Sky (non) installation

[fatbaldingoldgit]

BACKGROUND

I was due to get the Sky max 16Mb package yesterday, Tuesday 22nd August..£10 a month instead of AOL's £24.99 and a faster service convinced me. The customer technical service can't be as bad as AOL so anything better than zero will be acceptable. I've so far received 3 letters from Sky telling me my new username and password, the installation address details and confirmation that BT will swap the line over from AOL on or before 22nd. The communication has been accurate and timely. I've confirmed with SKY that VPN access to my work is allowed but not supported. As this is critical I'll be testing it out. In preparation for my departure from AOL I've setup my own domain name and 3rd party email service. I'm using Mozilla Thunderbird and both AOL and my new provider's email system works with it. I expect Sky's to be compatible too.

I've signed up for the full package including having an engineer visit to deliver and configure the routerwhich is a Netgear DG834GT (customised DG834G I expect). As I already use a DG834G Mk 1 I am not expecting much to change. Maybe the SKY specific bits have been hard coded.

THE (NON)INSTALL

Well the nice man Phil from Sky rang yesterday at 8:04am and said he would be here within 30 minutes.

He arrived at 8:30am, good as his word, to connect us up....He checked to see that I was an active subscriber to Sky by selecting Sky One on the Sky+ box to see if it came up. It did.

He them moved onto the Sky broadband install. Problem was that AOL was stil active.

Despite the letter from SKY stating that BT informed them the line would be active BY 22nd it wasn't.

Phil called the SKY technical bods and they couldn't find the MAC code despite my having given it to them before and had got them to read it back to me.

I gave them the MAC code again.

After some more calls Sky confirmed that the disconnect was scheduled FOR sometime during 22nd. Phil offered to set it all up so all I would have to do was plug it in when AOL disaapeared.

I pointed out that I needed to test the installation so I could be sure my 3rd party email service, VPN and the wireless network and security functioned correctly and that I could not do that unless Sky was live.

Phil left at 9:15am saying that he wasn't busy and he would get Sky to call me to re-arrange a visit later this week, whilst I am still on holiday and as soon as possible after AOL is disconnected. AOL was scheduled? to be disconnected anytime yesterday before midnight, apparently. Obviously Sky should have known this before making the appointment for 22nd!

Phil pointed out that this was his first Sky broadband install, He seemed reasonably knowledgeable, was helpful and empathised with the problem. This was not of itself an unpleasant experience, just disappointing and probably normal process teething problems.

Sky subsequently called and offered the earliest re-visit for Saturday 2nd September!! Which means I would be without broadband for 10 days. This was rapidly turning into a complete disaster. Attempted to get through to someone more senior to get a better date.

Sky broadband installation supervisor (Maureen Stevenson) couldn't/wouldn't offer me anything better. Suggested I called Customer Services...She couldn't transfer me as I was using her second phone line!..I eventually spoke to someone in broadband technical called Stephen, with no success.


THE RESULT

.... before I get cut off.

1. SKY were unable to take over the line yesterday because BT hadn't provisioned the line even though Sky had advised me it would be done BY today.
2. The Sky engineer said he could either install, but not test the connection today, or come back in the next 2 days when the line had been transferred.
3. I decided to have him come back later this week. The engineer said he would arrange for Sky to call me for a suitable time.
4. Sky called to say they could not have an engineer back before 2nd September. They have no contingency for engineer sickness, for instance, so therefore no spare capacity should anything go wrong and therefore no-one could call before 2nd despite the fact that it was their screw-up which caused the problem. They were not prepared to take any remnedial action.
5. I said I would self-install if they could send me the equipment. Sky said they would not send out the equipment until 5th September.
6. I asked SKY to get the engineer to redeliver the equipment he was going to install this morning. They refused.
7. I've cancelled my Sky broadband installation
8. Sky said that BT will still disconnect me and the only thing they can do is issue me with a MAC code so I can transfer back to AOL or go somewhere else.

Everyone I spoke to at Sky, and there were many, said at some point in the conversation "I'm sorry but there is nothing I can do".

