Proximus or VOO: which TV subscription to choose?

If you are torn between Proximus and VOO, price comes second. The first question is which of the two actually runs past your home — and in a good half of cases, it has already decided for you. Here is the full head-to-head, judged on the thirteenth bill.

Which one actually serves your address?

Proximus, in almost every case. VOO, only if the cable runs down your street.

This is the structural difference between the two operators, and no commercial offer makes up for it. Proximus operates its own network across the whole Belgian territory: copper everywhere, fibre in a growing number of municipalities. VOO operates the historic cable network of Wallonia and Brussels, inherited from the tele-distribution inter-municipal companies. In Flanders, VOO does not exist.

I spent seven years installing set-top boxes on both sides, around Namur. What I saw most often was not the absence of a network: it was the gap between the map and the street. A coverage map often colours in an entire road when the connection actually stops at a specific house number, because the last stretch of works was never done. I made wasted call-outs for installations sold as “eligible”.

Which one costs less in the second year?

VOO, by roughly 5 to 10 EUR a month on a comparable TV + internet bundle.

But the interesting figure is not the gap between the two: it is the gap between what each one advertises and what each one bills after a year. Here are both offers side by side, at public tariffs surveyed on 12 August 2026, for a TV + internet bundle with no options.

Over twelve months, VOO saves around twenty euros. Over thirty-six months the gap grows to nearly 250 EUR, because the step up at month thirteen is steeper with Proximus. That is exactly the kind of difference that appears nowhere at the point of signing.

The promotion lasts twelve months. The full price lasts all the rest. It is the second one you should be comparing.

Which channels does VOO lack that Proximus includes?

Not the ones you would expect. The major Belgian channels and the main French channels appear in both base packages: that is the bedrock of any TV subscription in French-speaking Belgium, and no operator can afford to cut it.

The difference lies in catalogue depth. Because Proximus broadcasts the same package across the whole country, it negotiates rights at national scale and carries more thematic channels, documentaries and regional variants. VOO offers a shorter package but one more clearly oriented towards French-language content — which, for a household in Wallonia or Brussels, often matches actual viewing better.

One point few people check before signing: the channel list is not the same from one municipality to the next, with either operator. Carriage rights are negotiated network by network and area by area. On the same commercial offer, two customers fifteen kilometres apart may not receive the same catalogue.

What happens when the promotion ends?

The bill goes up, and nobody warns you with a dedicated letter.

The mechanism is identical with both: the entry promotion covers twelve months, then the full price applies automatically. The increase appears on the thirteenth month's statement, buried in a bill that looks like every other one. That is why so many Belgian households discover the rise three or four months after it started.

Two things to do, each taking ten minutes:

• Note the contract anniversary date in your calendar, at month eleven. It is the only alarm that works.
• Call customer service before the deadline. Both operators have retention margins, and a customer who calls before the increase gets an extension more easily than one who complains afterwards.

If renegotiation fails, Belgian law is on your side: commitment on telecoms contracts is capped at six months. Beyond that you leave with no break fee, and the only charges remaining relate to unreturned equipment — set-top box, modem, remote. Keep the box and the delivery note.

How do you switch from one to the other without downtime?

Through Easy Switch, the Belgian operator-transfer scheme. The principle: you do not cancel yourself. You sign with the new operator, hand over your Easy Switch number (it appears on your bill), and they organise the cancellation and the handover.

This avoids the most common trap, the one I saw regularly on installations: the customer cancels on their own side, the new connection takes three weeks, and they end up either without TV or billed twice. With Easy Switch, downtime is in principle reduced to a few hours on switchover day.

Two things to watch: return the old operator's equipment within the stated deadline, and check that your sport option, if you had one, is cancelled separately. Options run month by month and do not always follow the main contract.

For the full picture of all six Belgian operators, including Telenet, Orange, Scarlet and Base, see the TV subscription ranking or go straight to the comparator.