First you were a Sky customer for a few days, I've been a customer for around 13 - 15 years in some form. Your dealings with them were extremely limited and yet you act like you know the company inside out.
1) The sales people work on commission and will say anything you want to hear, and offer you any deal to lure you into switching your phone line over and sticking you into a 12 month contract. If all else fails, they'll offer you their "try us for 30 days, no obligation, you can cancel and you won't lose a penny" (neglecting to mention you'll lose your phone line and number).
You agreed to Sky line rental. Sky let you leave within the first 30 days as promised, it's not their fault that you chose to choose Primus who do not do a free BT line install. You could leave Sky for free. If you had switched back to BT or TalkTalk to name a few the install would be free and would not cost you a penny.
Not all people are on commission, some are & they make a sale without lying.
2) The service is slow, slower than any broadband service I've used to date. Even accessing normal websites is slow in my experience with caching of websites. The reason being, they offer so many cheap deals (£2.50 a month for unlimited?!) and advertise so much, the service is just swamped with too many users. The old saying applies, you get what you pay for. If you want a quality service and fast speeds, don't look at big ISP's, look for the smaller, specialised ones.
So untrue. This is the most false thing you've ever come out with. Sky use the old easynet network and have invested heavily into this network. It has plenty of backhaul and is certainly not slow. I participated in a trial around a year ago where a device was attached to my router, this device took speedtests every few minutes for around 4 months. My average speed came out at 73.4Mbps with upto 6 people using the connection. My BT infinity averaged at 65Mbps with nobody really using it (apart from me occasionally). I have had Sky at a total of 6 properties all over the UK, Whitby, Doncaster, Sheffield, Richmond, Egham and near canary wharf. All lines performed at the sync speed, 4 of these have been fibre connections at 40Mbps or 80Mbps and always got the full fibre speeds. ADSL on Sky shares the same backhaul. If Sky is managing 73Mbps on my fibre connection then it's clearly managing anybody on upto 20Mbps basic Sky broadband too without even a worry. So on the whole Sky performs well.
3) Sky Broadband's IP addresses are dynamic and change often, randomly. Sometimes daily for some users, as in my case. If you need a static IP (or even just a stable IP that doesn't change often), forget Sky. Also there's only ONE dynamic IP DNS updating service in their router (which conveniently for Sky, you have to pay monthly) to use. Despite numerous free and cheaper dynamic IP DNS updating services, Sky refuse customers requests to add them to their routers with a simple firmware release. Discussions and suggestions about dynamic IP DNS updating services are censored/blocked by Sky forum staff.
If you want a router more advanced go out and buy one, you can easily extract the password in around 5 seconds for your own router. In terms of static IP, Sky never promised to offer this, most providers do not offer it - at least budget end mass market ISPs. A static IP is usually something people do not require. Also Sky IPs are quite sticky so if you drop connection most of the time you reconnect with the same IP. I have had months of the same IP on Sky but then again I do not turn my router off.
You are basically arguing that Sky is in the wrong for not providing something they have never provided and never advertised they would provide. That's like me buying a dishwasher and arguing it's terrible because it doesn't wash my laundry. It was never supposed to & it was never sold to do that.
4) Using Sky Broadband is dependent on having your phone line switched to Sky Talk which is not part of the BT network. That has serious financial and practical implications you need to consider, both in terms of calls and switching broadband later. You won't be able to use widely used money-saving free call services like 18185, even calls to freephone numbers that divert freely, are chargeable calls with Sky Talk (although they won't tell you this, until you get the massive phone bill).
Most ISPs require you to use their phone line and not BTs. That is standard nowadays. They do this because ISPs do not make money on broadband (as it's so cheap) instead they make profits out of the calls made.
It does not have any financial implications for most people. The general customer does not choose Primus like you did. Most customers move between major ISPs. E.g. I may go with Sky and then choose to go back to BT. BT will pay for the connection to BTs equipment. It's free for the consumer.
Another example. I am with Sky and I choose to go to TalkTalk. Again talktalk pay for the connection to talktalk line renal. It's free for the consumer.
The call services you mentioned are by no means 'widely used.' Some people just search google for a freephone number or geographical number, most just pay for the 08 call, a very minor few use the services you describe.
Freephone numbers are not chargeable on Sky.
5) Sky's routers have a habit of randomly rebooting and changing their IP addresses (at least mine did). Hopeless if you're running services or gaming, or rely on a stable connection.
Rubbish. My Sky router has been on for 4 months straight now, not turned itself off one and not dropped connection as far as I can tell.
The university houses I rent out have free Sky Fibre 80Mbps that I provide. One of them plugs in behind the washing machine (so the plugs not accessible) and in a 6 bedroom student house had an uptime of over a year when I went in the house to do renovations. I was amazed, but then again why would they ever turn it off?
6) Sky support is severely lacking. If you have any problems, you're directed to the user support forum. If you want to email someone or be able to speak to someone on the phone, and be talked through a problem, forget it with Sky. They're not interested.
If you have problems the best bet is to call up. They are interested and I've had engineers out before. I had a fault which took a few months to get resolved and whilst I was unhappy at the time I did have around 4/5 engineers out, regular updates via text and an email to a guy in Customer solutions team who dealt with the case personally so I never spoke to loads of different people. I can't say supports 'severely lacking.' It's also British or Irish support and I've had conversations with Sky about what my favourite cocktail is and had a good laugh with them. Cannot complain.
7) When you finally decide to leave Sky (either because the broadband service fails to live up to expectations, your phone bills are too high, or because you've seen a better offer), expect delays and obstacles. Your phone line will be held in limbo for WEEKS forcing you to have a new line installed if you're in business. You're likely lose your telephone number too with many teleco companies unable to port numbers across from Sky.
If the phone bills are too high you shouldn't make as many calls / check that Sky support the divert style numbers which you rely on. They stopped this in 2010. If you find a better deal Sky usually match it.
The number can be ported over without an issue.
The line is only held in limbo when you order a cease on the line (like you did). This is meant for when you are moving out of a property for good, not when you are moving providers.
8) The company and its staff are blatantly dishonest and misleading, in their sales approach when dealing with new customers. Take anything they say or promise with a large pinch of salt.
Did they let you leave? Yes. Did they provide the broadband for 2.50 as agreed. YES. Did they provide a static IP, no, but then again they told you it was a work in progress not that you would get it.
9) They suddenly "invent" terms and conditions if you take up their "try us for 30 days at no obligation" invitation and then decide to leave within the 30 days.. Like the "you need to give us 30 days notice to cancel" (and thus pay months line rental/broadband/be stuck with high call charges etc).
Agree this seems unfair & I'd argue on this one a little bit with them.
10) The company, and its staff are all smiles and polite when you're joining, then treat you with utter contempt when you announce you're leaving them. Don't expect cooperation and a smooth quick transfer..Instead, expect obstacles, delays and long waits, despite the governments and OfCom's instance that Internet customers be able to transfer between providers quickly and easily.
The transfer process is the same as any other full LLU provider. Perhaps it's not perfect but 99.9999% of times it runs smoothly without obstacles, delays or long waits.
Will you ever stop moaning? I can bet your issues with Sky were something silly such as faulty router (quite possible) or using an extension socket etc. If you had posted here with your stats and issues at the time I'm sure you'd have found Sky fine in the end. It's a shame it went badly for you but for the vast majority it's fine.
Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 12-Sep-13 17:19:13)
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