Seems to me there is no corporate will to rectify any mistakes..and mistakes happen in every business..but what we all try to do is remedy that mistake with the customer in order to minimise the pain. Not so with Sky it seems.

My conclusion - Sky have no contingency if anything goes wrong. They are not prepared or have any desire to do anything other than follow their normal processes, even when those processes don't work and it inconveniences their customers. Due to their mismanagement of BT I will be left without a broadband connection for several weeks while I seek a more reliable provider. What I will not now do is continue to pursue broadband with Sky. No-one at Sky cares about this situation enough to do anything about it despite my plees to them for help.

I will now consider whether to continue subsidising Sky with my viewing subscription.

If anyone is contemplating moving to Sky then I would advise electing for a self install or be prepared for a long time without broadband. And if the engineer promises to come back in a couple of days when the line is ready don't believe him. Contact Sky first before sending him away, but keep the equipment. Remember, the router Sky use is a customised proprietory Netgear 834G and Sky say that no other router will work with Sky, ummm??. The only source of the router is Sky. If they don't deliver it you ain't gonna be able to use the service.



..../David

[Zer02004]

On the surface at least, the bulk of the blame here seems to lie with AOL or BTw for failure to surrender/lift the marker.

[fatbaldingoldgit]

That may be true but Sky have no contingency to deal with these situations.

You either have the engineer leave the kit without testing the connection and trust that it will eventually work or rebook. In my case I needed to check that what they said about VPN access was true and that I could read my external mail. I wasn't prepared to take the service on trust , not with a 12 month contract. I needed to be able to test the connection first before accepting it.

If teh engineer takes the kit away and you try and rebook Sky won't allow you to convert to a self install. They insist that as you boooed for a engineer visit in the first place you have to have the engineer revisit.

If you do attempt to rebook for an engineer visit you go to the back of the queue of all installs. When I enquired on Tuesday that meant a delay of 2 weeks. Since then it has increased. I can't be without broadband for that long. Provided I get a MAC from Sky I can get a connection with another ISP quicker and more reliably.

Situation now is that Sky are trying to initiate a process for issuing me a MAC coz they've never done it before and they never expected to have to do it anytime soon. Just as they naively never expected that the changeover could be delayed.

As a project manager myself this smacks of non-existent risk management.

..../David

[Zer02004]

Unfortunately we will see more of this sort of thing happening where companies who specialise in one field start to dabble in other fields. TalkTalk are a prime example here. They have no landline engineers or broadband engineers to speak of so where does that leave the customer when things go wrong?
There is a lot more to broadband provision than fitting a linecard and flicking a few switches! The same is true for the other technologies involved in the triple/quad play fields.

Another very important point is the state of play of the regulatory bodies in this mess. It's bad enough now but the near future may see meltdown.

[fatbaldingoldgit]

Remembering that I cancelled my Sky Broadband service on 23rd August...Sky informed me today that they actioned my request for a MAC on Friday 1st September and posted it to me yesterday, Monday 4th Sept.

Here we are at the white hot cutting edge of technology and what other service from Sky do you need to communicate with using the postal system? Even their viewing department acts upon phone calls.

So despite having to go through security to be able to talk to Sky Broadband over the phone when they want to communicate anything securely, reliably and fast they choose what?.....the bloody postal service....and they can't even operate that at a weekend.

Hardly the appropriate medium for an ISP.

And I have been without broadband since 22nd August. Maybe, just maybe I'll get the MAC tomorrow and possibly I'll be back online within 5 working days, so earliest Tuesday 12th September, 3 weeks off-line..Thanks a lot Sky...I won't forget this....

I work for Sky Broadband prov.....the issues are a lot worse than that! there are so many people in delay, and no processes to deal with them....and we hav only connected a small number of people who registered their intrest...my advise....staty with your ISP

[fatbaldingoldgit]

Final status on Sky non-installation.

Sky finally issued a cease order on my line to BT on 29th Sept with an implementation date of 4th October.

BT Wholesale completed the cease order on 12th October!

My new ISP Lixxus scheduled a new provision with a date of 24th October. The line was live today 21st October, 3 days earlier than expected.

