£75 'No Commitments' Package from Sky Plus free Ipod/Payg Mobile/Phones/Hi-fi

NonGeographicalMan

Sky have now updated their https://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk website to show Pay Once Watch Forever as a way to get Freesat for £75 instead of their normal £150 deal.

They specifically state there that you do not have to pay anything further provided you cancel the 4 Mixes for 4 Months (the current deal) any time before the end of the 4 month period. They say you will be charged monthly if you do not cancel by then, although what they don't explain is if you can then still cancel at any time after that or if you then become locked in for another 8 months of payments?

Also unclear is the position of anyone cancelling before the end of 4 months who then wants to watch Sky pay tv later. Can they come back for just a minimum one month like a normal ex contract customer who has already done a year on contract can or will they be told that they can only sign up for a minimum of 12 months like a normal £150 https://www.freesatfromsky.co.uk customer who has never been involved in any long term contractual relationship with them.

Make sure your parents cancel a day before the end of the 4 months and do so by sending an email to AllCustomerCareEscalation@bskyb.com as the staff running their normal cancellation process by telephone don't seem to accept the right of customers to cancel on this product without completing 12 months on contract.

Oz69football

I live in a village with very poor reception for freeview.
I cannot get any of the digital channels from ITV or channel 4 so have to watch terrestrial!
An ariel upgrade would cost approx £100.
I have just purchased a new 40" LCD TV with full HD and wanted freesat to make the most of it, when researching I have found that the HD boxes are £150 plus £80 installation. I am not willing to pay this as at present they do not have a PVR (like a sky+ recorder) or multiroom. These will appear around Xmas but until then I have bought the sky "pay once deal" from Dixons.
If you buy online and type in the promo code sky10 you get it for £67.50.
Then when freesat offer a better box you can simply buy it and save on the installation fee as you already have a satelite dish!!

This deal is perfect for me

I also agree that the 200 channels are not all worth having unless you want endless religion and shopping/quiz channels but you can set up a favourites list!

NonGeographicalMan

Oz69football wrote: »

An ariel upgrade would cost approx £100.

Note that £100 is an absolute minimum figure for a new aerial replacement compatible with a Freeview/DTT signal.

If you have poor reception problems you will find that the final figure to get an acceptable robust Freeview signal with wideband aerial on a long pole and a masthead amplifier is much more like £200. Especially if your chimney involves climbing a sloping roof to reach it, rather than being on an end gable of the house. And for that you get what. A very limited lineup likely to become even smaller if Sky finally get the go ahead for Sky Picnic and take Sky News, Sky Sports News and Sky Three off Freeview.

I am not willing to pay this as at present they do not have a PVR (like a sky+ recorder) or multiroom. These will appear around Xmas but until then I have bought the sky "pay once deal" from Dixons.

This deal is perfect for me. If you buy online and type in the promo code sky10 you get it for £67.50.
Then when freesat offer a better box you can simply buy it and save on the installation fee as you already have a satelite dish!!

If you want to upgrade to a Freesat PVR later and not have to pay another installation fee to Freesat make sure to offer your Sky installer lots of tea or coffee with lots of nice biscuits and then ask if he wouldn't mind fitting your dish with a Quad LNB and a double cable to the box as you are think of possibly getting Sky+ or Sky HD in the future and it would be a shame for another installer to have to do all that hard work going up ladders and tacking stuff to the eaves again etc, etc.

As a Quad LNB rather than a single LNB and a double cable rather than a single cable costs Sky peanuts and they have loads of these on the van they are usually willing to oblige. Of course don't mention the F word to the Sky man. Freesat that is, although I'm sure it has almost the same quality as another four letter F word to someone employed by Sky.;):rotfl:

durhamwasp

Interested in getting this, basically cos £75 to get a sky box and dish fitted is worth it alone, then it opens up the possibility of Setanta in the future.

Quick question, once the 4 months freeview is out of the way, is it possible to just say pay for one mix? (News for example)

NonGeographicalMan

durhamwasp wrote: »

Quick question, once the 4 months freeview is out of the way, is it possible to just say pay for one mix? (News for example)

According to the latest information on the www.freesatfromsky.co.uk website this does seem possible but this seems to contradict the actual experience of Pay Once Watch Forever customers who have tried to cancel too late on the four and six months deals and are then told they are in a 12 month contract they must complete. Basically Sky and their staff are a bunch of lieing toerags who cannot be trusted not to constantly change their tune in order to try and extract more money from customers.

From www.freesatfromsky.co.uk/faqs-pay-once.aspx#q5

Q: Do I have to subscribe to Sky Digital to get Pay Once Watch Forever?

A: After your 4 month Sky TV trial, there is no obligation to continue to take a Sky TV subscription. All you need to do is call 08442 414 141, giving us 30 day's notice and you’ll simply be able to enjoy all the free-to-air channels available on Sky.
If you don’t call to cancel you will become a regular Sky TV customer but there will be no 12-month minumum term – you simply have to give 30 day’s notice if you wish to cancel at any time.
After the 4 month trial, if you continue to be a Sky TV customer, you will be charged for the full monthly cost for your package (currently £20 per month for 4 Sky mixes or more if you upgrade your Sky TV package).

