Not as good as Virgin Media (See Sky TV)

Member Name: lmspinkprincess1

Product:	See Sky TV
Date:	16/05/09 (18 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Dedicated channels, Body in Balance has yoga and workouts all day.

Disadvantages: No catch up tv or on demand services

After recently moving house I have, for the first time in my life, subscribed to Sky TV.
Initially I wanted Virgin Media as I have always used them in the past and although I had teething problems with them I have found their service reliable and consistantly good value. I was, however, told that I couldn't get Virgin in my new house and so I called Sky.

With the Sky package I wanted, you need a phone line and set up would cost £130. Sky suggested I take out the multiroom subscription which for only £9.75 per month extra meant no set up charge. I did this and had the 6 tv package, broadband and phoneline and multiroom for £31.25 plus £10 line rental.

The set up with Sky takes a long time. They do the dish first after a few days. This is a relatively quick process although they need a tv to be installed in order for them to check the boxes etc. We weren't actually moved in so used a portable one which was fine.
About a week or so later thay set up the phone line which, again, didn't take long at all although they only set up one phone for you and don't check any additional sockets you may have.
Finally after another 2 weeks they send out a modem with instruction manual and cd which you have to set up yourself. This can be confusing for someone who isn't very technically minded. You have to wait for an activation date before you can actually set up the broadband so in total the complete process took about a month.

So far we have had a few problems with the picture freezing for no apparent reason. The people at sky didn't really know what was wrong and initially said it might to the weather...It was clear and fine outside. in the end we just rebooted the system and it stopped for a while but a few weeks later started again. An engineer is coming out on tuesday to sort the problem once and for all hopefully.

The biggest difference I found between sky and virgin are the on demand services which are excellent with virgin but not exsistant with sky, you could watch programs you missed in the week without the need to record them. Also with Sky, even if you have the sports package you still have to pay more again for Setanta whereas on Virgin it was free with the XL tv package.

What i love about Sky is some of the channels dedicated to health and fitness (for myself), weddings, religion etc. There is something for everyone.

Summary: A fair service but highly overrated compared with other cable/satelite services.