I was out of broadband for a total of 2 months almost to the day and that was after cancelling Sky on 22nd August, the day of installation coz they couldn't get it to work.

To date my experience with Lixxus has been nothing but superb...real people to talk to, who know what they are doing and an up to 8Mb link from £13.99 capped at £17.99. And as they are located a mere 3 miles away (instead of Bangalore or deepest darkest Scotland I can go beat down their door if anything goes wrong.

Having said that Sky have promised to refund the costs of my dial-up link in lieu of using their package, which didn't work or do what I wanted it to.

../D

[Kurg]

Sky have no contingency to deal with these situations.

You either have the engineer leave the kit without testing the connection and trust that it will eventually work or rebook.

Originally Posted by fatbaldingoldgit

They offered you that - you turned it down - what else do you expect of them? They can't magically create an engineer and timeslot out of nothing so they offered you the first time available.

are sky going the same way as talk talk ??

my activation has been and gone and still no idea when they are going to sort it out.
no router either and they say they can't track it, lost in the post i bet a bit like my line activation!!

question for anyone who has there internet connection up and working, could anyone tell me what the router setup is i need the ISP name and user name config.

many thanks.

John S

P.S. good look to those of you are still waiting

[-=Ice100k=-]

fatbaldingoldgit
by cancelling ur sky broadband you achieved taking a £10/month profit from a company with 8mils customers. You gained an absolute satisfaction by hurting their feelings after they were unable to provide you with a broadband due to no fault of their own. They offered you 2 resolutions: either to have it installed without being able to check the service or to rebook it. If you took up the former offer, u'd be able to cancel during the cooling off period if something wnt wrong, otherwise ou'd be confident about the quality of installation but u'd have to stay without broadband for about 10 days.
Instead u decided to be creative and decline the advice offered by the experts. As a result of your own choice you didn't have broadband for about 2 months. This still hasn't taught you a lesson as now u're considering cancelling your viewing package. Instead you are going to probably comit yourself to ntl/telewest that provides probably the worst customer service in the country or just stick to 30 useless channels on a freeview box.

It's so easy to blame others...

Can anyone offer advice?

I was due to get Sky and Sky broadband package. However sky did not turn up twice and then when they finally did, they could not install sky as it would take a special team due to placing the dish on the roof. This was despite us telling them that we would need it placed on are roof.

Anyhow after all this carry on we decided that we did not want to continue with sky or the package and stopped any further installation. The problem occurred when we were trying to get internet from another provider. Sky had put a code on the line that prevented us from doing this. We have been in contact with sky continuously trying to get a cease order fulfilled but through ignorance and poor service this continually has not happened.

The long and short of it all is that we cancelled sky, due to their own incompetence, at the beginning of September and now in Feb we still have not been able to get sky to perform a cease order as requested several times. We haven been given dates when they say this will be done by but it has not happened and I’m getting incredibly fed up with it all.

Can any one offer any advice, I’m thinking about complaining to a controlling board but not sure who this would be?

Thanks

Damien

[-=Ice100k=-]

The overseeing body for Sky is Ofcom (Office of Communications)
before complaining to them, you would be expected to exhaust all of escallation routes within the company by writing in or emailing sky and then getting something back, confirming sky being unable to resolve the case for you to your satisfaction. The address can be found on the bottom of any letter sent to you by Sky

[Smiff77]

Just the mention of Sky BB makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up !!!
It took nearly 9 months to get the Tag removed from my BT line. I phoned, e-mailed and wrote letters by recorded delivery, the result was a big fat zero. They ignored them all.
With the help of several forums I found out that if I had been in dispute with Sky for over 12 weeks then I could compain to the Ombudsman, Otelo. Which I did. They were very helpful. I had to supply copies of letters that I wrote and details of calls and the names of any contacts which I made at Sky. Very difficult as the buggers refused to give their names.
Within a week I received a letter from Sky and a phone call. The Tag was removed within a fotnight. I am still continuing with the complaint against Sky and have received several grovelling letters and a free months subs to Sky TV.
I hope this helps someone in a similar position. Good luck