Alternatives to Sky telephone.

prowla

I've currently got Sky TV, phone and broadband, but am thinking about moving off the phone service and would be grateful for some advice.

I've got the "Anytime" phone service, but I hardly ever make a call (I've only made 5 calls in the past month, 3 of which were to Sky!) and mostly receive junk calls, so I really don't need it. it costs me £20.40/month (£15.40 line rental + £5 Anytime).

Any suggestions/recommendations?

As far as what I want/would like:

• I'd like to keep my number.
• I like the caller-id feature which is free with Sky.
• I would like to be able to block nuisance callers (which costs more with Sky).
• I want freephone (0800, etc.) numbers free.
• I expect non-geographic numbers to be inclusive.
• I like the bundled minutes (but £5 for two calls totalling 12 minutes may not be worth a fiver!).

I'm not sure if Sky broadband (I've got "Unlimited") requires the Sky line rental, but if it's irrevocably tied in to the line rental then it can go too.

jem16

prowla wrote: »

I've got the "Anytime" phone service, but I hardly ever make a call (I've only made 5 calls in the past month, 3 of which were to Sky!) and mostly receive junk calls, so I really don't need it. it costs me £20.40/month (£15.40 line rental + £5 Anytime).

Why pay £5pm for Anytime then? Drop it down to weekend calls only.

I would like to be able to block nuisance callers (which costs more with Sky).

Buy a truecall unit then.

I'm not sure if Sky broadband (I've got "Unlimited") requires the Sky line rental, but if it's irrevocably tied in to the line rental then it can go too.

If you're on the full LLU service then yes it's tied in to Line Rental. If you were able to separate it then your BB would cost £5pm more.

Have you tried asking Sky for a reduction as you're looking at other options?

Sparx

Jem has pretty much said it. Downgrade your Anytime package to Weekend calls only to drop your bill £5 pm.

The broadband and line rental are a combined package, so you will have to transfer both (excluding Sky TV) if you move to another ISP.

Personally I would just drop the Anytime calls package and haggle with the Cancellations team. Go through the phone options as if you was leaving and see what deal(s) they can do for you.

As an example when I left Sky they offered 1/2 price on my full TV package and line rental for 12 months. Just rinse repeat each year to see what offers you can get applied to your account.

prowla

Thanks - that's pretty much in line with my thinking; I'm paying the £5 Anytime for nothing.

But if I do decide to jump ship, is there anybody worth jumping ship to?

I found today that my Panasonic phone handsets allow me to block callers, so maybe (fingers crossed) that's solved!

I'm actually in a position to ditch Sky BB too if I like, as have both Virgin cable BB and Sky ADSL BB.

It's not (quite) as daft as it sounds...

The background to having both is that I need BB for work, but Sky was having a lot of outages a couple of years ago so I got Virgin too to cover my options (an outage meant I would have to go to the office, which cost more for one day than the month's subs!).