Sky Broadband Deals

I just got a letter from Sky today, they say they will give me Sky Broadband Connect for a full year for free if i take out one of their packages.

From what i gather they want me to take out phone line rental with them and their entertainment pack for £19.50 a month. I gather they will install a dish and Sky + box for free.

Now at the moment i am with Zen internet and Talk Talk for the phone and use Freesat HD, i have a 1.2 meter dish and quad LNB for around the house coverage of the satellite.

I pay around £15.50 for Talk Talk which includes free international calls anytime of the day to many countries including the USA. ( hang up after one hour and re-call )

I pay a little over £18 for Zen lite which is their 10 gigabyte package.

So in total thats around £34 a month for both not including any additional calls i make.

With the Sky offer i could potentially get their line rental international calls package for £17.50 and Entertainment pack for £19.50, so that's £37 a month.

It's tempting as i assume i will have a free dish, satellite receiver, router etc and after a year i can cancel the contract for Sky entertainment but keep their phone and internet package.

The thing is, what i would really like is their HD pack for £10.25 a month BUT i want that without paying for the Sky Entertainment pack at £19.50 a month, so is it possible to negotiate with the Sky sales team and get the HD pack without subscribing to the entertainment pack. ? I mean if one only wants HD content then why do i need to buy standard definition content first.

Also, i pay Talk Talk £3.50 for free international calls, do you think Sky would negotiate on this and drop their price from £5 to £3.50 to match the Talk Talk price.

The other thing is the letter states a Sky + box but shows a picture of a Sky + HD box, i assume if one wanted their HD package they would send an HD box and after a year one could potentially cancel the contract and have an HD box for use with Channel 4, Channel 5, BBC and ITV, or am i wrong. ?

I know the recording facility would stop if i cancelled any contract, incidentally another thing, i have a really good HD projection system and a 104inch size screen, can one record a programme in HD off a Sky HD box and unplug it and take the box into my dedicated room to view the HD content on the big screen or does it need to be connected to a phone line to allow viewing of the HD content, i assume the box has an HDMI and optical or digital audio out socket.

I suppose i'm really wanting opinion of others on whether this is a good deal and are Sky sales open to negotiation on the packages one can take out as i only want their HD package and do not want to pay extra for a standard definition entertainment pack.

Another appeal for me is the possibility of getting Channel five and ITV 2,3,4 in HD for free even when any subscription runs out.

Edited by deleted (Wed 01-Jun-11 17:35:37)

No such thing as a free lunch (or free sky)

You need to SKY BB, SKY Talk, SKY Talk Anytime, Sky talk International, Sky ent pack, SKY HD pack and then multiroom. This is more than what you have now.

You have the numbers:
Line rental+international: £17.50
SKY tv no movies: £19.50
SKY HD (but no movies HD): £10.15 on TOP of ent tv pack, not instead of
SKY Broadband, freefor 2G or £10 unlimited.

$ky - the Debtor Effect

Might i just add the reason you cant just have the HD pack is you only get the HD equivalent of what you subscribe to. So if you only have the entertainment pack + HD sub ud only get the HD channels from the entertainment pack you would not get any of the others EG syfy HD discovery HD and so on.

Also the only free HD channels you get are BBC HD BBC 1 HD ITV HD 4 HD five HD and a Japanese news channel in HD you dont get ITV 2 3 4 oe E4 HD unless u pay the 10.25 HD pack sub.

Hope this gives you a bit of info to help you decide

Ash

EDIT
click here this tells you what channel is in what pack

Edited by acpsd775 (Wed 01-Jun-11 18:46:18)

Unfortunately i can only get Sky connect here, the local exchange is not unbundled yet.

As for Sky HD channels, well the thing is, why can't they provide me the HD channels for £19.50 a month, why do i have to pay them an extra £10.50 for them. By that i mean i could get them in standard definition for £19.50, so can they not provide me them in HD for the same money, i feel it's an option they should provide.

I guess i'm asking if Sky sales are open to negotiation on this, has anyone tried negotiating with them or do they not enter into negotiations at all.

It's less attractive a deal when i have to pay that additional £10 for the HD channels but i'd be willing to pay the equivalent £19.50 ( for entertainment pack ) if i could get the channels in HD.

These things look attractive but can soon start adding up, i don't need the HD movie channels, i'm happy with my blu ray ( when they don't muck them up with outdated masters and DNR and EE ) and Blockbuster rentals, some television in HD would be good though.

Would i get to keep the HD box at the end of the 12 month contract. ? That might make the extra £10.50 feasible if it got me freesat hd channels after the contract ended.

Edited by deleted (Wed 01-Jun-11 19:05:06)

Ive tried and tried to get the HD channel sub nocked off i even argued the fact that when i was with virgin media the HD channels were free and they just basically said yea but virgin dont offer as many HD channels as we do so they do it free to get custom and basically if you dont want to pay dont have them .

i was like well thats a nice way to treat the customers.

With the box yes you get to keep it once youve got it its yours for ever it turns into a freesat from sky box(different from BBC/ITV freesat) if you cancel your subscription you get about 240 channels but the sky+ features stop working you still get BBC HD BBC1 HD ITV HD 4HD five HD free if you have the paid HD channels cut off. Hope this helps

Ash

Ok Zen have a good reputation as a ISP so do Sky ??? no wait .. Sky Connect service has a rubbish reputation because its a rubbish over subscribed bit of doggy doo .

Would i give up a well managed resold BT product from Zen for Sky excuse of a resold BT product ? take a guess .

It can't ever be as bad as Virgin ADSL, when i was with them my download speeds during peak time were capped at around 25kbp/s, that's despite not downloading anything to get put on a speed cap.

Actually Sky Connect is about on par with Virgin Media ADSL, and O2 Access I would dare to suggest, i.e. avoid like plague

I guess i'll not be taking Sky up on their offer then because i just cannot work on my website and enjoy the internet with such poor speeds ( its the lag factor that is really annoying ) it'll be late next year before i get the chance to look at Sky unlimited because thats when my local cabinet is supposed to be upgraded.

Edited by deleted (Thu 02-Jun-11 15:34:02)