sky terms and condition changes august 2014

so i was a BE user with a bt phone line
i got a great deal to pay £12 a month for phone and broadband but 12 month contract
seeing as i was paying more than £30 a month with BE and BT it was a no brainer
as i always intended to switch to a fiber connection at a later date and made a mistake thinking sky covered my area ..... stupid mistake on my part as i was using the wrong post code checking deals for a friend.

so today i receive a letter from sky saying my terms and conditions have changed
this is part of the "notices" section.
does the law allow me to cancel my contract because of this change ? ... i got out of an old AOL contract due to changes but that was many years ago, incidentally it was when i switched to BE best move Ive ever made !

Ive looked on citizens advice about t&c changes and it only mentions price increases
as a get out clause ... anyone know if the old rules still apply or am i stuck with sky
until my contract runs out next year ?
ive been with them for about 4 months i think but the speed is 4mb slower than i used to get with BE and i really need fiber for uploading videos to youtube .... im sick of having to wait 5 hr's to upload a 2gb file.

The change is what?

If the changes cause you material disadvantage you can leave within the 'changes' notice period.

But Sky would have said that in the email if they would, so they probably don't.

Edited by XRaySpeX (Tue 19-Aug-14 23:27:22)

If BT can offer you fibre, then Sky would be able to as well. Why not just upgrade to fibre with them?

Sky may not have full LLU at the exchange the phone goes to, and thus not want to offer the service.

The only change seems to be the way you contact Sky to end your contract so no get-out I'm afraid.

ETA image of change to terms

http://i60.tinypic.com/2ry1w85.jpg

Edited by IanBB (Wed 20-Aug-14 13:18:44)

Had the same letter, but was just wanting to check.

I don't see anyway that the change can be viewed as detrimental to the end-user, which is the test that is applied.

Pretty certain it is as the op states "this is part of the "notices" section.

thanks for the replies, i came to the same conclusion after talking to my friend who is a lawyer, oh well stuck with sky until next year then ..... im in brighton and use the hove exchange ........ doh ! seems sky fiber is now available ..... there was only virgin and plusnet available 2 days ago. seemed a bit odd that the choice was so limited.
but i still dont like the sky prices or speed offered at a quick glance, need to compare deals now, may have to wait regardless.

In reply to a post by crunchyf123:

seemed a bit odd that the choice was so limited.

You have TT Fibre there as well, as well as myriad BTw-based ISPs.

I got out of my Sky contract by reminding them that when I offered to join they assured me that I would not notice any change in speed from being with O2.. Like you my speed at best was about 4 megs instead of the 7/8 megs I was getting with O2 and they agreed that as they couldn't supply what was promised they let me out of my contract and I still had Sky HD+ for the rest of the contract at no cost..... Result !

Your case was detrimental to you so normal get-out clause applies.

In reply to a post by FraserSoft:

Like you my speed at best was about 4 megs instead of the 7/8 megs I was getting with O2

I bet DLM failed to start up which left your line on the default 4 Mbps. It does happen because it's unusual for the speed with Sky to be so far off from what you used to get. Usually it's no more than 1 or 2 Mbps lower.