So as you become a normal customer after four months then clearly there is nothing to stop you downgrading immediately to only one Mix or indeed cancelling at any time subject to the requirement to give 30 days notice of doing so. This must also surely mean that anyone who cancels their Sky Pay Once Watch Forever service before four months can come back to Sky at any time for a minimum of one month and is then able to cancel on only 30 days notice. This is unlike a £150 Sky Freesat customer who will be told that they must sign a minimum 12 month contract for at least 2 Mixes with Sky if they ever wish to start watching Sky pay tv channels.

Of course in practice things seem to work differently to this and Sky try to maintain customers are in a 12 month contract if they do not cancel before four or 6 months. But if you ever encounter this simply quote the terms and conditions on the www.freesatfromsky.co.uk in an email to [EMAIL="jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com"]jeremy.darroch@bskyb.com[/EMAIL] and post a copy of that email in a post in this thread.;)

lous_2

Does this deal include any hd channels? I want to get my boyfriend some kind of sky for christmas. His family already have virgin media though.

Would the freesat box offered by itv and the bbc work from the ariel they already have?

NonGeographicalMan

lous wrote: »

Does this deal include any hd channels?

No its an SD only deal unfortunately. You could buy a secondhand out of contract Sky HD box on Ebay but that would still need a satellite dish to work and it won't record anything unless you pay Sky at least a £10 per month Sky+ recording fee or a 1 Mix subscription package at £17 per month.

Would the freesat box offered by itv and the bbc work from the ariel they already have?

A Freesat box needs a satellite dish to be installed for it to work It doesn't work from a conventional tv aerial. That's why the word Sat is attached to the Free bit.;)

The Freesat Humax HD box PVR with series link and dual tuner recording on to hard drive has just been launched but its a rather pricey option at the moment, especially if you also need a new satellite dish with a qaud LNB installed too.

£150 for a non recording Freesat HD box and £300 for a Freesat HD box recorder with built in twin tuners and hard drive. Also there is an £80 install cost for the satellite dish.

See www.freesat.co.uk/index.php?page=products.Products&type_id=2

and

www.freesat.co.uk/index.php?page=products.Products&type_id=3

But no ongoing run costs. Most Sky HD subscribers pay more than that in the first year for the subs alone and then they pay for the Sky HD box and install on top of that too......................

lous_2

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

No its an SD only deal unfortunately. You could buy a secondhand out of contract Sky HD box on Ebay but that would still need a satellite dish to work and it won't record anything unless you pay Sky at least a £10 per month Sky+ recording fee or a 1 Mix subscription package at £17 per month.

A Freesat box needs a satellite dish to be installed for it to work It doesn't work from a conventional tv aerial. That's why the word Sat is attached to the Free bit.;)

The Freesat Humax HD box PVR with series link and dual tuner recording on to hard drive has just been launched but its a rather pricey option at the moment, especially if you also need a new satellite dish with a qaud LNB installed too.

£150 for a non recording Freesat HD box and £300 for a Freesat HD box recorder with built in twin tuners and hard drive. Also there is an £80 install cost for the satellite dish.

See www.freesat.co.uk/index.php?page=products.Products&type_id=2

and

www.freesat.co.uk/index.php?page=products.Products&type_id=3

But no ongoing run costs. Most Sky HD subscribers pay more than that in the first year for the subs alone and then they pay for the Sky HD box and install on top of that too......................

Thanks for that! Although, when I said arial I did mean sat dish... they've got virgin media in two rooms already. Would freesat work on that dish?

NonGeographicalMan

lous wrote: »

Thanks for that! Although, when I said arial I did mean sat dish... they've got virgin media in two rooms already. Would freesat work on that dish?

Virgin Media is a cable tv system do it doesn't use a satellite dish but instead a cable that comes in from the street to a point or points in your house on the relevant cable boxes next to the tv.

The dish that is installed for Sky Pay Once Watch Forever is adequate for the basic non recording £150 Sky HD box but not for the hard drive recorder twin tuner Freesat box as that requires a dish with a Quad LNB (the pointy bit in the middle of the dish). Or rather the dish would be adequate but the LNB part of it would have to be replaced.

I believe the BBC and C4 HD channels are available on a Virgin Media V+ box but may be only with an expensive subscription package? I know they do have a package where you just take phone calls and then get a free cable box but may be they won't do their V+ HD box on that basis.

lous_2

Thanks for that! You know your stuff. I think freesat, which I was favouring before, would be a bit expensive when you're including the installation. Although the fact it offers no-subscription hd does appeal.

Sky hd is very expensive to pay monthly as well as the installation. Virgin media hd is a bit of a blur to me, the website is quite awful...