Sky customers grumble over broadband

[gem]

From Media Guardian

Sky customers grumble over broadband
Julia Day
Friday September 15, 2006
MediaGuardian.co.uk

BSkyB's newly launched broadband internet service is causing consternation among some customers who have encountered a variety of glitches.

Complaints range from customers who registered weeks ago and have still heard nothing, to those who are connected to the "Max" 16Mb speed package but have a very slow service, and others whose broadband boxes have died after just a few days' use.

Hundreds of disgruntled customers have taken to posting their complaints on internet user websites, such as Digital Spy and Sky User, and have been joined by people who claim to be Sky customer services staff posting anonymously.

One Sky User forum member, "unregistered ex-BT", wrote: "To anyone thinking of moving to Sky. Read the threads on here and the internet and DON'T BOTHER. They haven't got a clue what's going on and as of now I'm a paid Sky TV member and Sky broadband member and I have no broadband and no answers.

"So if you want no broadband, pathetic support, snail like investigations into it all, different answers from all the call centre workers, lies, long phone calls ... then hey, join Sky. But if you think your current service from your ISP is acceptable then stay where you are because Sky are absolutely useless."

A Digital Spy forum user, "sqareeyes", said: "FYI, there is a major problem with the hardware SKY have installed at the exchanges. This information came from a SKY rep who admitted this to my son who has been trying for weeks to get his SKY broadband connection working. He could not confirm when this will be fixed, but it will be weeks or possibly months before they do anything about it ... My advice to anyone who is thinking of getting SKY broadband and hasn't done so yet is WAIT!"

Another Digital Spy user, "Anonymouse91", complained: "Just got connected but have got really slow speeds. I'm signed up to the Max package which is 16Mb but the router is connected to Sky at around 7Mb and a speed test reports it is around 2-4Mb."

One user, whose broadband box failed entirely less than two weeks after installation, was told by the helpline that another box would be sent, and that there had been many calls of a similar nature.

Many Sky customers are complaining about poor customer service, much slower internet connections speeds than advertised and mix-ups in getting broadband activated via BT phone lines, with BT and Sky both blaming each other.

MediaGuardian.co.uk contacted Sky about the complaints, but had not heard back by the time of publication.

Sky launched its broadband service this month for customers who are already signed up to its television service.

Customers could register their interest ahead of the launch in one of three broadband packages - free 2Mb speed/2Gb usage cap; £5 a month 8Mb/40GB cap; and £10 a month 16Mb/unlimited usage.

Earlier this week Sky suspended its film download service and blocked access to some broadband sports clips because of a software security breach, while it waits for Microsoft to upgrade its protection against the hacking software FairUse4WM, which allows users to pirate content.

Almost three-quarters of the UK's internet users are on high-speed broadband connections, according to a recent study by the Office for National Statistics. The country has 10m households using broadband, outstripping the number of old-fashioned dial-up connections by three to one.

Hi,

I am one of the unfortunate thousands of unsatisfied customers.

My decision to move to SkyBB was purely a financial decision, the fact that the service Sky was offering and being a Sky TV subscriber it all sounded to good.

I canceled my subscription with my previous provider (was awarded Top ISP 2006 by Comms Channel Awards) and was very reluctant to leave.

I received my letters from Sky promptly to give me activation dates and other info in a timely fashion and recieved the hardware (Netgear DG834GT).
All this happened very efficiently and on time as was expected.

Day of activation was on time unlike many subscribers I have read about. I plugged in the router, went through the setup with the CD provided and had a connection, having chosen the Sky Max I had a connection in the region of ~13000kbs downstream and 766kbs upstream so was very impressed.

That's where the impression stops, shortly after a brief period of inactivity I tried to surf the net some more but I kept getting "page could not be received", called sky technical support (08706 number), they directed me to log into the Sky Router, 192.168.0.1 , Username: admin and password: sky,
I had no IP, so with a little faultfinding powercycled the router and all was good again, good speed and stable connection. Not very long after again disconnected, to keep this short disconnections occured frequently that would require a Reboot of the router or just taking the Tel line out and back in on the router. Thinking it must be the new line I put up with it for a while and found a fantastic Unofficial Sky forums with a great bunch of lads, with their help you can tweak and fault find some of the issues experienced but nothing could be done about the disconnects.

