Sky renewal too expensive - should misses do new sign up

I'm paying £30/m for Sky ultrafast 145mbs which is due for renewal in 6 weeks. Renewal offer is £46/m minus £3 'loyalty' discount. However, new customers can get £29/m - [censored]!

So, I'm thinking, have the misses sign up, she'd be a new customer (bill payer), so I don't see any issue. Thoughts?

In reply to a post by aks:

I'm paying £30/m for Sky ultrafast 145mbs which is due for renewal in 6 weeks. Renewal offer is £46/m minus £3 'loyalty' discount. However, new customers can get £29/m - [censored]!

So, I'm thinking, have the misses sign up, she'd be a new customer (bill payer), so I don't see any issue. Thoughts?

If you have Sky TV products in your name I don't think you can then have another Sky account at the same address for Broadband in another name. Things may have changed but that was my understanding from the past. Also that £46 price you're quoting doesn't sound right to me it sounds more like the out of contract price.

I don't have any other Sky products, just the broadband.

Tell me about the ridiculous price hike - currently £30/m, but yes, the new 'discounted price it is indeed £43 (I can't add a screenshot, so here is a text copy):

Ultrafast
147.3-148.3 Mb/s estimated download speed
100 Mb/s minimum guaranteed speed
28.7-29.7 Mb/s estimated upload speed
Sky Pay As You Talk

This package gives you the freedom to make as many calls as you want or not talk at all.
£46/ £43 a month

Prices may change during contract. 24 months contract,£43 then £46 a month thereafter. £10 one-off cost.

In reply to a post by aks:

I don't have any other Sky products, just the broadband.

Tell me about the ridiculous price hike - currently £30/m, but yes, the new 'discounted price it is indeed £43 (I can't add a screenshot, so here is a text copy):

Ultrafast
147.3-148.3 Mb/s estimated download speed
100 Mb/s minimum guaranteed speed
28.7-29.7 Mb/s estimated upload speed
Sky Pay As You Talk

This package gives you the freedom to make as many calls as you want or not talk at all.
£46/ £43 a month

Prices may change during contract. 24 months contract,£43 then £46 a month thereafter. £10 one-off cost.

You need to try haggling with Sky, and regard the renewal offer as an opening bid.

Research other providers prices, then armed with this call Sky up or go on live chat amd say you are thinking of leaving for Provider X, and quote Provider X's new customer prices and see if Sky can match them or offer something similar.

Thanks, I will give that a try too. So far, I've gone looking myself (rather than receiving a notification), so I'll wait a few more days before pushing this path harder.

My other concern, is Sky offer 145mbs (g.fast?), whereas the other providers do not. Perhaps not a real impact, but I don't want to give that up !

If thats true then thats absolutely crazy by Sky and they have the cheek to quote a £10 one off cost as well which I have only every seen for new customers for the Sky router which you will already have. As suggested I would do some research and call and ask to be put through to retentions as that price hike is massive for a re-contract. Good luck mate and I hope some how you find a better solution than Sky.

Thanks, I'm hoping this is just a system automation 'issue', and that my true renewal price will be significantly lower - I'm awaiting the actual renewal notice, I've just been digging around the Sky account and saw the contract ending soon - which is acyually end/Aug.

Of course, I'll jump through hoops if it stays this high, or ultimately I'll just leave and move on if they don't budge.

In reply to a post by aks:

My other concern, is Sky offer 145mbs (g.fast?), whereas the other providers do not. Perhaps not a real impact, but I don't want to give that up !

If you're on G.fast (not FTTP) then indeed your choices are extremely limited these days. Are you sure the Sky new customer price you're comparing with isn't just for FTTP?

G.fast is pretty unreliable and hence expensive for providers to support; most of them have given it up. There is a thread from last year here. I thought IDNet did but I don't see it on their price list, ditto Pulse8. There are expensive business options like Cerberus.

In some ways you're lucky that Sky are happy to keep you on it. Maybe you just need to suck up the G.fast price for a couple of years, and hope that FTTP comes along.

I switched away from Sky earlier in the year but the offer I had from Sky for my FTTP was to continue out of contract at the same price as I was paying while in contract. I chose to move as that was the only way to have a good price reduction of about £9 a month from what I had been paying Sky for the same speed.

Yes I'm on the FTTC not FTTP "Sky Ultrafast 145mbs", no sign of full fibre in my street yet - I checked again to see progress, nada unfortunately!

