BT or SKY that is the question ?

blisteringblue

Spent the last 3 hours trawling through the various posts and I'm still unsure.

Let me explain. I have a BT Landline and Sky Broadband Max, both are working fine.

However with the new 12 month rolling BT contracts I am currently in my final month of the 1st year, so I have until 2nd July to decide if I am staying for another 12 months.

We're not massive phone users (the bonus for letting kids have MSN from early ages) so our average monthly BT phone bill with Unlimited Evening and Weekends is around £20 give or take.

Sky BB Max is currently £10pm (with £5 credit) but this will change to £15 a month in January unless I move to a Sky Landline.

So I have this month to decide what to do. I've read all the pro's and con's for both and also looked at some of the other offerings from say The Post Office.

The only real BT feature we use heavily is Caller Display and we get this included in our current line rental.

I'm leaning towards leaving it as it is and just paying the extra fiver for my broadband in January. Anybody know any jump out reasons if I shouldn't do this? Does the recent Sky announcement about full local loop unbundling have any effect? I think I read that was optional.

As our calls are under a tenner a month, I don't even see any point reducing to the BT Weekend Plan and using the 18185 I've read a lot about, and anyway knowing our house nobody would ever dial the prefix.

McKneff

With Skytalk you get free calls on a weekend and evening. Calls to SKy on the 0844 are also free. (with conditions if you are on the basic BB)

Getting your line rental with SKY is £10 per month.
I think, but check, that you can opt in for the caller display and it is free AFAIK

My bill for calls and rental last month was £12.50 all in.

If you call and haggle they are desperate for customers and are likely to give you half price line rental for 6/12 months. let us know how you get on, wont you.

ACDeag

blisteringblue wrote: »

Sky BB Max is currently £10pm (with £5 credit) but this will change to £15 a month in January unless I move to a Sky Landline.

You don't have to have a Sky landline to get the discount you only have to take their calls package. If you keep your landline rental with BT you can then still use 18185 etc, move rental to Sky and you can't.

McKneff

Depends on how many calls during the day you make, to account for the £5 (per month) and i believe that BT is about £2 per month dearer lline rental.

ellielovesem

I've just gone onto Sky broadband and sky talk. I wanted to keep my line with BT to use 0844 numbers to call abroad but I read all this confusing stuff about making one chargeable call and just decided to go with sky line rental in the end. As McKneff says, they are offering half price line rental and I got this for six months, not bad. Now I'm online I use Skype so don't need to worry about the 0844 numbers.

woozywendy

I am having the same dilema, but i am probably going to go with Sky in october when the BB goes up. I will have to pay the extra weekend and evening calls credit that I will owe, about 2 months but it works out about the same whatever way I do it. You get caller display free with Sky.

Lady_K

I'm a bit confused with this sky business but have to ask this;

Daughter is still in contract with bt and sky until mid September, she is moving in about 2 weeks to a new rented property which does have a live bt line so she should be able to transfer the bt and hopefully the sky broadband and skyplus (shes taking everything including the dish but I think there is a skyplus dish at the new property anyway.

What is confusing me is the line rental, she is on what used to be called option 1 but is just the free weekend calls but her calls go through sky as she joined with the free skyplus box and sky see speak surf 8 mb broadband, I think she pays £26 for all 3 plus the line rental from bt on top.

Shes going to transfer because shes still in contract and no cable in the area again but does she need to still pay for the bt line once her 12 month contract is up or can she get all 3 from sky and cancel the bt once the contract is up?

She does not want to start another 12 month contract on either as she will probably will niot be staying there that long but it will be at least 6 months at least

zzzLazyDaisy

I don't know about BT, but if you move house with sky, you automatically start a new 12 month contract.

You'd be best phoning BT on 151 (free) and asking the question

Lady_K

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

I don't know about BT, but if you move house with sky, you automatically start a new 12 month contract.

You'd be best phoning BT on 151 (free) and asking the question

I didnt know you had to start another 12 month contract if you move house, she has all the stuff its just the address they need to swap but they will need to be sure of this before she does anything then as she does not want that. I know if she doesnt take them with her she will still have to pay the rest of the year but its better than paying more later because she wont be staying a year in new property.

Sky refunded her bt installation charge for new bt line too how will that go down if she pays the rest of this first year off without transferring?

Lady_K

Just came back to say yes its right bt do make you start another 12 month contract when you move house, bit rubbish really but they do. They said its not usually a problem to thier customers but I told the lady it would be if the line at the new property had to be completely reinstalled and cost £130 as a lot of properties moved to virgin media a long time ago

Sky on the other habd said they do not start up a new contract when you move, I hope this is correct I will be double checking

zzzLazyDaisy

Lady_K wrote: »

Sky on the other habd said they do not start up a new contract when you move, I hope this is correct I will be double checking

If Sky don't start a new 12 month contract when you move, it is a fairly recent change as my friend got stung like that when she moved a couple of years ago - the problem being at that time she was moving every six months or so... so she was in effect tied in to a fresh 12 month contract everytime she moved. She ended up paying off the balance of the term to get rid of them.

So do get it in writing!