Since it does everything over a standard broadband connection, it’s not susceptible to rain fade – as long as your internet is working, even the heaviest rainclouds can’t stop the signal (Mal).

Unfortunately, just like rain fade, it’s failures do align with external events where you most want to watch TV:

• When it’s wet and dreary outside (Doesn’t work reliably on Sky)
• When your internet connection is having issues (Doesn’t work on Vodafone).

It does, however, mean that each channel is essentially a live stream transcoded for the Vodafone TV box. In the same way that you can jump about / timeshift a live stream on Youtube, you can do that with each channel provided.

Conversely, for the two people left in New Zealand that don’t know: Sky delivers its television over satellite feed – which is just as cool from a technology perspective: your TV is coming frooooom spaaaaaace! Both have their advantages and disadvantages and Sky / Freeview satellite is still the only choice for the middle of nowhere where internet delivery is still well behind national average.

The Vodafone is entirely internet based, whereas the Sky box has 4 internal satellite tuners to capture broadcast television waves in a reflective dish and focus them onto a point that the decoder turns into moving images and sound. Since satellite is delivered on transponders and each transponder can carry multiple streams (channels), you can do some fairly cool stuff with the hardware (although SKY won’t let you, because, you know – profits + licensing).