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Sky Contract + BT Line Install - 2 Questions
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123sonny123
Posts: 118 Forumite


Hi Guys,
I have 2 Questions, which I would be very grateful if you can help me with. 1. requires you to read following text and 2. does not. Both Questions at the bottom.
I called Sky on 2nd March 2011 to join. We went for Sky TV, Sky BB and Sky Talk phone line. They said Sky TV will be installed in a week's time, but the phone line/BB will be approx 4 weeks later on the 8th of April.
My mom is disabled and her condition right now is very bad.
Doctors, GP, friends and family often call her to check on her condition, book appointments etc. Sky said they couldn't install/activate the phone line any sooner because they go by BT's schedule. Fine, we said we will find a way round it. We dropped my mom at her sisters for a few weeks. The mobile phone reception in our house is terrible, so getting the phone line in asap was important.
I received a reminder text 2 days ago, on the 7th, to say that the Sky Line/BB installer would arrive (as agreed a month before) on the 8th, so make sure someone is at home. I took a day off and waited and waited. No one turned up. There was no common courtesy call to explain why. Nothing. Very frustratd at this point. I rang Sky and a man said he would "find out what's going on". My battery died after holding on for 25 mins. Lost wages and lost a few quid calling them.
I called again today as I was fed up and asked to terminate everything; sky tv, line and bb. Put through to various people and explained the situation to each of them. Not one apology or explanation as to what's going on. Got through to a "customer services" manager who said she couldn't terminate because there was a contract in place. She said I could write to them and request termination if I wished, but nothing could be done over the phone. I might be able to terminate the phone line/BB as it hasn't been installed yet, but the tv service could not be as they take all the different services as "separate contracts". It's funny how they describe it as a "package" to get you to join, but go on about "separate contracts" when you try to leave.
Getting back on track, I asked how quickly can the line be installed/activated because next week will be coming to 5 weeks with no phone or BB. BB isn't important, but the phone is. She said I would have to talk to the 'regular' customer services team, because cancellations wouldn't know.
Spoke to customer services and they didn't have a clue either, but said someone will call back within 72 hours.
I realise that all other providers (apart from Virgin) will take longer to install/activate the line because I will be jumping out of the 'Sky' queue and joining theres, as it were. From what I understand, all these providers have to get a BT man out...
Nonetheless, can you help me with these questions:
1. Do you think I have enough to terminate ALL my SKY services?
- I am thinking of writing and asking to Terminate.
There was a BT line when we moved to the house 10 years ago. We took out a package with virgin and kept the same number. So, we are 99.9% sure there is a BT line here. Unfortunately, Sky won't give us this number. My father says there is one Phone Socket in the living room - and right outside it is where the phone lines comes from. This is the 'master socket' and all the phone sockets in the house are connected to it.
2. My question is, will the BT Open Reach engineer connect this 'master socket' - i.e. less work for him and great for us, or will he install a new one that won't be connected to all the others in the house? Common sense tells me option 1, but I stopped believing in common sense a long time ago.
Thank you very much
Sonny
I have 2 Questions, which I would be very grateful if you can help me with. 1. requires you to read following text and 2. does not. Both Questions at the bottom.
I called Sky on 2nd March 2011 to join. We went for Sky TV, Sky BB and Sky Talk phone line. They said Sky TV will be installed in a week's time, but the phone line/BB will be approx 4 weeks later on the 8th of April.
My mom is disabled and her condition right now is very bad.
Doctors, GP, friends and family often call her to check on her condition, book appointments etc. Sky said they couldn't install/activate the phone line any sooner because they go by BT's schedule. Fine, we said we will find a way round it. We dropped my mom at her sisters for a few weeks. The mobile phone reception in our house is terrible, so getting the phone line in asap was important.
I received a reminder text 2 days ago, on the 7th, to say that the Sky Line/BB installer would arrive (as agreed a month before) on the 8th, so make sure someone is at home. I took a day off and waited and waited. No one turned up. There was no common courtesy call to explain why. Nothing. Very frustratd at this point. I rang Sky and a man said he would "find out what's going on". My battery died after holding on for 25 mins. Lost wages and lost a few quid calling them.
