

So thus we are left with the two satellite platforms, Sky and Freesat.

Irrespective of which you ultimately choose, since you are fed from the same fleet of Astra 2 satellites, the compression ratio of broadcasts is low. If you were to view, for example, a program on BBC HD on Sky/Freesat and the same program on Freeview HD, you would immediately see evidence of the high compression of the latter evident as artefacts (blocks).

The other drawback with Freeview HD that is evident due to squeezing as many channels they can down a limited bandwidth, is the lack of Dolby Digital surround sound. Rather like paying homage to the 1980s, Freeview HD has decided, due to the constraints mentioned, that plain vanilla stereo will have to do and you can now enjoy TV in 'quadrophonic' sound. Which as it names suggests is pretty lame and very dissapointing - good image, rubbish sound.

Hence, what does Freesat offer that would entice customers to their platform?

Uncompressed HD channels offering fantastic picture quality over the other platforms and served up in glorious Dolby Digital surround sound for one.

Sky+ type recording if you purchase one of the recorders, and vast amounts of storage served up on the Humax Foxsat-HDR 1TB recorder for two.

BBC iPlayer and ITV iPlayer (due to launch soon) for three.

The World Cup 2010 in pin sharp HD available on BBC HD and ITV HD for four.

For many customers, reason four is justification enough to bring home the excitement, razzmatazz and glory of the World Cup.

In a time of credit crunch it seems natural that customers who subscribe to Sky and typically pay £30 to £40 a month are tempted by Freesat's promise of no fees for ever.

With the simple operation of removing the satellite cable from the Sky receiver and plugging it directly into a Freesat TV or receiver/recorder, the temptation is just to easy to say no to.

As the old adage goes, 'you pay your money and you take your chances.'

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