Sky just refuse to haggle with me!

Paper_&_Metal

Thanks for the replies so far, I tried to respond on my mobile but it didn't like it so I am trying on my laptop now.  We watch a few channels that Sky provide such as Sky History and Discovery but I am sure we can manage without them. We would however like to keep Discovery Plus if this is available as a streaming service by itself, we do watch quite a lot on there already, currently a free trial via the Sky platform but this is due to come to an end soon I am told by Sky and I will then have to sign up directly and pay?

No we don't have any Router boosters that I am aware of. We do have a multiroom box and we did have problems with our Broadband for some time but this was down to a BT fault in our area apparently. I complained to Sky for the continuous drop outs and they said they wouldn't refund me but since then we have been billed for the Boost I think as it has worked a lot better since then.

Yes we need the fixed phone, mainly because I have long call waits when chasing people like DWP and others who can't offer a free online accessible chat service (I am physically disabled). We use the call blocker Sky Talk Shield and it has eliminated 99.9% of nuisance calls that other attempts couldn't so the phone is actually not ringing off the hook and a lot quieter since we added that service. Yes I get my £12 worth of calls as I have to call my elderly mum several times a day to check she is ok and have a chat too or sort out a few of her issues via calls too.

Kids channel, well I guess not when I come to renew or cancel. It was mainly when we were stuck indoors and I was also stuck in bed some days so it gave me something different to watch, modernised classics that didn't need much mental concentration. I cancelled Disney+ as didn't like that so Sky offered me Kids for £1.

Hopefully I will get better assistance from Sky soon as I am confused about switching.

Think that has covered the majority of questions, sorry if I missed any. Thanks for the information and help so far.

MalMonroe

Hi, you could try phoning BT and asking them for a quote. They will go through options with you and then you can choose what, if anything, you would like - 0800 800 150. It'd just be an enquiry, and it's free.

I'm with BT and I do continue to haggle with them, sometimes before the current contract has expired. At the moment I'm paying £43 per month for broadband, TV and landline. But that's including a NOW (TV) subscription and also Netflix which were on offer at the time I re-contracted. My whole bill will rise to £51 in April. BT used to supply 'bundles' but now they do separate packages and you can negotiate each separately.

Filo25

Personally recently I haven't found Sky particularly interested in haggling until you go ahead and cancel everything, they will normally then be a lot more open to discussing pricing during the 1 month notice period.

mjm3346

You cam add Discovery Plus to Prime for £4.99 or £6.99 a month if you want to include Eurosport

KxMx

I'm disabled too and found a £5 sim monthly contract with Lebara (a special MSE deal, unlimited calls/texts plus 2gb data), it's excellent, I can dial, put it on loudspeaker and put the phone down beside me to talk and hear comfortably, all hands free. 

Cheaper than our previous LL calls package and much more convenient. 

Marvel1

emmajones1976 said:

Marvel1 said:

Scrap HD, is it worth it? Nothing wrong with SD.

Stop it, the picture quality is night and day. On a TV that is 50" or bigger the SD picture is terrible. Shall we go back to black and white TV whilst we are at it?

Like DVD quality or worse?

What is the p quality for standard? so I can see what's it's like on YouTube.

HaroldWren5

Filo25 said:

Personally recently I haven't found Sky particularly interested in haggling until you go ahead and cancel everything, they will normally then be a lot more open to discussing pricing during the 1 month notice period.

I would concur with that. Furthermore, if you actually "push the button" and leave then they may even start rolling out the 60% off pricing via email, or post flyers to get you to come back. Paraphrasing from Yes Minister:

"Customer says that renewal price is outrageous. It's unfair. Do you push the 75% off button?"

"Of course not. We just tell them about "rising costs" and "investment", then knock £50 off the renewal price. Still more expensive than what they used to pay. Win win for us."
"Customer rings again and threatens to not renew contract unless he gets the same price as a new customer. When you decline, he says he is not happy and his next call will be to leave. Push the button?"
"No of course not."
"Customer's wife now calls. Tactic used just for price negotiation of course. Wife surprises you by passing over phone mid conversation to their Adult children who have inherited both parent's zeal for not accepting high prices. Adult children threaten to go to Ombudsman if a better deal is not given. Push the button?" 
"Of course not! We just cut the margin a tiny bit and talk them into staying! At worst, we'll just give them the same price they used to pay."
"Customer rings again. Requests to be put through to Cancellations immediately with 3 days left. Do you push the 75% off button?"
"I...well I mean.."

"Customer now pushes his own button and leaves! Now do you push the 75% off button?"

"I.. I need time to think."

"You have 72 hours Minister. The call could come through from the customer at any time!"

HaroldWren5

Paper_&_Metal said:

Thanks for the replies so far, I tried to respond on my mobile but it didn't like it so I am trying on my laptop now.  We watch a few channels that Sky provide such as Sky History and Discovery but I am sure we can manage without them. We would however like to keep Discovery Plus if this is available as a streaming service by itself, we do watch quite a lot on there already, currently a free trial via the Sky platform but this is due to come to an end soon I am told by Sky and I will then have to sign up directly and pay?