The final straw came on the 8th day (for you information, the 8'th day is the final cooling off day you can cancel the service by), no matter what I tried I couldn't get a connection, so decided to call Sky technical Support (this is obviously where they make their money), spoke to a very nice Irish man for about 17minutes with no joy and I accidentially disconnected the call, called back and got a different person (now I must warn you they must have no UK call cantres in operation), it took 8minutes to get my personal details, no matter how much I tried to explain I had been on the line for 17minutes and wanted to speak to the tech, so bit the bullet and went through it all again with her, at about 46min later we were at the same point I was before I disconnected and she daid she will pass me to a tear3 level tech, finalyI thought, the clock was ticking and I was getting tired of the music, at exactly 59min and 58seconds I canceled the call, called customes service and cancled my sky subscription.

To do this you have to write in to Sky requesting cancellation of service and while you at it you may as well ask for a MAC code so you can transfer service to another provider, in my case like a dog with his legs between his legs I going back to Telecomplete.

to save you the trouble the address to send cancellations to is below:

Sky Subscriber Services
Customer Care Department
PO box 99
Livingstone
West Lothian
EH54 7PR

Hope this sheds a little light on what you might be in for if you decide to go with SkyBB

[Zer02004]

..... it all sounded to good.....

Originally Posted by []V[]orpheus - Guest

If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.
Number 1 rule - You gets wot you pays for!

I feel a Sky forum coming on.

SKY Broadband- very inconsistent advice given by call centre staff in trying to resolve problems...

I initially registered for the Max product(16Mb) on the advice of call centre staff saying that I could get 12Mb on my line.

When I connected my equipment 2 days prior to activation date I was connected and very happy as I had been using dial up at 30K for quite some time. When I checked the speed of connection I was dismayed to find out initially I was connecting at just over 2Mb. I telephoned sky and after a long period of waiting (almost 45mins)told them what hapenned and they said make sure filters were properly installed i.e. on every socket in the house. They also suggested connectingdirectly to master socket. I tried all this and still no increase in speed. I changed the filters around and got up to 5mb. Much m,ore than previously but no where near the expected speed of 12Mb.
I was further promised a call from the call centre manager but never materialised.

After almost an hour on the phone and told that there was nothing that could be done the next day I got totally fed up and decided to cancel as I was totally p....d off to say the least.

They seemed apologetic and said it was a new service and that they were experiencing difficulties and it wa sexpected. They agreed to credit my a/c with £10 for inconvenience and call costs that I had to endure. They said line would be cancelled in 7 days and that a MAC no would be authorised.

Twp days later I was consistently connecting at abot 5.2MB

Purely on the basis of costs I thought I would take the mid package i.e 8Mb .

I spoke to someone explained the situation(history) and was told that the information that I was given by 1st call centre operative about the available line speed was totally incorrect. I should have been told that the max capability on my line was 8Mb.

I said that I would be willing to sign up to 8Mb and cancel my previous instructions for cancellation which I was told that would be quite ok. They told me at the time that my order for previous cancellation would be cancelled and that I would get downgraded to the mid package and also a £20 goodwill gesture for the problems i had endured oncemore again. Total credit £30.

Few days later when on the internet for no more than 15mins I kept getting Page not displayed error messages. I reset/restarted and then ok and after a very brief period of inactivity 10mins same problem page not displayed.

I telephoned helpline and after a long period of waiting again. Call centre staff said the usual check filters, conenct to master socket. They said that no one else had reported these problems and it must be something with my PC for which I totally refuted the allegations.

She also said that my a/c was showing as ready for cancellation. I explained to her that I had cancelled the cancellation etc...

To cut a long story short I spoke to the manager who informed me that although cancellation was requested of previous instructions that it did not go through as the cancellation process was well underway.(Why then did that call centre operative told me everything had been done and that I was on a 8mb connection.

The manager informed me that the line may be dropping i.e. page not displayed because the disconnectionprocess was underway and it could take up to max 4 weeks to process. Why then would I be allowed to connect for 15mins at a time.

They said that if I wanted to re-apply for sky broadband i could and that I would have to return all the original equipment when I reive the disconenction letter with the mac code. He said that an empty box would be sent so I could return the products.

If I was to go back to SKY then I go thru the reg process again...

