SKY lies.

At 15:18 on Wed May 1st I received lies in a text stating "We have identified an issue which has resulted in your router not being dispatched as planned. We are happy to say we have now resolved this issue and your router be will be sent to you by priority delivery and you will receive this tomorrow or Friday at the latest. Our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience caused."

In full knowledge the router would not be present on site, Sky went ahead and cut off our existing broadband Thursday morning around 08:00 . No offer to reschedule was ever made.

Time taken off work all day was a complete waste of time and Sky were in complete knowledge this would be the case.

After many calls and exchanges via Twitter, the operators suspiciously repeatedly refused to supply a courier consignment number as proof of dispatch.

More calls on Friday finally revealed the router was never dispatched on Wed at all. In fact it was only dispatched on Thursday afternoon. Even if they had put it Rupert's Learjet there was no way it was ever going to be on site in time.

To compound the stupidity, Sky and it's suppliers gave the delivery job to www.ukmail.com whose reputation for failure is rivalled only by the Home Office. More time was taken off work all day Friday May 3 to await the predictable non-arrival of this most urgent next day delivery.

More phone calls and more refusals to resupply the router or escalate the issue to someone with the authorisation to deal with the matter. I was told categorically "there is not a single person in the whole of the UK who has the authority" or the willingness to dispatch another router promptly. We are expected to continue without broadband until Tuesday next week at the very earliest and probably much much longer.

So congratulations Sky, I intend to make sure as many people as possible never have anything to do with Sky ever again. An invoice for my time will be on it's way, and I will sue when it's not paid on time.

These SKY routers are very plug compatible, e.g. if you have one, you should just be able to plug it in and it should just work. I know its frustrating, but if you were to post your exchange, someone on the board who lives near you, may offer to loan a spare one for a few days. Also like others you could find a local ebay "buy now" get one from that source.

I am not affiliated to SKY, but could see how this may have happened to you. It does not help apart from an understanding as to the backend processes that are going on. The main issue was the router was not delivered to you 3-5 days before the switchover:

* Order Sky BB
* Sky Order 2 things. a) a router from their HW supplier and b) a separate order to openreach to move the telephone line. Both orders are separate.
* The BB router order should be sent to you around 3-5 days before the activation date.
* On performing a 'is everything ok' check the day before (Wednesday), the sky systems worked out the BB router was not sent. It automatically sends a 2nd (b) order to the HW supplier for delivery. This order would be picked and sent from their warehouse the next day (Thursday), given the time. The SMS was not clear that the replacement router would not get there on time. Its possibly a generic message and the check runs each day.
* Sky have made an assumption in the past not to cancel the (b) line order, so at least that gets done, assuming most, if not all people would have their Router to hand. This was not the case for you . I assume this is because it may cost a cancel charge and then a new do the work again order charge, or it is too late in the day to cancel the day before. The whole change process may delay a new install by a week or more.
* BT openreach move the line to sky's systems as requested in your local exchange, assuming you would just plug in your sky router, which you do not have. You must have been the first job of the day for the BT person.
* You requested a high speed delivery. Some providers only have specific delivery contracts with carriers, so they actually may not have the ability to send a same day / next day parcel. Remember the original delivery should have been days before. From what you mentioned the order went back in to the normal order cycle, which takes 3-4 days from start to finish (Order d1, Pick d2 , Delivery d3, Delivery d4).
* You asked for a tracking number. Again some providers do not actually get these, or the numbers only become available the next day, once the order/web/carrier systems have talked to each other overnight.

I hope this gives you an understanding as to the type of processes involved.

You can also activate a 7 day, cooling off process and go some where else, which I used 5-6 years ago for other reasons.

Best of Luck.

Just Sky's ineptitude and complete poor service towards its customers. They have failed in their contractual obligations and I, for one, would not let it stand there.

Skys routers are (or were ) hard coded with the user name and password. Technically you could use an old one but if the account is cancelled at Sky then it wont authenticate on their radius. Pretty sure even if you use someones live details it will get picked up eventually or will kick the previous user off if the credentials are the same..