I want my cake and to eat it!

0james0

This could have gone into any of the sub forums, but broadband seems to be the sticking point, so I'll post it here.

I want the best of both worlds, but cannot find the best money saving way to do it.

Here is my predicament:

I am moving to a new house and have decided my phone and broadband services are up for grabs (I'm out of contract on both and want to stay with Sky for TV services).

I want to be able to have Sky Anytime +. In order to have this, Sky insist that as well as having the TV pakage, I must also have broadband with them. They can give me free broadband as part of the deal. To have the broadband I must also pay their line rental, fair enough.

Now it gets tricky, BT are soon to be launching their fibre optic broadband in my new street. Great news, I can get super fast broadband.

BT are also keen to take my phone services, they can offer me a package which includes free mobile calls and their standard free 0845 calls for £5 extra per month (I currently spend at least £12 per month on these types of calls)

So in an ideal world I'd like to have Sky TV services and their free broadband, then BT infinity broadband and phone package.

However, it seems to achieve this I would need to pay line rental to two firms, which would negate any savings and defeat the whole object!

Any ideas on the best way forward?

iniltous

I think you can only have Sky Anytime + with Sky BB so BT Infinity ( or any reseller of FTTC ) wouldnt give you access, so if the Sky Anytime + is an absolute must have then Sky's BB is your only choice.
You used to be able to have BT line rental and Sky BB , but I dont think this would help you, as you couldnt have FTTC from BT ( paying them line rental) and ADSL from Sky on the same line, plus, Skys free broadband is only 2Gb/month so you wouldnt get to watch a lot of VOD via Anytime + before they were switching you to the paid for broadband.
The only way to get what you suggest would be to have 2 lines, 1 with FTTC and 1 with everything from Sky, but as you say this would be very expensive...if the speed of FTTC is tempting then you could always use Skys ordinary VOD from Sky.com but obviously you wouldnt get the Anytime + functionality

0james0

The more I think about it, the more obvious it seems that Sky will open up Anytime+ to other ISP's in the future, so in terms on the most important thing, faster broadband has to be paramount.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Sky will eventually have to enter the market for fibre, especially if they ever plan on catching up with Virgin Media in the Video-on-Demand front. However as far as I know they have made no announcements about it at all.

One place to start would be to get an estimated line speed for your new place from Sky. If it's Ok then all well and good; if it's miserably poor (say 3Mbps) then the Sky broadband might not be much of an option anyway. Meaning you can cross it off the list immediately and look to other providers who do offer the fibre service now.

Or, if it's an acceptable speed, you could have Sky ADSL in the meantime while the world waits to see if they care to join the "next generation"

samba

0james0 wrote: »

The more I think about it, the more obvious it seems that Sky will open up Anytime+ to other ISP's in the future, so in terms on the most important thing, faster broadband has to be paramount.

It seems obvious to me that they would do the opposite and keep it to themselves. Why give away something for free when they can charge you for it?

spike7451

0james0 wrote: »

The more I think about it, the more obvious it seems that Sky will open up Anytime+ to other ISP's in the future, so in terms on the most important thing, faster broadband has to be paramount.

Sky will NEVER do that....Why would they offer a free service to other customers who use non Sky ISP's when to use the Anytime+ service you need their Unlimited Bband at £7.50 per month.
If they were to open it up to non Sky bband users,then it stands to reason that they would also have to make it free to all Sky BBand users,which would mean customers downgrading from the £7.50 to the free broadband.
They'd loose millions which would mean unhappy shareholders!

0james0

You can have Anytime+ on the free broadband package, they just strongly recommend you are on the top tarrif.

Apparently BT are installing the fibre optic lines and then in the future they will be opened up so other ISP's can piggy back on them, much like the phone line infastrucrure.

penrhyn

The problem with the free, hook you, broadband is that downloading a couple of programmes from Anytime+ will use up your monthly allowance.
One way or another you'd end up on the unlimited package.
I'm on that with Talk Freetime and pay £7.50 /month.
You can pay £119 ish up front to save a couple of shekels off your line rental, and calls to Sky are free.
The only thing I'm not too happy with is the 1571 service its not as friendly as the BT one, and the wick on CLI need turning up a bit as it no longer registers on one of my phones.

On Anytime + its getting a bit better as more programming is being added, its even got Dr Who and Dinnerladies on it now. I think they need to improve the menus a bit though.