After reading the bulettin boards regards sky I am not convinced that the line drop is wholly due to my disconnection taking effect....

I only went with sky for price and taht my prev connection was dialup and was paying 13.49/month for 30k connection....

Factor in the indian based barely english speaking call centres and yeah, you do get what you pay for. the extra few pounds would have been better spent paying for a few english based call centres.

Hi,

I am one of the unfortunate thousands of unsatisfied customers.

My decision to move to SkyBB was purely a financial decision, the fact that the service Sky was offering and being a Sky TV subscriber it all sounded to good.

I canceled my subscription with my previous provider (was awarded Top ISP 2006 by Comms Channel Awards) and was very reluctant to leave.

I received my letters from Sky promptly to give me activation dates and other info in a timely fashion and recieved the hardware (Netgear DG834GT).
All this happened very efficiently and on time as was expected.

Day of activation was on time unlike many subscribers I have read about. I plugged in the router, went through the setup with the CD provided and had a connection, having chosen the Sky Max I had a connection in the region of ~13000kbs downstream and 766kbs upstream so was very impressed.

That's where the impression stops, shortly after a brief period of inactivity I tried to surf the net some more but I kept getting "page could not be received", called sky technical support (08706 number), they directed me to log into the Sky Router, 192.168.0.1 , Username: admin and password: sky,
I had no IP, so with a little faultfinding powercycled the router and all was good again, good speed and stable connection. Not very long after again disconnected, to keep this short disconnections occured frequently that would require a Reboot of the router or just taking the Tel line out and back in on the router. Thinking it must be the new line I put up with it for a while and found a fantastic Unofficial Sky forums with a great bunch of lads, with their help you can tweak and fault find some of the issues experienced but nothing could be done about the disconnects.

The final straw came on the 8th day (for you information, the 8'th day is the final cooling off day you can cancel the service by), no matter what I tried I couldn't get a connection, so decided to call Sky technical Support (this is obviously where they make their money), spoke to a very nice Irish man for about 17minutes with no joy and I accidentially disconnected the call, called back and got a different person (now I must warn you they must have no UK call cantres in operation), it took 8minutes to get my personal details, no matter how much I tried to explain I had been on the line for 17minutes and wanted to speak to the tech, so bit the bullet and went through it all again with her, at about 46min later we were at the same point I was before I disconnected and she daid she will pass me to a tear3 level tech, finalyI thought, the clock was ticking and I was getting tired of the music, at exactly 59min and 58seconds I canceled the call, called customes service and cancled my sky subscription.

To do this you have to write in to Sky requesting cancellation of service and while you at it you may as well ask for a MAC code so you can transfer service to another provider, in my case like a dog with his legs between his legs I going back to Telecomplete.

to save you the trouble the address to send cancellations to is below:

Sky Subscriber Services
Customer Care Department
PO box 99
Livingstone
West Lothian
EH54 7PR

Hope this sheds a little light on what you might be in for if you decide to go with SkyBB

Originally Posted by []V[]orpheus - Guest

Snap! Exactly the same.....now cancelled the TV Service aswell. Nice one sky, keep going and you'll have no customers!!!

To whom it may concern,
I am absolutely disgusted with the service that Sky Broadband has offered me. I have been waiting since September for my broadband package to come, and now all the way in January, 4 and a half months on I am still waiting for my Broadband. Yes, the package did eventually arrive in the first week of January 2007, however it does not seem to connect to the internet, and Sky do not seem to care. They have spent months keeping me on hold from my Broadband with the same excuses that this is a ‘fault with my line’ and even after they spent month trying to ‘apparently’ fix this fault, it seems to me that they have spent the time just taking my money and not fixing problem. Now, after months of waiting they expect me to pay for somebody to fix this apparent ‘fault’. I would have never expected such a high company such as Sky to provide one of the poorest services that I have ever encountered.

I have been thr. same torture. Whenver i called them to confirm my sky broadband, they gave me different reply everytime. Some said, line is activated, router is on the way, and some said line is not activated, some problem in hte line.

I have been hearing their excuses for 2 and half months now..I got so much frustrated and bought an unlimited Dial Up yesterday and today i recieved their router. But when i connected, it says line is not activated.
I got ********ed off now and want to sue them.

Does anybody know if there is any way we can do dat ?

