Sky Broadband Super Fast vs Fibre Prices UNFAIR

OGreggerz

How is it fair that Sky broadband was discounted to £31 for 80mbps and now we have just had fiber enabled we can get 150mbps for the same price (not discounted)?

We have been a loyal customer to Sky for many years and as usual their end of contract price increases are always a shock, so we renewed a couple of months ago. My opinion during this call was how is it fair to charge us the same price as fibre for broadband. We couldn't even have Fibre due to not being installed yet. The representative on call placed us on hold a couple of times to try get this price down, benefit of doubt that they were not just making a coffee and laughing at the "pour" deal he was about to deliver of £31 for our contract.

Now we have fibre available to us, naturally i feel like don't worry about it just give them a call and arrange a new deal. However, i can't help but feel that millions of people around the country have been paying a premium cost broadband contract at average fibre costs and this doesn't transparently seem fair.

Is there a consumer right here or a just case behind what i'm saying?

visidigi

OGreggerz said:

How is it fair that Sky broadband was discounted to £31 for 80mbps and now we have just had fiber enabled we can get 150mbps for the same price (not discounted)?

We have been a loyal customer to Sky for many years and as usual their end of contract price increases are always a shock, so we renewed a couple of months ago. My opinion during this call was how is it fair to charge us the same price as fibre for broadband. We couldn't even have Fibre due to not being installed yet. The representative on call placed us on hold a couple of times to try get this price down, benefit of doubt that they were not just making a coffee and laughing at the "pour" deal he was about to deliver of £31 for our contract.

Now we have fibre available to us, naturally i feel like don't worry about it just give them a call and arrange a new deal. However, i can't help but feel that millions of people around the country have been paying a premium cost broadband contract at average fibre costs and this doesn't transparently seem fair.

Is there a consumer right here or a just case behind what i'm saying?

Not consumer rights issue.

Things can and do change over time. In your case you have the added bonus of a near doubling of speed for the same price. You're no worse off financially - but the availability of a new service means they can adjust the offering according to the new service/capacity. You can of course leave to any fibre provider.

I've heard good things about Toob if you can get it (although its 900 Mbps and less than your £31 a month).

prowla

(speed is Mbps, not mbps)

Alderbank

prowla said:

(speed is Mbps, not mbps)

I'm sure none of us wants to be overly picky.

However @visidigi didn't say mbps. They said 900mps.

900 metres per second is in excess of 2,000 miles per hour. That sounds quite fast to me 

Ectophile

It's actually providing the service that costs money, and  Sky will be handing over a signifiant chunk of that to Openreach.

It really makes little difference to Sky's costs whether it's old ADSL, newer VDSL fibre to the cabinet, or fibre to the home.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

OGreggerz said:

How is it fair that Sky broadband was discounted to £31 for 80mbps and now we have just had fiber enabled we can get 150mbps for the same price (not discounted)?

Can't speak for fair but most places have fibre, 96.59% UK coverage apparently, so it'll be a more competitive product with Sky matching other deals to snag customers. 

For the non-fibre broadband making up fewer customers perhaps they feel their brand loyalty does the trick, perhaps they aren't fussed for the custom but will take it at the right price. 

I'm stuck without fibre and pay more than fibre for a 4G home router which, due to the lay of the land, is a lesser service but not much I can do about it.

Murphybear

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

OGreggerz said:

How is it fair that Sky broadband was discounted to £31 for 80mbps and now we have just had fiber enabled we can get 150mbps for the same price (not discounted)?

Can't speak for fair but most places have fibre, 96.59% UK coverage apparently, so it'll be a more competitive product with Sky matching other deals to snag customers. 

For the non-fibre broadband making up fewer customers perhaps they feel their brand loyalty does the trick, perhaps they aren't fussed for the custom but will take it at the right price. 

I'm stuck without fibre and pay more than fibre for a 4G home router which, due to the lay of the land, is a lesser service but not much I can do about it.

According to Ofcom “around seven in 10 premises (69% or 20.7m) now have access to full fibre” 

dumpster_fire2025

OGreggerz said:

How is it fair that Sky broadband was discounted to £31 for 80mbps and now we have just had fiber enabled we can get 150mbps for the same price (not discounted)?

We have been a loyal customer to Sky for many years and as usual their end of contract price increases are always a shock, so we renewed a couple of months ago. My opinion during this call was how is it fair to charge us the same price as fibre for broadband. We couldn't even have Fibre due to not being installed yet. The representative on call placed us on hold a couple of times to try get this price down, benefit of doubt that they were not just making a coffee and laughing at the "pour" deal he was about to deliver of £31 for our contract.

Now we have fibre available to us, naturally i feel like don't worry about it just give them a call and arrange a new deal. However, i can't help but feel that millions of people around the country have been paying a premium cost broadband contract at average fibre costs and this doesn't transparently seem fair.

Is there a consumer right here or a just case behind what i'm saying?

The price that Sky pays BT for an 80MBit connection vs 160Mbit connection is fairly negligible, £259.20p/a vs £317.28p/a.

These are ultimately different products that cost different amounts to provide. I would imagine that overall a copper line is more costly to provide than a fibre one. There's more chance of physical issues with the line which costs money to maintain and I would imagine the expected lifetime of a fibre cable is longer than that of a copper one when it's stuck in the ground. You also simply don't need as many cables.

People used to pay £20p/m for dialup connections where you could perhaps use them for a couple of hours a day without paying per-minute call rates. And that was 25 years ago or more. Does everyone get a refund now that you can get a several hundred megabit always-on connection for probably less money?

TELLIT01

Sky offer a product at a price.  It is for the potential customer to decide whether or not they are willing to pay that price, and to look at possible alternatives.  'Fair' doesn't come into it.

powerful_Rogue

dumpster_fire2025 said:

OGreggerz said:

How is it fair that Sky broadband was discounted to £31 for 80mbps and now we have just had fiber enabled we can get 150mbps for the same price (not discounted)?

We have been a loyal customer to Sky for many years and as usual their end of contract price increases are always a shock, so we renewed a couple of months ago. My opinion during this call was how is it fair to charge us the same price as fibre for broadband. We couldn't even have Fibre due to not being installed yet. The representative on call placed us on hold a couple of times to try get this price down, benefit of doubt that they were not just making a coffee and laughing at the "pour" deal he was about to deliver of £31 for our contract.

Now we have fibre available to us, naturally i feel like don't worry about it just give them a call and arrange a new deal. However, i can't help but feel that millions of people around the country have been paying a premium cost broadband contract at average fibre costs and this doesn't transparently seem fair.

Is there a consumer right here or a just case behind what i'm saying?

The price that Sky pays BT for an 80MBit connection vs 160Mbit connection is fairly negligible, £259.20p/a vs £317.28p/a.

These are ultimately different products that cost different amounts to provide. I would imagine that overall a copper line is more costly to provide than a fibre one. There's more chance of physical issues with the line which costs money to maintain and I would imagine the expected lifetime of a fibre cable is longer than that of a copper one when it's stuck in the ground. You also simply don't need as many cables.

People used to pay £20p/m for dialup connections where you could perhaps use them for a couple of hours a day without paying per-minute call rates. And that was 25 years ago or more. Does everyone get a refund now that you can get a several hundred megabit always-on connection for probably less money?

I remember paying £60p/m for unlimited dialup with PurpleNet in the early 00's. How times change!

LightFlare

Last renewal I got 900 for £1 less a month than my previous 400.

Markets and costs constantly change

Just have to look at how much cheaper mobile data is than 5 years ago