changing isp to Sky a good idea?????

ferry

Just a quickie-my BB router arrived today and my disc was damaged.
Rather than wait for a new disc to arrive as I will be activated early next week can I set up and connect to Sky BB without it..?

Dont need the instructions really as I can competently set it all up myself and I have good anti virus software already so is there anything I need to know about thats on the disc that I'll particularly need it for..?

Cheers
F.

firthjm

no mate you dont need the disk if you already have your antivirus software installed, the disk just installs a fancy icon, rebrands internet explorer and installs mcafee.

Your router comes pre configured with your username and password, just connect it up as you would any other broadband and come your activation date should be fine

ferry

Thanks very much:T

firthjm

no problem at all

JayB

Hello People,

Im new to this forum although I have read it a few times. I thought id join to share my experience I have had with Sky. This could get messy!

At the beginning my girlfriend and I moved out of the house we rented from her grandad to a new house about a 3 minute walk down the road. We had Sky TV at the house and called Sky to let them know we would be moving. We had many problems with booking the engineer to install the new dish and actually do the work, it took over 6 weeks & numerous phone calls to finally get up and running with the Sky TV.

When moving to the new house we purchased a home computer and wanted to be connected to the internet so I had a browse through the various sites and decided to go with Sky Broadband, unfortunately!

I called Sky up and they checked my exchange and offered me the Mid package at £5 a month so I joined up. Around a week later the Sky box was delivered to my local post office which I picked up and installed. Here gets the messy part!

My internet worked fine until BT cut us off (in their error and connected us the next day). Since that day, around the end of August if i remember rightly, our broadband has ceased to work.

Having called Sky to enquire about this problem I was told that I did not have Sky broadband. Now this started to ring alarm bells! Having argued the case that I did it was finally figured out by one of the clever employees that when the sale was enetered they set up the account / broadband at my old address but on my new telephone number?!? After many calls, times beng put on hold, given my account details SO many times before being passed to another department (usually the wrong one!!) and going through the same procedures they finally admitted that the made a mistake!!

It would take 7-10 days to close the account and start a new one (this was after about 6 weeks of 1st being cut off).

Now I awaited a call back as promised, (not once did they ever call back when they said they would) so I called them, they told me that I would have to re-sign up to the deal. Ok fair enough. So when I did all they could offer me was the Connect package for £17 a month as the exchange was full!! I was not happy with this so have not signed back up with them and am currently deciding what ISP to use (any suggestions would be great )

Now my main gripe with them is basically when I signed up I joined the Mid package for £5 per month. Through no fault of my own they messed up the booking and now can only offer me the £17 a month Connect package!! How would you guys go about complaining? Is there a case for compensation? They would not even offer me the Connect package at a reduced price!

Thanks for taking the time to read this, it does take a while to explain

JayB

kitchen_buff

I have had probs with Sky broadband from day one. Always having connection problems, keep having to use diagnose connection problems, it is always telling me its the router. If I where you with regards to broadband ring AOL. brill site ask them if they can match sky, its worth a try. You normally get free spyware with aol. I kept my aol email after moving to sky. As soon as my twelve month contract is up I will be going back to AOL

tsj

Hi there

Any thoughts or experiences from Sky's bundled package? I really dislike the idea of handing my money to Mr Murdoch, but I want Sky Sports :cool:

Looking around on the Sky site, it seems I can get the Sports channels, 40 gig download a month with the broadband and free evening and weekend calls all for £39.00 a month. Not bad considering my Pipex broadband is £15 a month for a capped 2 gig download.

But...

I know it's only short term, but I REALLY need as little broadband downtime during the switch for work reasons. How long am I likely to be without boradband as the MAC codes go through? (Pipex left me high and dry for six weeks during a house move.)

And will I be able to still use my Linksys router and modem which is configured for ADSL? It was a right pain setting it all up and I don't want to have to go through that again. Just a nice plug and play please.

Still worth switching?

Any positive or negative experiences greatly welcome.

Thanks.

penrhyn

First check if Sky Broadband is available in your area.
I have Sky broadband, they supply their own router, a Netgear DG834GT.
You are required to use it. It comes with custom firmware and all you have to plug it in and off you go.

Have a look at skyuser.co.uk for lots of info on Sky BB.

hjd

We have just switched from Pipex to Sky because we were tired of paying £24 a month to Pipex and getting low speeds. We already had Sky and Sky Sports so pay an extra £5/month to Sky and nothing to Pipex, plus free phone calls.
Switch was fairly painless and were only without BB for an hour or so (would have been 10 mins if DH had been in to switch over).
No problems with BB but email set up is a problem, as they are changing to a gmail based system but the instructions all refer to the old system. Might be best to set up your own separate email accounts and then they would be unaffected.
Main problem was that Pipex cut us off and so no access to any emails sent to that address from that time. I have notified everyone in my address book but some may have slipped through the net. As Pipex were paid in advance then we should have had access to their services for another 2 weeks, or a refund, but we have given up hope of that.
We were getting actual sppeds of max 1meg on pipex, now 5.5meg on Sky.
Can't really help you on the router but think you have to use it to extract your Sky passwords and then could reconfigure your own.
Hope that helps.

tsj

All very helpful - many thanks. It was the downtime whilst the switch is taking place that concerned me. I know it seems a false economy to stick with Pipex just 'because it works,' but the smooth change over that you experienced has convinced me to go for it.

Plus have you noticed how Pipex introduce new deals, but keep them quiet? It was only through digging around in the past few days that I noticed that new users get the same technical deal as me, only for £9.99 and not £14.99.

Shoddy.