Jo

Sounds like a similar story to me. Moved house in October got sky tv fitted no problem, registered for the broadband over the phone was told router would come in 5 days. A week later I rang no router so I rang guy on the phone expained they had put tags on bt's line but then cancelled the order (no explanation why) so they had to remove the tags, I was told to call back in 10 days. Rang back, still tags told to ring back in 30 days, rang back. Tags now removed. They then sent me a router (about 2 months after my order). Plugged it in no signal I rang them and they are now saying I am not using the correct BT box - there's only 1 in the house. God knows, I'm supposed to ring them later. Worst thing is you get a different person each time and you are costantly transfered and have to repeat the whole process. Absolutely terrible I'm afraid.

just to let eveyone one know we do have uk call centers and we have so many customers that the percentage that have a problem is very small,but as everybody knows bad news travels faster than good, most customers do get online fine with few problems, and we do not have that many problems with technical issues

[gem]

nicole

It would be of great help to Sky BB users (and prospective users) if someone from Sky BB could OFFICIALLY join The Scream! We have had this 'relationship' with other ISP's and it has proved to be useful.

just to let u all know that what yous are doing is called slander and is an illegal offence . what people dont realise is when they are told they can get upto 16mb on the max package means anything from 8mb to 16mb not exactly 16mb it is time you all got a life instead of sitting on this making illegal accusitions

[gem]

And I can tell that you know about these things.

[quote=gem;189221]From Media Guardian[/QUOTE
I,ve just had my broadband installed,they have sent me a user name that i could,nt possibly use.;its supposed to be 16mb speed and tests out at 2-3 cant use e-mail;and the customer care hav;nt got a clue;1 day and i;m p----- off what am i going to be like later having read these threads

[The Dynamo]

Well after reading this thread I am absolutely delighted that I signed up for TalkTalk instead of Sky Broadband.....

Actually although I already have Sky Digital it wasn't a particularly difficult choice.....

I didn't want all my eggs in one basket, I also preferred the option of reducing my costs with an inclusive package where Sky are only intent on extracting the last drop of blood

[ardoyne_man]

I am not a Sky BB customer, but I am in fact a member of staff at one of the Technical Support call centres. We are based in the UK, and I would just like to say we are just as disgusted with the service Sky provide their BB customers as the customers themselves.

The support hierarchy is absolutely terrible, the communication channels are horrendous, and it is myself and my colleagues who are left to take the abuse from irrate customers. I totally understand customers frustrations, I myself share your frustrations.

Sky do not give their customers a direct phone line to the correct department for dealing with certain technical issues, instead they must call the same number and go thorugh the same long drawn out process every time they call. I'm sure some Sky BB customers know what I am talking about.

The whole support structure is a joke, and the hardware they use (ie:- the Negear router) is a piece of s*** for lack of a better word.
Another major flaw is using BT phone lines and telephone exchanges, once you use a 3rd party's equipment the time it takes to sort out issues with their equipment is always going to be a lot longer than if the company was to use its own equipment. I mean, think about it, BT & Sky are rival ISP's, its not really in BT's interest to fix Sky customer's problems in a timely fashion is it??
And even though Sky do install their own equipment is most (but not all) BT exchnages, they must request permission from BT to enter that exchange & work on their OWN equipment.

I could ramble on here all day about this, but its a waste of time, a feeling a lot of customers get when they call Sky for technical support.

[gem]

Thanks ardoyne_man for your post. Please keep us informed when you are able.

[The Dynamo]

I must confess I'm not particularly impressed with the rather extensive post from ardoyne_man, it can be regarded as a stab in the back to the other Technical Support staff.

Instead of complaining on a forum he should be taking steps from within to improve the service.

[ardoyne_man]

I am not blaming every member of staff, I cant because i know there are a lot more like me within that feel the same. I am blaming the management, they were too concerned with getting their service running so as not to lose ground on competitors they didnt properly think the whole thing through.

I have re-read my post and I have to admit it is a bit strongly worded, I had just finished a rather bad day taking a lot of grief (understandably) from customers because the support structures had let them down.

The entire service and support system is poorly set up, poorly run and very slow to react to customer concerns. Sky are letting down their customers and employees.

