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Fed up with Sky!

Apologies in advance for the blurb - I do have a question at the end if anyone can help! I've been with Sky since 2000 - didn't have any problems til we upgraded our box to Sky+hd last September.

Just a month after installing, we had some bad weather and the dish moved slightly - typically in the half term week so I was at home with 2 kids and no tv, not even the recorded things for a week before an engineer came out. I thought recorded programmes were saved to your box so it didn't matter if you had a signal. I had to fight for this to be done free of charge. After drilling countless holes in my wall for health and safety(!) all it took was a little tweak of the dish and all was well.

It happened again around February/March time - this time my brother-in-law kindly tweaked the dish!

We had some higher winds yesterday but nothing too bad and, you guessed it, it's gone again. Sky helpline have said they will charge £65 for an engineer to come out as its been over a year since it was installed (by about 4 weeks). I told them I'm not happy about that as it would appear to be an installation issue - I never had this problem before the new dish was put up and my neighbours with Sky over the road never have this problem.

Anyway, I'm thinking of switching to Virgin so we can do away with the dish.

I have a question about downloading On Demand programmes. My broadband speed is shockingly low(!) - about 1mb and I have been told by TalkTalk and Plusnet that this won't improve unless I get my external lines replaced. I downloaded the first Strictly and it took about 14 hours!

Who do I speak to about getting lines improved? Has anyone done this?

Comments

  • JJ_Egan
    JJ_Egan Posts: 20,281 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Are you in a Virgin Cable area is the first question.

    BT are responsible for your line usually but if voice is ok then they will probably refuse to dig up the road .
  • teddysmum
    teddysmum Posts: 9,533 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Openreach will not replace your line just because you are dissatisfied with speeds, as are vast numbers of others. Your line, together with those of your neighbours will be upgraded when it is your area's turn , which could be many years in the future.
  • Oh, I thought the line might be something we could pay to upgrade. Never mind, not the end of the world. The thing we're most fed up with is Sky. I was told back in March that Virgin are able to provide cable, just need to get a rep out to do a survey.

    I'm contracted to Plusnet til March so am just debating whether to wait until then or just look at tv with Virgin.

    Thanx for replies.
  • JJ_Egan
    JJ_Egan Posts: 20,281 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper
    Plusnet may not charge you the full amount due to March if you terminate early due to bad speeds .You can ask them how much to cancel your contract .
  • Moneymaker
    Moneymaker Posts: 1,984 Forumite
    1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    janey1a wrote: »
    It happened again around February/March time - this time my brother-in-law kindly tweaked the dish!

    The dish is faulty. Simply replace it. You can get good quality non-Sky 60cm dishes that will do the job nicely.
  • Moneymaker wrote: »
    You can get good quality non-Sky 60cm dishes that will do the job nicely.
    That would involve cost to the OP, of course, including getting someone to install the new dish. A new dish also won't improve the general disgruntlement with Sky.
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