Problems with Sky

Chrissi

My Mum had Sky+HD installed earlier this month, sadly I was working and couldn't be in the house with her when it was installed otherwise I would have just told the engineers to take the whole lot away with them!

She has gone for one of the medium packages, most of the TV channels apart from sports and movies, the medium broadband pack and has also transferred her phone across to them. Now, I was with her when the whole lot was ordered and not once was she asked what type of aerial socket she had in the wall and we also stated to the salesman more than once that the number had to stay ex-directory.

Well, earlier this month it's installed and the engineers inform my Mum that she won't be able to watch one channel and record another as the socket in the wall is wrong! Pretty flaming useless as this was the whole point of getting it put in. Since then we have found out that she cannot record at all, I set it to record something last week, something that was on while she was out, left the box switched on, followed the instructions to the letter, only to come in and find out it had failed! This was made worse by finding out it was something that is very unlikely to be repeated and was something my Mum really wanted to see, but that's not really the point. When Mum called to complain about the TV not working properly at all she was basically told it wasn't Sky's problem and it certainly wasn't their problem that the aerial socket wasn't correct, oh and to add insult to injury, they weren't prepared to do anything about it. Nice, especially when she's paying £55 a month for a service that essentially doesn't work!

Things then went from bad to worse, one day when my Mum called me at work her house number came up on my phone, so not ex-directory then! She has now called them 4 times regarding the number being ex-directory, has been promised it would be changed every time and it still hasn't been done.

Then we have the broadband - it's horrendous! We can only get a connection if we are right beside the modem, anywhere else and you have a slim to non-existant chance of getting a connection, not great when more than one person wants to use it and in different parts of the flat. I thought AOL was terrible for broadband, but they are positively brilliant compared to Sky.

Was just wondering if anyone else has had problems like this with them? If so, what did you do and what was the outcome? Mum is sick to the back teeth of phoning them to basically be fobbed off and just told 'Well you would have been asked about your aerial socket when you ordered your package' when she wasn't! I am also about to compose a letter to them as if I was to call them I know for a fact I would lose my patience with them and I tend to get my point across better in a letter. Anyone know the best person to address it to?

fifeken

I can't help with most of it but being ex directory does not stop your number from coming up on the recipients phone when you make a call. You need caller ID blocking to do this. With BT you can do it manually for the odd call by dialling a prefix before the required number, or have it permanently set by BT. This can sometimes be a disadvantage as some subscribers block calls where the number is not available to prevent sales calls. I would expect Sky to have something similar although maybe with a different name.

omen666

Sounds like your mum is in a flat communal complex and using a communal satellite and therefore only running the HD box off of one stream rather than 2 if she had her own satellite, this is what prevents the recording of one channel and watching another. Also you saying that the areial socket is not the right one confirms this as the coax would go direct into the box and not from a aerial socket

The reason your recordings failed too is because you need to keep the channel on the channel you are recording. If not and you set it to record and go out and it is on another channel it will fail

As for ex-directoy, this is when your number is not published in telephone directories, it does not mean that the number is witheld when dialing out.

nordtraveller

Email everything you have written here to the chief Exec [EMAIL="jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com"]jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com [/EMAIL]

jd87

nordtraveller wrote: »

Email everything you have written here to the chief Exec [EMAIL="jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com"]jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com [/EMAIL]

Yeah but edit out the insane ramblings first.

Chrissi

You know jd87 I was just thinking of firing it off like that! *rolls eyes* There really was no need for such a pointless and rude comment!

Think this is going to be another forum I stop posting on as it's getting just as bad as others for people being complete idiots!

spike7451

Chrissi,
A couple of point's from someone who's worked for Sky & Sky Broadband.
When you call Sky,always get the Chordiant ID of the person you're talking to,it's easier to track them that way & everyone office based has one.

Now,the TV,What 'omen66' said is correct.The installer should have made your mom aware of the one feed issue & given her the option to call Sky & either reschedule or cancel.However it sounds to me as he saw it as an 'easy job' &,as they get paid by the job....)
Sky records off Feed 2 first so if the Coax is connected to Feed 1,I think that'd be the problem,Connect the Coax to Feed 2

The Broadband,do you have any cordless phones & is the base station next to the Router? If so,try moving the Router away from the phone,the phone signal may be interfearing with the wireless router.
Can you get online OK connected with the Ethernet? If you can,then the problem is more likely an environment one & not connected to the Router.On the other hand the Router may be sending a weak signal? (what does the Sys Tray Icon say?)
HTH,
Spike

jem16

spike7451 wrote: »

Sky records off Feed 2 first so if the Coax is connected to Feed 1,I think that'd be the problem,Connect the Coax to Feed 2

That's how it used to be with the old EPG - Chrissi may well have the new HD EPG and it works differently.

Chrissi - do you have the new HD EPG ( it has a mini TV when you go into TV Guide)? If so has single mode feed been turned on?

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=1156731&highlight=single+feed