From Media Guardian

Originally Posted by gem

Hi all,Im still trying to get connected to Sky Broadband after 2 months,after a month they sent me the router box but i still have no connection.after about 30 phone calls lasting anything up to 50 mins i still have no luck.they keep sending me to tier 2 then saying they will contact BT BUT AFTER 2 MONTHS i am still without broadband please can someone advise me what to do or what they woud do.

Cancel your subscription. IF you've nevewr been provided with the service you are paying for, just cancel it, and if they tell you that you have signed a contract from 12 months and have to pay a cancellation fee, threaten to take them to court for breach of contract, as they have not been holding up their end of the contractual agreement.

I wish I had seen all these comments before I stupily signed up to Sky Broadband in January. I can now connect to the internet, but I am still unable to use the Sky email system - 3 months, everytime I try to log in it says ‘log in credentials are incorrect’ They have re-set my password 3 times (total waste of time as it take up to 10 days each time) Almost 10 hours of phone calls (which Sky charge me for)I was finally told that it was a problem at their end because I dont have a ‘profile’ set-up, the guy I spoke to said he didnt know how to fix the problem but someone would ring me back (which he promised faithfully would happen) - guess what ? no one called - no surprise there.

I have written 5 times, emailed over 30 times and even faxed them all my letters and emails, ive had ONE reply saying “sorry and they will fix the problem ASAP” - guess what again ? yes, you’ve guessed it, still doesnt work.

Also they are overcharging me, but no one will get back to me to sort this out also.

Sky BB is the worst company I have ever had the misfortune to deal with. They are rude, incompetent and a total rip off.

DONT USE SKY BB

[Austin_KW]

Get youself a gmail/googlemail account or something similar, you get free webmail and pop/smtp access to your favourite email application etc. If you use your ISP for you email you may lose your acount & email address if you change ISP's anyway.

[elliot]

Having only the misfortune to encounter sky through their satellite tv business I have sympathy for anyone who has been lulled into becoming a sky customer for broadband

Their customer service regarding the tv is atrocious.

Once bitten, twice shy

PS: Good post ardoyne_ man

[Smiff77]

My heart goes out to all those that have subscribed to Sky Broadband, I was one of the first batch of connections. I lasted 24 hours before sending in my cancellation. Setting up was no problem, although I have read some horror stories, my problem was first I could not connect to the home page to register, then I could not connect to anything. I disconnected and ran back to NTL. Out of the frying pan ,,,,,etc.
My problem has been since August I have not been able to get the tag removed from my line. They cannot issue a MAC number because the account is closed. They ignore my e-mails and letters, tell me on the phone that they will escolate my request and still nothing happens. I have made a complaint to Ofcom who have taken up my case. The response being I got a text last Friday from Sky from 07624806040 telling me that my broadband has been connected. Are they taking the P**s, yes is answer. By not removing the tag they are denying me access to other providers, yet no one gives a s**t. Any advice.....................

Hi,

I work as a network teccie, and having just moved house into a none telewest area thought i`d give sky a go. I am about 200m from the exchange, so i decided to go with the unlimted 16mbit adsl. I was connected within 10days of ordering. I usually connect at over 10/12mbit, so i am very impressed with the service! For only 10quid a month! cant go wrong to be honest....

[mdcdeve]

i saw there advert recently they say "8mbit" "16mbit" do they mean mbit or mbyte? i was thinking at the time, i wonder how many fall for that. most internet users dont know the difference between mbyte and mbit

just to let u all know that what yous are doing is called slander and is an illegal offence . what people dont realise is when they are told they can get upto 16mb on the max package means anything from 8mb to 16mb not exactly 16mb it is time you all got a life instead of sitting on this making illegal accusitions

Originally Posted by the lawyer

if you were a real lawyer you woul know that it is not slander but libel as it is written down...

[sky-broadband-2008]

i from sky bb and ino its a mess

and for you information we have a uk call centre =D

[michty_me]

I thought the sky router (the netgear one) was hackable with better firmware which sorted the dropouts. I heard many people experiancing this because skys firmware was so buggy. After getting their username and password out the router and re-flashing it with ubergt firmware or hell even netgear firmware, put back in their user/pass and presto majority of the time it cleared up. But if you are gonna try it DO NOT flash it before you extract the info from the router you also need an xp machine to do it. WOnt work in vista seemingly. I will try find the instructions on how to do it if anyone is interested.