I wouldn't hold my breath too much. We tried the "new customers get this offer" tack many times. They told us there would be something more they could do for us if we took Sky Stream, we had Q and wanted the recording facility. At the time, Sky were offering 500 speeds to new customers for £18pm, the best offer I could get was £29.99. We tried haggling even up to the day of disconnection, but they wouldn't budge. My Plusnet line is working fine now and making do with Freeview and a NOW TV box at significantly lower price (but no recording!).

I also found that TalkTalk still offer new Gfast connections, they quoted £35/m for 24m contract with price rises each April.

In reply to a post by binary:

You need to try haggling with Sky, and regard the renewal offer as an opening bid.

This. I got a much better offer when communicating with a human at Sky.

Sorry guys only just joined the forum.

Sky tried to up my broadband to the £46pm. When I phoned to cancel I was offered Ultrafast Broadband for £33pm as Fibre had just become available in my street. No installation costs. I accepted the offer and now have triple the speed and stronger WiFi so I am satiisfied until the threatened increase becomes a reality and round and round we'll go.

Thanks everyone for the thoughts, here is the latest update:

Online via my account and email end of contract 'offer', Sky maintained the £46/m with £3 discount for a new 2Y contract. Nope!

I called and haggled, first offer £6 discount, then quickly £10 discount, so £36/m. I told them that's not going to work, and pointed out new customer deal is £30/m, so the agant said "let me see what I can do by checking another server" - huh. Anyway, she came back with £16/m discount, making my new 2Y deal exactly the same as what I am paying now, that is £30/m.

Edited by aks (Wed 21-Aug-24 18:35:20)

I left Sky after 20 years as I am longer prepared to play childish games every 18months/2 years to get a reduced monthly cost. In truth, we are missing the flexibility offered by Sky recording but little else. The monthly cost saved allows us to dip in and out of streaming services (currently paying £0.99/month for MGM+) whilst saving a significant amount of money. I see that Sky is forecasting a significant drop in its customer base as more people cut the cord.

The messing around does pee me off, but the other big names do the exact same thing. I would have jumped to Plusnet (I've switched between Sky and PN for the best deals/cashback over the past several years), but, Plusnet have adopted the new 'simplified' BT price increase strategy of +£3 every 31/March - which is over 11.5% increase, again, nope!

Unfortunately, these providers want to attract new customers, so they do deals, but that means someone is also losing a customer. It just creates unnecessary frustration.

I only have Sky for broadband, I specifically get a g.fast 145Mbps connection, which I am very happy with.

I think you've done quite well there because the price you're quoting for a new customer is based on FTTP, which costs Sky £16.94. Your G.fast will be £14.02 plus £10.41 for the copper line, all ex-VAT. Sky then have their own costs on top of this to actually connect the exchange to their network and provide you a service.

Thanks, I've had this g.fast connection for the past 18 months, needed a new terminal box installed by BTopenreach at that time. The package is "Sky Broadband Ultrafast 1".

I would switch to a full fibre connection if it was available, and it seems many ISP's are offering full fibre FTTP cheaper than copper FTTC now. I hope the roll out reaches me before next renewal in 2 years time .

In reply to a post by jpm:

I think you've done quite well there because the price you're quoting for a new customer is based on FTTP, which costs Sky £16.94. Your G.fast will be £14.02 plus £10.41 for the copper line, all ex-VAT. Sky then have their own costs on top of this to actually connect the exchange to their network and provide you a service.

These days it will be SOGFast. For 160/30 it's 272.04 per year = 22.67 per month, and for 330/50 it's 323.64 per year = 26.97 per month, all ex-VAT, but no separate copper line rental.

https://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/prici...

Yeah but in the context of the service the OP likely has, it would be the WLR3-based product. I don't know of many providers that bothered updating their ordering systems to buy SOGFAST - our Gamma account manager was quite explicit that they don't offer it on purpose and were never going to, despite offering G.fast on WLR almost as soon as BTW launched it.

How do I check the exact service detail?

I had the price rise to £33/m from April 2025, but could leave if I wanted. So I called them again. Long and short of it, I'm now on a new 24m deal at £26/m - they have a "Full Fibre 150" offer for new customers (and "loyal customers" too it seems) at that price and they matched that.

To clarify, I still can't get FTTP, this is a G.fast 160/30 connection, the TBB deals page suggests:

Wholesale Provider Details Provider Name Wholesale Product Technology
Sky Sky FTTP 330 FTTP
Sky Sky GFast 160 GFast

And the availability checker says Openreach G.fast enabled.

The FTTP map shows many/most streets nearby have full fibre, but my street does not !