No we don't have any Router boosters that I am aware of. We do have a multiroom box and we did have problems with our Broadband for some time but this was down to a BT fault in our area apparently. I complained to Sky for the continuous drop outs and they said they wouldn't refund me but since then we have been billed for the Boost I think as it has worked a lot better since then.

Yes we need the fixed phone, mainly because I have long call waits when chasing people like DWP and others who can't offer a free online accessible chat service (I am physically disabled). We use the call blocker Sky Talk Shield and it has eliminated 99.9% of nuisance calls that other attempts couldn't so the phone is actually not ringing off the hook and a lot quieter since we added that service. Yes I get my £12 worth of calls as I have to call my elderly mum several times a day to check she is ok and have a chat too or sort out a few of her issues via calls too.

Kids channel, well I guess not when I come to renew or cancel. It was mainly when we were stuck indoors and I was also stuck in bed some days so it gave me something different to watch, modernised classics that didn't need much mental concentration. I cancelled Disney+ as didn't like that so Sky offered me Kids for £1.

Hopefully I will get better assistance from Sky soon as I am confused about switching.

Think that has covered the majority of questions, sorry if I missed any. Thanks for the information and help so far.

It all hinges on what you watch and what you need. Given you said you need a landline, you would need to have an FTTC service with landline, or FTTP service with a "Digital Voice" Landline (currently offered by BT, Sky, Vodafone, Giganet, etc).

I would add that you could theoretically go for Vodafone's FTTC £18 a month (24 months) broadband product just to get the landline given it's cheapest. The Unlimited Landline calls would be something like £8 a month. There is a discount I believe of £3 a month if you are a Vodafone mobile customer. Then you could use a 4G Unlimited SIM in a Mobile Hotspot Mifi device or Router/Mesh system for internet if your FTTC speed is not fast enough.

I would strongly advise checking if you can get FTTP in your area since it will provide a more reliable internet connection and usually the speed/price value of the product is better. That would be Full Fibre (sometimes termed "Ultrafast" by Sky or BT) all the way to the home.

I do not believe that any of the "Sky Boosts" or "BT Wifi guarantees" as of time of writing are worth it. Their speed guarantees are laughable. For the contract monthly fee, they often guarantee something like 5-10Mbps Wifi speeds. Even though Wifi isn't necessarily as strong as a Wired connection, you can still often do far better by spending the money you would end up paying Sky/BT for this "Boost/Complete Wifi" to just buy a good Mesh wifi system. For a Broadband connection of up to 300Mbps, ironically you can buy the BT Consumer Whole Home Wifi kit (not the one labelled Premium) for around £200 and use it with any broadband provider. There are even better ones from the likes of ASUS, Netgear, Alien etc that can attain higher speeds if your broadband connection warrants that. In addition, Powerline can be used to an extent for speeds of roughly up to 150Mbps. Ultimately the Line speed coming into the house is the maximum speed you can get of course for the Internet. 

So as for TV, it all hinges on what you watch. You might find that you can just run with Freeview (completely free with aerial), or Freesat (one off satellite adjustment cost to an engineer) to watch most Free to air channels and buy a recording box if you really need it. 

You can then get all your Discovery Channels, Sky Entertainment Channels, Cinema, Sports, BT Sport, Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, History channel, you name it by simply subscribing to them via the Internet connection using the relevant respective app usually on 30 day rolling contracts. All of them I believe can theoretically deliver 4K content, except for Sky material which will be up to HD quality. I am not sure that Sky actually broadcast that much in 4K anyway versus Amazon Prime, Disney+ or Netflix for instance. 

The Discovery Plus service will give you the Discovery channels in full HD and ability to stream catchup on their programmes much like BBC iPlayer.

BT, not exactly the bastion of customer service, do apparently offer a TV service of some sort (if you opt for Broadband with them) where you can change TV contracts every 30 days. 

Carrot007

Marvel1 said:

What is the p quality for standard? so I can see what's it's like on YouTube.

P. of course means nothing. It's all about the bit rate for any fgiven compresion standard. (yes it is complex).

However Current SD TV is a lot lot worse than anologue used to be. Of course sthey could kill off all the old boxes and move the 265 for everything atr the same bitreate and it would look a lot better but people may be angry.

HaroldWren5

emmajones1976 said:

Marvel1 said:

Scrap HD, is it worth it? Nothing wrong with SD.

Stop it, the picture quality is night and day. On a TV that is 50" or bigger the SD picture is terrible. Shall we go back to black and white TV whilst we are at it?

I agree. What's crazy is that we are now in the age where TV manufacturers have already given us screens that can deliver 4K (some now even 8K), and we are still getting SD content. HD should not be deemed a luxury at this point. I can understand broadcasting old classics that were filmed originally in SD as SD  content, but surely we should be striving for 4K content (at the very least HD) for new content! Indeed, in many cases, some have remastered old films (e.g. Bond films), or TV series (e.g. Star Trek) in full HD. 

HD should be free and the bare minimum at this point. Youtubers are broadcasting in 4K (for free!) You can see the clear difference if you watch shows with background scenery on Amazon Prime in 4K for instance. At this rate, even if we have a fully functioning "Holodeck" available to consumers, the broadcasters will still be offering programmes in SD.