The cafe
blog.

Between 10 October and 3 November 2026 we ran the same test on twenty IPTV services sold in Britain: one Premier League Saturday, one Champions League Tuesday and one Sunday 2pm game, all measured on the same 500 Mbps line in Manchester.

Four lines were recorded for each: picture (resolution and bitrate actually served), sound (original commentary, language, sync), dropouts (counted, not estimated) and kick-off delay (how far behind the live feed we were).

The result that mattered: eleven of the twenty dropped the stream at least once during the second half, and seven never served 1080p at all despite advertising 4K. Only four held a full match without an interruption — ours among them, which is the point of publishing the test.

The price picture is just as uneven. The advertised figure was the price actually paid by three services out of twenty; the rest raised it after one to three months. Ours is £12.49 month by month, £74 for a year and £118 for two years — £4.92 a month on the longest plan, with no change after a promotional period.

To watch the same fixtures legally in the UK you need Sky Sports (about £35 to £46 a month depending on the bundle), TNT Sports (£30.99), Premier Sports (£15.99 for the rugby) and a DAZN pass for the boxing — roughly £89 to £110 a month before broadband.

Over twelve months that is between £1,068 and £1,320. Our year plan is £74. The two-year plan is £118 in total, which works out at £4.92 a month — the price of one cinema ticket for two years of sport.

The comparison is not like for like, and we say so: we carry the international feeds of the same broadcasters rather than a UK retail subscription, which is why the price is different. What does not change is the commentary, the 4K where the broadcaster serves it, and the seven days of catch-up.

If a plan looks too cheap to be true, check three things: the price after the first three months, whether the Champions League is actually included, and whether there is a trial you can test before paying. Ours has all three written on the page.

Between 14:45 and 17:15 on a Saturday, UK broadcasters cannot show live domestic football. It is a rule designed to protect attendance in the lower leagues, and it applies to Sky Sports and TNT Sports just as much as to anyone else.

Our playlist carries the international feeds of the same broadcasters. In practice most 3pm fixtures do appear during the window — but we do not promise every single kick-off, and any service that does is guessing.

What is always available: the 12:30 kick-off, the 5:30 tea-time game, every Sunday fixture, the Champions League midweeks, and seven days of catch-up if you miss anything.

We would rather write that paragraph than quietly leave it out and deal with the complaints on a Saturday afternoon.

The 2026/27 Ashes runs from 21 November in Perth to 8 January in Sydney, with a day-night Test in Brisbane and the Boxing Day Test at the MCG in the middle.

Perth Tests start at 02:30 UK time, Brisbane at 04:00, and the Melbourne and Sydney Tests at 23:30 the night before — which is either perfect or impossible depending on your job.

The catch-up is the practical answer: every day's play is replayed in full and stays available for seven days, so a session you miss at 4am is waiting when you get up.

TNT Sports carries the series, and it is part of the same £4.92 plan as the Premier League and the darts.

Every fixture in the daily agenda comes from a live feed refreshed every six hours, then shown in UK time whatever region you are reading from.

The editorial calendar — the big dates, from Cheltenham to the Ashes — is written by hand from the governing body's published schedule. Where a league has not released exact dates, the entry is marked as a season window rather than guessed.

When a broadcaster moves a fixture, both lists get corrected and the correction stays visible: the old time is not quietly deleted.

That is the whole method. No prediction, no invented kick-off times, no 'TBC' hidden in a footnote.

Cafe 1505 opened in 2021 with one projector, forty chairs and a Saturday habit: the 12:30 kick-off, then the scores on the wall. The notebook started the same week.

By 2023 the notebook had become an argument. A regular added up what he paid to follow the Premier League, the Ashes and the darts and got £89 a month — and the Champions League still was not included.

So we did what the cafe knew how to do: measured twenty services, wrote down what held up, and built our own line with redundant servers and seven days of catch-up.

The service exists because the notebook got long enough. The prices are on the site in full, and the trial is 24 hours with no card because that is how we would want to be sold to.