Sky Broadband! (merged)

penrhyn

Best of luck stumpy, you might need it.
All went very well for me until activation day, which was on the 11th September.
I lost my existing broadband on the 15th and I've had no broadband since.
I suggest you log on to skyuser.co.uk and do some research before taking the plunge.
BTW the freephone number for Sky is 0800 051 2595.

If you ring the number they give you for help chances are you will be connected to the Philipines.

dsmann

i just ordered my sky bb mid package yesterday.. they havent given me any activation date etc. have been advised that i would receive the info with the router they send out.
fingers crossed hopefully would be smoot transfer from AOL.

BTW has anyone got Sky BB in Leicester connected through ST BARNABAS exchange.

Stumpy

penrhyn wrote:

Best of luck stumpy, you might need it.
All went very well for me until activation day, which was on the 11th September.
I lost my existing broadband on the 15th and I've had no broadband since.
I suggest you log on to skyuser.co.uk and do some research before taking the plunge.
BTW the freephone number for Sky is 0800 051 2595.

If you ring the number they give you for help chances are you will be connected to the Philipines.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I have been haunting the skyuser forum on and off for a while, and as far as I can glean, some people have had problems connecting, but once the service is connected, they seem quite happy. I'm hoping that I don't lose connection completely for too long - did yours get cut off the 15th because that was contract end date with your previous provider? Or was that something to do with the change-over? I think I may have to look into it - I'm fairly sure that I had to give one month's advance notice to plusnet, which hopefully means that I have a month of connection from when I used the MAC key. Saying that, my billing date is around the 14th of the month, which is cutting it fine for the changeover.

I've just received a letter off Sky it should take between 10-15 days for the line to be activated, although to allow an extra 3 days due to high demand. I really hope it works out okay, as I don't have a dial-up modem in this machine!!

Thanks for the freephone number - I'll keep that somewhere safe!

matt83uk

It so easy for me, switched from Plus.Net, when plus.net stopped work (a few days before it was said in sky letter) I plug in the sky broadband router and it was working right off the bat, no router config, just working, it was already configured with my settings etc.. Rates seem to vary when downloading so dont expect 8mb, sometimes 2mb and then sometimes jump to 5mb etc.., but its fast enough, its stable/reliable in terms of latency etc.. my RDP and SSH connections to work havent got down yet, and simply works well for the price.

Stumpy

I've double checked with plusnet - they keep the broadband active until it is switched over - ie, they don't just decide to switch it off at an arbitrary date. They did say though that they charge per month - so if you get transferred mid-month you need to raise a ticket with them to claim back the amount for the unused portion of the month (if that makes sense?!). Apparently they normally do this automatically, but apparently it doesn't work for people transferring to Sky.

I'm not expecting a great speed - at the moment I get around 2Mb and that's on MaxDSL - I'll be migrating initally to Sky's "Connect" package, although my exchange is due to be unbundled in February 2007.

matt83uk - how long from ordering, did you get your letter and router from Sky? I've had a basic "welcome to Sky Broadband" letter, but basically it just says to wait for the next letter explaining everything. When I ordered, I was told about 10-15 days before it was all up and running - its been 6 days already - is the 10-15 days "working" days?

MoneySpendingExpert

Prof Steven Hawkins was wrong......black holes do exist - under the guise of Sky Broadband

Thanks to Sky, I am now in my 5th week without BB. After my planned switchover on the 19th September failed and many, many calls to Sky later I eventually got a call from the Sky Service Recovery Team on 6th October 2006 when a lady told me that she would see to it 'personally' that my problem would be resolved. She told me I could contact her via the normal Sky telephone number, select Option 6 (Customer Services) then ask for her personally.

I got through to her a couple of times using this method but then she started coming up with excuses that the problem was out of her hands and the last three times I have called the Customer Services team now say that they cannot put me through because the 'SR Team' do not accept (and never have accepted) inbound calls.

When they realise that I am not going to give in, they 'try' to contact my 'Personal Contact' but surprise-surprise she has either "left for the day", "is on the later shift" or is simply "not in at all today" so she is obviously avoiding me. I have left several messages requesting a return call from my 'personal contact' with the Cust Serv team who have to escalate to their manager who in turn escalates to the SRT but no response as yet.

I have for some time now been logging the calls I make and I also request the user ID of anyone I speak to (there should be no reason why they shouldn't give you this info) so I can sent a big fat complaint in to Sky and anyone else who may be interested. I have even started to record my conversations with them so that I can demonstrate the utter rubbish excuses and lies they keep coming up with.

There must be somebody out there who works for SKY who can tip us off as to how to escalate the issue, I have previous experience with management of call/help centres and I know that these operators are not paid enough to have to take the flak directed to them by irate customers. However, I am always courteous to them and relatively calm but this still hasn't got me anywhere.

Has Sky turned anybody else as bitter and twisted as I have become?

keithboy40

ORDERED SKY BB OVER 2 MONTHS AGO. I NEED BB FOR THE KIDS AND WORK SO CANT BE DISCONNECTED. DUE TO THIS I HAVE BEEN RUNNING TELEWEST BB WHILE WAITING FOR SKY TO INSTALL MY BB. THIS HAS BEEN A NIGHTMARE. sky are a disgrace. their customer service is pathetic, how can they be so bad. my advice, stay clear of sky.

Stumpy

Well, what a nightmare I've had today. Sky have connected me - hurray!! Only problem is, I don't have the hardware or software - apparently BT usually give them about 5 days notice before activation, and they usually send their hardware and stuff out at that point. This time, BT notified them yesterday that it was happening today!! apparently there is a letter coming in the post - probably arrive tomorrow, but the router, etc, hasn't even been despatched yet, and they can't tell me when it will! Grrrr. So dial-up in the meantime. Plod .... plod .....plod .... :rolleyes:

dsmann

well i ordered my Sky BB on 29/10 and gave them MAC on 05/11 have received my router on 07/11 so far so good... on BT order status it shows that transfer would be complete by 20/11 which matches with what SKY CS told me when i gave my MAC for transfer.. lets see how it goes.

Stumpy

After several (long) phone calls and complaints the router arrived on the 7th - not bad considering they have given me a free month for the trouble - but they HAD said I would only be offline for about 30 minutes and dial-up was such a pain. Apparently their system had just "forgotten" to send me the equipment when it should have.

Installation went well - it easily went to "all lights green" for the full network, wireless (not that I'm using wireless) and broadband - unfortunately I just couldn't connect!

There appears to be a high chance that, when you ring technical support, you will get a call centre in another country - I spent 20 minutes speaking to someone who had no idea (for example, we went through all the lights that were showing on the box, then she started asking if the power cable was plugged into the box - "ummm, yes, because otherwise there wouldn't be any lights on!" - she laughed, and then asked if the power cable was plugged into the wall socket at the other end?!).

Anyway, I gave up on that call, spoke to someone else who also seemed to be foreign, but at least was more helpful - escalated to Teir 2, who called me back quite quickly to tell me they had sent it on to Teir 3!! Not heard from them, but during all the fiddling, it just started working - one theory is that there was a "stale session"? Once it had been switched off for an hour or so, it started working, albeit rather sporadically to begin with - but I haven't had to reset it since yesterday morning now (although it has been off over-night).



Edit - Ha!! Spoke too soon - just as I posted this, I lost connection!! Hopefully it is just part of BT's 10 day testing of the line...