In reply to a post by ScubaGirl:

A lot of people to criticise the poor facilities on the Sky router firmware for parental controls.

Good point! I forgot about controlling parents!

What's the deal with work traffic?

I think even just a few years ago Sky's own router was a good idea for the average user, and it mirrored their Satellite box model. However, times and demands have changed. Even your average Joe and average family now has a real need for QoS, port forwarding, VPN tunnelling etc.

Still, I don't know what all the fuss of this thread is. You know when you sign up that you technically have no choice of your own router. If you're out of warranty with your router, you're also out of contract with your broadband and are free to leave if you dont like the replacement cost. If you bought your own router with another ISP, you would have to buy or repair that one too just like you have to with Sky. The comparable cost for this is not just reasonable, it is actually a bargain. An equivalent router with wireless performance of the 2-spatial stream 2504N would cost at least twice the £35 Sky charge their customers.

Market forces and customer retention and reputation do keep costs in check. It's the same for specialised replacement parts in consumer goods - we keep faith that these parts will be sold by the manufacturer at a reasonable price, we don't whine about hypotheticals that we are held to ransom by it. £35 is a great price, and it sounds like often waived. Best keep quiet about the charges rather than give Sky ideas...

So if Sky are making peanuts (if anything) on the cost of replacement routers, and customers are inconvenienced for a few days when their Sky router dies, who is Sky's unique policy on third party routers benefiting?

In reply to a post by Sadoldman:

I think the concern is that the customer is without broadband.

Many now rely on it for daily use, banking, shopping,contacts with family and would not be inclined to keep arguing the point whilst not having the service, and even less inclined to consider moving supplier with the possibility of further of downtime and additional costs.

Sky do very much have the upper hand here....just a bit too much for my liking.

See I've not really had this big issue.

I was out of contract. I rang up Sky. They wouldn't replace the router for free, but I rang up a few times until I got somebody who would. They got it sent via 'express delivery' as I asked for it. They did this for free.

The following day a router arrived. The day after another arrived.

It's a real mixed bag. Sky are cracking down on it though. They confirmed this too me.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

It's a real mixed bag. Sky are cracking down on it though. They confirmed this too me.

Cracking down on sending free routers outside of warranty?

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

So if Sky are making peanuts (if anything) on the cost of replacement routers, and customers are inconvenienced for a few days when their Sky router dies, who is Sky's unique policy on third party routers benefiting?

Who said Sky are making peanuts? I'm sure they make a very healthy margin out of router sales and replacement, in the order of that of any router manufacturer - which being electronics means big profits.

The lack of choice and flexibility for the customer does not mean she is automatically getting a bad deal. Let's go over some basics of business models and practices. It's not rocket science.

When you contract out a single OEM piece of equipment exclusively on this scale, you can buy it cheaper and therefore offer it much cheaper to the end customer, especially without a distribution and reseller network and their profits inbetween. A Sagem 2504N if it were on sale in a shop would be about £70, it's simple.

The Sky branding and packaging of the router is a marketing, identity and advertising tool which generates long-term real-world profit. And by picking out and testing a stable model and firmware with good interoperability, decent performance, and most importantly - having zero-configuration with everything even cables colour-coded to boot, it also buys them reputation among average consumers, albeit at the expense of a tiny minority of advanced consumers. "Sky have their router, it works fine at Uncle Bob's. Better than that HomeFub. And Auntie Minnie got that other broadband, she had to go to PC World to get it to work. 300, 450, N, Dual-band, D-Link, Linksys - in the end she bought a £100 router. Then when she got it home, there was nowhere to plug the phone cable into! I asked my expert friend, he said she needed a modem, but we can't find them in the shops, only routers. Then he said we can use a router as a modem, when I plugged that in, email and games wouldnt work probably. Then he said we need a bridge mode or some double NATALIE or something or the other. Or was it a half-bridge we needed to cross. In the end, Aunt Minnie just phoned up Sky"

And on top of all this, you didn't think to work out the real point. The router is for customers only. Every sale generates service income worth many, many times more on top. And the real, major purpose of the router policy is in fact to save £millions on support staff. Scripted telephone staff employed by Sky directly and working through flowcharts are a whole lot cheaper than a basic-trained IT support centre...

So, it sure benefits Sky. But only a small part is from direct router profit. For the customer, the Sky router price is not a bad deal at all.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

It's a real mixed bag. Sky are cracking down on it though. They confirmed this too me.

Cracking down on sending free routers outside of warranty?

Yep. The guy who eventually sent mine out said they were cracking down sending them out of warranty & even within warranty as it was 'getting out of control.' His words not mine.

I think recently there has been a tightening up on this.

Personally I think it's ridiculous given that you cannot use your own equipment.

In reply to a post by vimto_girl:

And the real, major purpose of the router policy is in fact to save £millions on support staff. Scripted telephone staff employed by Sky directly and working through flowcharts are a whole lot cheaper than a basic-trained IT support centre...

Makes you wonder how all the other ISPs survive really, wasting millions of pounds asking people to plug in the ISP-supplied router before offering support.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Personally I think it's ridiculous given that you cannot use your own equipment.

It's not a popular policy with anyone really, not even the staff. They will often say, unofficially, that you can use your own router on Sky Broadband, but that it is not supported and you will have to find out how to do it "on Google". I think they sympathise with the customer on this one.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Makes you wonder how all the other ISPs survive really, wasting millions of pounds asking people to plug in the ISP-supplied router before offering support.

Why are so many boys on this forum so thick? What is this whole thread about?

"Please Sir, plug in your old faulty Sky router. We must do testing."

Erm...

Edited by deleted (Thu 05-Jan-12 13:07:13)

In reply to a post by vimto_girl:

Why are so many boys on this forum so thick? What is this whole thread about?

I suppose I could reply to your sexist comment and say you're too thick to realise that conversations can evolve within forum threads, but I think I'll refrain from stooping to your level.