I called again today as I was fed up and asked to terminate everything; sky tv, line and bb. Put through to various people and explained the situation to each of them. Not one apology or explanation as to what's going on. Got through to a "customer services" manager who said she couldn't terminate because there was a contract in place. She said I could write to them and request termination if I wished, but nothing could be done over the phone. I might be able to terminate the phone line/BB as it hasn't been installed yet, but the tv service could not be as they take all the different services as "separate contracts". It's funny how they describe it as a "package" to get you to join, but go on about "separate contracts" when you try to leave.
Getting back on track, I asked how quickly can the line be installed/activated because next week will be coming to 5 weeks with no phone or BB. BB isn't important, but the phone is. She said I would have to talk to the 'regular' customer services team, because cancellations wouldn't know.
Spoke to customer services and they didn't have a clue either, but said someone will call back within 72 hours.
I realise that all other providers (apart from Virgin) will take longer to install/activate the line because I will be jumping out of the 'Sky' queue and joining theres, as it were. From what I understand, all these providers have to get a BT man out...
Nonetheless, can you help me with these questions:
1. Do you think I have enough to terminate ALL my SKY services?
- I am thinking of writing and asking to Terminate.
There was a BT line when we moved to the house 10 years ago. We took out a package with virgin and kept the same number. So, we are 99.9% sure there is a BT line here. Unfortunately, Sky won't give us this number. My father says there is one Phone Socket in the living room - and right outside it is where the phone lines comes from. This is the 'master socket' and all the phone sockets in the house are connected to it.
2. My question is, will the BT Open Reach engineer connect this 'master socket' - i.e. less work for him and great for us, or will he install a new one that won't be connected to all the others in the house? Common sense tells me option 1, but I stopped believing in common sense a long time ago.
Thank you very much
Sonny
:beer:
0
Comments
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You will have separate contracts with Sky for the TV and telephony services, so you can't cancel the TV because of failings on the other side.
The OR engineer will re-use the existing line and master socket if possible. They won't probably need internal access to the property, however you need to be there on the day in case they do.
As far as BT are concerned, a reconnection and a new line provision are the same thing.
If the NTE5 has to be replaced, the OR engineeer will not reconnect your extension sockets except for an exorbitant fee-much easier to DIY or to get a local telephone engineer to do it.No free lunch, and no free laptop0 -
This came up in another thread recently. This seems to happen a lot with Sky, who once having got the TV service up and running seem keen to hold the customer to that and the telephone and broadband can come - well, whenever.
Sky might well deem the three services to be three contracts, but I've always wondered whether - if the customer orders three services together - that's one order and the entire order must be fulfilled or fail for Sky to have kept to their side of the bargain.
Sky have clearly failed (maybe their fault, maybe not since they have to use BT Openreach, nobody can know for sure, but it makes no odds to the customer or contract whose fault it is) to fulfil the order.
So in my situation if something similar happened to me, I'd write to them giving them 7 days to complete the order otherwise find themselves receiving a debit or credit card chargeback for all the monies paid less what I deem reasonable for my brief use of the TV service, while I go somewhere else.
As the OP says if Virgin Media cable is available then all three services could potentially be supplied much more quickly, since the same installer sets them all up and it doesn't generally take 5 or more weeks for that to happen.
Anyone know the legal position?0 -
Just a thought. Have you tried a phone in the socket in the living room to see if it is active/working.When we moved into our house, BT activated our line a couple of hours before we moved in, no one was there, they did it from the exchange. With sky BB , they activated it remotely, and I set it up our end. Worth a punt (if you have not already tried,sorry if you have)0
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Hi Guys,
I don't know what sky said to BT, but I had a very pleasant chap from BT Control ring first thing this morning asking me how the engineer's visit went last Fri because at his end the line is reporting well but for some reason he cannot dial our number.
He asked me to try out a couple of the sockets; none of them rang.
He then rang an hour later to say he will get someone to come soon. 3 Vans turned up! 1 supervisor and 2 other gents.
They drilled a new hole through the wall and put a new master socket. I asked if they could simply put the black wire through an existing socket because the WHOLE house is connected to that socket. He said 'no'. I'm fairly certain if his supervisor wasn't there, he may have done it if I "bought him a drink".
Anyway, as soon as they left, I connected it up to my previous "Master socket" and all the phones in the other rooms worked. Great stuff.
The original chap from BT Control rang later to ask if everything was ok. I thanked him.
Thank you MSE and the above posters for your help.
Very much appreciated:beer:0
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