Heaven and Hell with Sky Broadband (Sky by Broadband)

Member Name: kellylouj

Product:	Sky by Broadband
Date:	06/03/07 (6667 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great deal for TV, Broadband and telephone

Disadvantages: Poor communication, poor broadband service

Always looking to save money and after numerous complaints to my other half about the poor deal we had with BT and Virgin and reaslising we were paying out a lot more that we could be we decided to look around for a better deal and stopped at the new Sky package See, Surf, Speak all at a great competitve price of £26.



Eager for more information my other half decided to give sky a call with me listening as he talked to the operator, "Sounds Great" he said as he put the phone down, I'll call BT and Virgin and see what's next and how we can terminate our contract.

Several days later we had notified Sky that we wanted to take up this package and terminate our contract with Virgin and our call package was taken over by Sky so we just continued paying the line rental with BT.



*~*Checking for Coverage*~*

This can be checked via the Sky website by entering your landline number. We had previously looked into a similar deal by Talk Talk, hence why we called through to Sky first to check the package and see if there were any hidden catches.

As I will explain later in the review there are several packages when it comes to choosing what you want, we didn't qualify for the free broadband classed as Base but we would still be able to get the deal on the connect broadband which would be at a £5 charge still not bad and a lot cheaper than what we have previously been paying to Virgin so we still carried on changing.



*~*The Packages*~*



SPEAK

There are currently 2 call packages available we signed up to the free talk plan which carries no monthly charge and offers free calls between 6pm and 6am Monday to Friday and free calls from after 6pm until Midnight Sunday. Calls at any other time are 3p per minute and mobile calls are 5% cheaper than BT rates, only problem is you need to disconnect if you are planning on having a lengthy call of over an hour and redial or you get charged for the whole call, a little bit crafty to throw that one in but good job we read the terms and conditions.

On our previous plan we did not have any free calls so we instantly were getting more than we had been for less...great stuff so far so good.



The other package is unlimited and carries a £5 monthly fee allowing free calls to any landline number and 25% lower rate for mobile calls.

As a light user this package was not really beneficial to me and we stuck to the basic plan as that was more than sufficient for our household.



SURF

There are currently 3 options available for the Broadband with Sky.

Base is the first package and the one provided free if you are within the 70% coverage area, as mentioned I unfortunately was not. Anyway the package is ideal for the light internet user with limited downloads its better for a user that just wants to check email and visit sites and doesn't download music or videos.



Mid is the next package that carries a £20 activation fee and a £5 per month subscription charge. This is supposedly the best package to opt for as you get speeds of up to 8MB and a download of up to 40GB its the most competitive package out there.



Max is offered generally in major city centres so if you live in a small village you will be unlikely to get coverage for this package as it has a very limited coverage area, Offering 60GB for downloads per month and a £10 monthly subscription fee this is great if you need this much but my recommendation would be to stick with the mid package as this offers best value for money.



Connect is the package that we were offered as we did not have coverage for the Sky broadband as we are not in the area where their equipment has been installed. Connect is a similar service to Mid carrying a £20 activation charge and £5 monthly rental charge still a pretty good deal, and sky rent the equipment off another provider to allow you to still gain the package.

Included in all of the packages is McAfee softwate worth £50 which is a great bargain protecting you from virus and hackers its ideal.



SEE

This is the SKY T v package which many people that have sky will be aware of. Mixes are the set of channels provided by SKY and allow you to pick and mix the ones that you want.

For the £26 package you get the base broadband, free talk package and 3 mixes.



Variety Mix

Music Mix

News and Events Mix

Kids Mix

Knowledge Mix

Style and Culture Mix



For an extra £16 a month you can opt to add Sky Movies or Sky Sports or both for and additinal £22.50, Sky currently have there web site set up so you can check out the types of channels in each mix and also allow you to price your desired package.



Ok so we got this far and all of the options still looked great and we would be saving a heck of a lot of money so what was next......



*~*Switching*~*

As with many companies they claim that switching is easy you just need to let Sky know and they will do the rest.

Partially true all we had to do was to call Virgin to request a mac code and advise them that we are changing providers, easily done and the code arrived within 5 working days, we then had to call through to Sky to provide this and update the details.

We kept our initial Sky package the same so all in all for an extra £8 we were now getting free calls and broadband. Everyone likes getting a little bit more don't they?!?

Our first letter arrived from Sky confirming that our order had been placed and that we had signed up to the package. We were advised that our line would be activated within about 10-15 working days however due to the popularity of this package we should allow an extra 3 days for our line to be connected, we were fine with this as we still had the Virgin broadband so we were happy.

The first week passed and we thought it would have been nice to have received the wireless router but no nothing had arrived and we knew we could be potentially looking at 3 weeks wait.
We had received the username and password for the account and we were just waiting for the router.
Another week passed and we had a message left on the phone stating that the line was now active but where was the router??
We decided to call through to Sky to find out, we spoke to a consultant who was not very helpful and said that the router would be arriving shortly, however they could not confirm the date that it had been dispatched. Not satisfied with that response we called back the next day asking to speak to a team leader, he then confirmed that the router was due for delivery that day, somehow we didn't believe that so we asked for another to be placed on order as we hadn't received it and it hadn't been delivered and we had all the activation codes and our line was ready but we had nothing to connect it too!!! He agreed to pop another router on order for us and gave us the tracker reference, 3 days later the router turned up, but this was the one that we had ther postal tracker for. So had one been posted out originally??? I think not.
So off we go we opened the nice new box with the netgear router branded by Sky and connected to get the message "HMMMM you're not quite ready to go online yet" so why was this now!!!
Another call to sky and they say that they will test the line to see what the problem is and will call us back within 24 hours, suprise suprise no call back from Sky so we again phone Sky to check the status to be advised that the fault is with BT's exchange and that this has now been logged with them and should be rectified within the next 5 working days.

*~*Conclusion*~*
Switching over wasn't as easy for us as they state on the website and on all of their literature however we finally had the internet and we could connect.
If you don't have sky however I would not recommend this package as it is simply not worth it, the broadband is not the best but I put this down to the fact that we are on the connect package which as previously mentioned is not serviced by Sky but they rent the line so they have no control over this.
The speed is much faster than virgin in our area and I assume that when Sky finally upgrade with their own equipment in our area as they state they will be doing shortly it can only get better, however until then I will have to put up with lost connection and having to reboot the router.
We have written a letter of complaint to Sky and to this date we are still awaiting a response as to why our calls were never returned and why the router was never originally placed on order.
Sky could have a fantastic, very competitive package here but they simply let it down with their lack of communication to customers and very poor customer service levels with long call waiting times and staff that are simply not trained to deal with the enquiries.
Sky tv and the Sky telephone package however are great and I have no complaints what so ever so if you can get on the base, mid or max packages with Sky give it a go you may be better off, despite our complaints we certainly still are as we are yet to pay for the broadband connection due to the errors made by Sky we have so far had 3 months for free and the activation fee refunded for the inconvenience that we have so far suffered and fingers crossed things can only get better with Sky.

Summary: It has to improve...doesn't it?

Variety of features:
Reliability:
User friendly:
Installation:
Update possibilites: