TOOTH EXTRACTION - V - SKY

EyeOnYou

Hi all,

I just had to post this, because I have just had the most laughable and painful experience, ever, with SKY. Not to mention wasting 30 minutes of my life. I have, what 'they' call, ultrafast fibre 145Mbs to the property. Trust me, it is by no means fast and I have 'never' had 145 download in the 2 years of being with Sky - I'm lucky if I receive 90 Mbs. My experience with Sky is, whatever they advertise you'll just about scrape two thirds of whatever they claim. Take a look on Trustpilot, it's a joke!

According to Sky, I'm a 'Silver' VIP 'loyal' member. (The word 'loyal' will become very apparent) 

I received a note in my account to say my contract is almost coming to an end, 'click here' for your super deals and options. I click the button and get this message:

"Oh no, there seems to be a problem."

I then decided to call them to discuss my options as I was considering an upgrade to 500 Mbs. I currently pay 27.00 pr month for 145 Mbs. I did some research and on 'MoneySuperMarket' website, I can see 500mb with Sky is advertised at 33.00 per month and with the voucher, it works out over the 18 month term, to 29.12 pr month. So, based on this - and because, I'm such a 'loyal & silver VIP member,' Their label - not mine; I'm expecting them to better it. I spoke with a lady called Nicole, the call was that laggy, I'm guessing she was based on Mars. She took all my details and came back with:

'To upgrade you to 500 Mbs would cost 53.00 pr month, we can discount it by 5.00 which means you will pay 48.00 pr month; do you wish me to process the order?'

How can this possibly be? I can se it advertised in your January sale for 29.12pr month?? She replied, bless her: 'But that is for NEW customers!'

So, someone who has NEVER been with Sky pays that price and the likes of me, a  'loyal & silver VIP member,' gets ripped off at a discounted 48.00 pr month; for the same thing?? You're having a laugh, surely? As I pointed out, Vodaphone are doing the same deal for 27.92 pr month. 'That's the best I can do,' she replied.

Seriously, I've had less pain having a tooth extraction! Goodbye Sky, hello VODAFONE, I also have another property that also needs Broadband fibre - shot yourself in the foot Sky. I guess your idea of loyalty and mine, have two different meanings!

Generally, broadband in the UK is very slow and draconian and well behind the rest of the world in terms of infrastructure and technology. Fibre in other countries is 'symmetrical' which means whatever your download speed is, your upload speed is the same and is superb for 6 and 8k streams and incredible for gaming. When I asked Sky about this, their technical bod had no clue as what I was talking about - I'm guessing it wasn't on his 'flow' chart on the wall in front of him.

No doubt it is all down to Openreach trying 'make' hi tech state of the art fibre run through old Victorian infrastructure, instead of doing it all properly and offering proper 'symmetrical' fibre.

Check out Trustpilot with any UK broadband supplier and speed is the main topic of complaint with all of them. Perhaps Martin and the team could look into why 'loyalty' when you're a VIP silver sky customer, only works one way? Also, look into why all these well known companies do not offer symmetrical fibre, it's the 'norm' in other countries.

Must go, I'm late for the dentist! 

Bradden

If you think the infrastucture is behind the rest of the world I'd suggest you look at America. The local cable  monopolies have lead to an awful deal for customers. Many of them are still on data caps.

Penguin_

EyeOnYou said:

Hi all,

I just had to post this, because I have just had the most laughable and painful experience, ever, with SKY. Not to mention wasting 30 minutes of my life. I have, what 'they' call, ultrafast fibre 145Mbs to the property. Trust me, it is by no means fast and I have 'never' had 145 download in the 2 years of being with Sky - I'm lucky if I receive 90 Mbs. My experience with Sky is, whatever they advertise you'll just about scrape two thirds of whatever they claim. Take a look on Trustpilot, it's a joke!

I can only imagine what a pain this is for you....we can't get beyond 40Mbs in my town in Wales.

carly

Good luck with Vodafone.  I have found them to be 10 times worse than Sky and customer service is non existent.

mark_cycling00

Many years ago there was funny article in Viz called "Internet to reach Wales by 2020"

In 2020 when I'm a celebrity was filmed in Wales, itv had to install a new broadband cable all the way from England to the Welsh castle lolz

[Deleted User]

Welcome to everyday life. Nothing that you’ve mentioned is a revelation, it’s all par the course. 

Sky won’t care. BT won’t care. Virgin Media won’t care. Plus net, Vodafone…. None of them care; for every one they lose another signs up. 

