Sorry, Sky Broadband Unlimited is not available

Bennett28

I followed the link from Martin's cheap broadband deals and selected the Sky deal for £190 with the £75 Mastercard bonus. When I clicked through the link it said 'Sorry, Sky Broadband Unlimited in not available' in my area. I contacted Sky and they said it was because BT Openreach do not have any slots and so they cannot offer me the offer. Surprisingly they can offer me another 'offer' but this will cost me £37.40 for Sky Fibre, but I don't want fibre.
Seems like a complete rip-off!
BT have the monopoly and so I cannot get a competitive rate. I have been with BT for the last year and now they have hiked the price up to £38.99 for broadband and line rental. I'm really cross!
Any suggestions?
Thank you.:mad:

bigbulldog

Are you on fibre with bt if not then the sky's £37.40 include line rental if it does that has got to be a better deal even though you don't want fibre

JJ_Egan

How long have you left on your BT contract .
If out of contract then get some prices and tell BT you want to leave see what they offer .
But be careful if SKY say your exchange is full .

You dont want fibre ?? even if its cheaper ??

iniltous

You seem to have either misunderstood what Sky have said or were given a lot of bull, Sky only sell LLU MPF services, they don't use any non fibre 'slots', if it's ordinary broadband, they only use Openreach for the wires from the exchange to your house (the local loop) ,unless it's fibre broadband when they use an Openreach 'slot' in the FTTC (fibre) cabinet, so either they have no Sky MPF slots, this is unlikely given they are prepared to sell you a MPF slot if you take fibre but not if you want ordinary broadband.
If it's Sky you want to use, I would suggest you try again, and if they say you cannot have the deal offered ask why , but don't accept anything about no OR slots, the only way your story makes sense is if you got it the wrong way around, perhaps it's there are no OR 'fibre' slots avalable ( that can happen , FTTC cabs have only so many 'slots') Sky haven't used WLR3 or BTW 'broadband slots' for quite some time, in fact if someone on an exchange without a Sky MPF presence asks for service they just say sorry you are not in our network area.

Bennett28

Hi
No just normal broadband. The Sky deal was £190 for 12 months of broadband and line rental, which was a bargain.
I'm just angry that I can't get the deal because of BT's monopoly with BT Openreach; it just doesn't seem fair that I can't get the deal because of them holding the lines to ransom.
The Sky deal runs out today so I may look around in the next couple of days to see the latest offers.

Bennett28

JJ Egan
Thanks for your reply.
I have just finished my year with BT - end of November. So I am free to go wherever I wish to.
I don't want fibre as Sky are quoting £37.40 and the ordinary broadband is £15 including line rental. I don't need superfast as only use for laptop and Netflix and that has always worked without any problems.

Bennett28

iniltous
Thank you for your reply.

I think I may have been told a load of bull, but to be honest I don't understand the abbreviations and terminology you used in your reply but I am willing to ring Sky again and challenge them if they say no.

bigbulldog

Have you tried to haggle with sky as I pay £17.40 for my line rental and fibre unlimited.

Even if they won't budge your still better off financially going with sky fibre as it would save you £1.59 every month.

teddysmum

bigbulldog wrote: »

Have you tried to haggle with sky as I pay £17.40 for my line rental and fibre unlimited.

Even if they won't budge your still better off financially going with sky fibre as it would save you £1.59 every month.

That's a good deal (ie free fibre). They would only offer me free ADSL (after a year of free ADSL and half price line; we are not fibre enabled yet), so I left.

iniltous

The terminology used can be unclear, but basically Sky only sell connections to their own local loop unbundled (LLU) network, in the past they would resell BT telephony (dialtone generated from the BT exchange, but billed by Sky) but these days they exclusively connect their customers to Sky dial tone and broadband , so no 'BT' involvement in the broadband or dialtone, everything but the wires into your home belong to Sky , the only time Sky use anyone else's equipment apart from OR wires is if the customer wants fibre to the cabinet broadband (FTTC), and as you don't want fibre, then it's exclusively Sky's equipment and Openreach wires, so it cannot be the case that 'no Openreach ports left' could be the reason for not honouring the deal you have seen and want.
the only way the sentence 'you cannot have service because OR have no ports left' can be true is if they are talking about fibre (FTTC) broadband, but you enquired about regular not fibre broadband
If you go onto a broadband checker site like Sam knows, does it say Sky LLU is available in the exchange , if it says it isn't, then the truth is they cannot offer service at all, and should just say 'sorry you are not in our network area' , if the exchange does have Sky network available (and most do) then either they don't want you to have that deal, or ( but not very likely) they have no spare Sky equipment, nothing to do with OR ports , and by the way BT don't have a monopoly , if you are served from an exchange where the likes of Sky or Talk Talk haven't provided LLU access, its because Sky and TT don't think that exchange is an economic proposition, and they don't have to provide their services unless they want to, that decision is Sky or TT's, nothing to do with BT

littleboo

Bennett28 wrote: »

Hi

I'm just angry that I can't get the deal because of BT's monopoly with BT Openreach; it just doesn't seem fair that I can't get the deal because of them holding the lines to ransom.

As has been explained, any provider can use Openreachs network, nobody is holding lines to ransom