Loyalty has never brought reward, only higher prices. So you play the game. Sometimes they play back. Sometimes you get a good deal. Other times, you get a new supplier. And in time, when the new supplier also leaves you seething, it’s back to square one for another round of faff, foff, and **** it.

EyeOnYou

Bradden said:

If you think the infrastucture is behind the rest of the world I'd suggest you look at America. The local cable  monopolies have lead to an awful deal for customers. Many of them are still on data caps.

I have relatives in the US (Seattle) and Canada (Alberta) and have visited both. The US friends were capped but never hit the cap in place as it was huge. They have now renewed with a company and are now unlimited. The Canadian system is 'pure' fibre to the property 1.5 gb upload and the same for download. It really is superb and so fast there is no delay whatsoever. Their lowest plan is 750 mb up and down. Both countries are symmetrical fibre systems. 

The cap is not the issue. The issue is loyalty and the terrible lagging speeds of Sky's so-called 'ultrafast fibre' it's not, it's misrepresented  and a lie - like most UK companies selling fibre.

My 96 year old father is with Talk Talk - has been a loyal customer for 20 years plus! He pay for 35 Mb and gets 15 on a good day. They admitted there was a fault on the old copper line, but haven't bothered to repair it. The router failed no-end of times and they promised 12 times to send out a new one and never did. In the end, I had to go and buy a new router and install it myself. I then threatened to sue Talk Talk and with the aid of CISAS brought a claim against Talk Talk for the cost of the router and compensation of 200 pounds!

FYI: If anyone has a complaint about their broadband supplier and feels they have a genuine financial claim. Use these guys:

cedr.com/consumer/cisas/make-a-complaint/

They're very good indeed and their services are FREE! MSE would not let me pot the URL so copy that and put www. in first

Another good tip, never accept their first offer to settle. I refused both Sky and Talk Talks first offers and ended up getting twice my original figure. Sky's compensation was huge as they made a real mess of the fibre install - it was a joke - along with Openreach - absolute cowboys and the fibre cable is till sticking out of the lawn now which has to be negotiated when cutting the grass. It took them 8 months to figure out that 3 metres of fibre cable was damaged from the house to the box on the path. Which meant my broadband would drop out 4 to 5 times a day. Not good when you're in Zoom meetings!

The best is, before all this I was on old copper lines from 1952 and the maximum broadband I could receive was 35 Mb as we were 5 miles from the exchange to the box in the street - then from the box to the house. The copper lines were 1952 vintage and I never once had a problem in 5 years. My problems all started when Sky dropped a flyer through the door introducing their new 'ULTRAFAST" fibre installs - dangling the carrot. I bought in and paid the price stress wise. I more or less begged them to put me back on the copper lines and rip out the fibre. But they couldn't because of this new digital switchover coming in 2024.

Thanks for all your comments and sympathies...

Albermarle

To put things in perspective, for most households ( and therefore the large majority of domestic broadband customers)  more and more faster speeds bring little or no benefit beyond a certain minimum.
We had 40/50 download and 10 upload, and never any issue with working from home, numerous smartphones, streaming on smart TV's  etc.
I have upgraded to Full fibre and now get 150 down and 30 up. The only point I have noticed is that e mails down load on my phone a bit quicker, but that's it.

Marvel1

I change supplier everytime my contract about to end, since leave Virgin years ago, I'm on my 5th supplier - search for deal, sign up and done, never bother with phoning the current supplier.

Bradden

EyeOnYou said:

Bradden said:

If you think the infrastucture is behind the rest of the world I'd suggest you look at America. The local cable  monopolies have lead to an awful deal for customers. Many of them are still on data caps.

The cap is not the issue. The issue is loyalty and the terrible lagging speeds of Sky's so-called 'ultrafast fibre' it's not, it's misrepresented  and a lie - like most UK companies selling fibre.

Could you explain why you think it's a lie?

booneruk

EyeOnYou said:

Hi all,

I have, what 'they' call, ultrafast fibre 145Mbs to the property. Trust me, it is by no means fast and I have 'never' had 145 download in the 2 years of being with Sky - I'm lucky if I receive 90 Mbs. My experience with Sky is, whatever they advertise you'll just about scrape two thirds of whatever they claim. Take a look on Trustpilot, it's a joke!

I don't think it's been covered in this thread so far, but have you ruled bad wifi or substandard ethernet out of the equation? If your devices are linked to the router via bad wifi or slow ethernet standards (100mbs for example) your speeds would be artificially limited.