Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to tell Sky to fuck off and go to BT?

33 replies

ThatVikRinA22 · 22/07/2011 00:40

ive had everything with sky for some time now - broadband, tv and phone.

the broadband wont connect throughout the whole house - the main phone socket it right by the front door and so i cannot plug the router into it without it being a hazard for all the wires etc, its plugged in in the lounge

before we were with orange and never had a problem with connectivity.

for months now i have had the problem that the internet wont connect in certain spots in the house
DS is a computer programmer and needs the net. it wont connect in his bedroom.

ive rung several times, always talk to some goober who has no idea what they are talking about - DS runs rings around them because he does know what he is talking about...

so today i tried for one final time to get them to send another router. they refused.
so i asked if its worth losing £70 month phone bill plus the tenner broadband....

apparently it is. they will not send another router. DS has said he could buy one and hack in....(sky apparently password protect their routers where as BT give you the user name and password, so if you need to, you can get another router)...but cannot be arsed.

so im off to BT....does anyone have anything to tell me about them? are they good? worth it? does the internet work through out the house?

fuck Sky i say! roll on Virgin getting their cable out here....they can stick their tv then aswell!

OP posts:
AuntiePickleBottom · 22/07/2011 00:50

are you sure it is sky, i am paying for an up to 20mb connection but only getting 2mb.....so unless the ps3/xbox are hard lined it makes them really slow or not load

internet-speedtest.net/

Original poster
ThatVikRinA22 · 22/07/2011 00:54

well ill try that but its not the speed thats the issue....i will speak with DS...he is the computer whizz in this house.

it does connect, but then kicks him off after 10 mins....

OP posts:
lubeybooby · 22/07/2011 01:03

Could you get a signal booster instead? YANBU by the way but it's a hassle switching providers so might save it

crazygracieuk · 22/07/2011 07:53

I had the same problem recently and I convinced Sky to send me a new router and refund me for the 2 weeks that he had to broadband. The new router works a treat.

molepom · 22/07/2011 08:07

I've just gone with BT and cant fault them so far. Always connected, speed is good, any problems were sorted out quickly. But I have only been with them for a few months at the moment. Might be a different story 6 months down the line.

Virgin refused to fix their box so I cancelled with them, SKY NEVER sent me a correct bill in the entire 6 years I was with them so I was left with BT as I couldnt afford the connection charges with the others.

7to25 · 22/07/2011 08:08

In MILs house. She has BT and it is awful. Pays for broadband and gets dial up speeds

Piffpaffpoff · 22/07/2011 08:13

Same as molepom here, I just switched to BT last month, got a really good deal on a broadband and calls bundle, plus cashback through quidco. Everything was done on the day they said it would be and it's working great. Plus we get access to all the BTopenzone hotspots, which is an added bonus.

EauRouge · 22/07/2011 08:29

I only had Sky TV but constantly had problems with it. It was shit value for money so we switched to Freesat which is free but you don't get as many channels. BT has been fine for our phone and broadband.

LineRunner · 22/07/2011 08:31

My experience of BT is that it is a shambles.

If you have a problem, you will will talk to a progressive assortment of people each of whom seems to know less than the previous one.

Expensive, as BT seems to bump up bills for no reason once you're 'in', and yet pushy too when they are 'dealing' with a complaint. ('We have looked at your complaint. You are wrong. If we don't hear back from you in the next ten seconds, we will close the file.')

OracleInaCoracle · 22/07/2011 08:49

I'm about to leave virgin. My phone line packed in 4 weeks ago, I called virgin, they insisted it was fine. Told them it wasn't and some nobber argued with me! Called again the other day was on phone for 45 mins and was told that they would charge 50 quid to send out an engineer, so told them where to stick it and going back to bt. Have tv with sky though and can't fault them there.

TiaMariaandDietCoke · 22/07/2011 08:52

My experience with BT has always been brilliant - especially with broadband. We recently moved house to a new build and BT had the engineer at our house on day one - our phone and broadband were up and running before the boxes finished coming off the removal lorry!! They even upgraded the router FOC because they said the one we had was outdated and wouldn't get us the best speeds.

A couple of days after moving our broadband went down becuase the electrician accidentally pulled some wires out of the connection (we didn't realise at the time this is what had happened) - BT were great - had an engineer out the next morning and fixed it in 5 minutes - again FOC, even though it was essentially our fault!!

Its too nice a morning to get me started on Sky broadband and phone, so will just leave it that I would NOT recommend them!

harassedandherbug · 22/07/2011 09:11

We moved at the end of May, and after years of being happy with Virgin, couldn't stay with them as the new house doesn't have the cables laid. So dh went with Sky.

It's rubbish!! If we could think of someway to get out of this blasted contract then we would in a flash. We'd go with BT.

The speed we're getting is appalling now, it's so slow compared to Virgin. Seems a bit extreme to move though Wink.

ENormaSnob · 22/07/2011 09:16

Bt are appalling.

Honestly.

Numerous faults with broadband, takes over an hour every time you call them, never turn up as planned, do not aknowledge complaints and are bloody expensive.

I'm off to o2 next month.

niceguy2 · 22/07/2011 09:17

OK, well i DO know what I am talking about and from your description, moving to BT won't help. Nor will demanding Sky send you a replacement router.

The problem is with the fact your router's wireless isn't strong enough to throw a signal all around your house. From experience, Sky router's are pretty good so I can only assume your house either has thick walls, lots of objects in the way, lots of neighbouring Wifi's interfering or all of the above.

To be honest it's not really Sky's fault and you'd get exactly the same issue no matter whom you moved to.

Does anyone in your family have an Android phone? If so then i recommend one of you download an app called "Wifi Analyzer". This will show you what signals are being picked up and the strength. What you can do using this information is change the Wifi channel (in the Sky router) to one which is less used. For example, I have lots of neighbours all with Sky and all using the same channel, so I picked a different one. You can also see where the deadzones are.

What I recommend is getting either a Wifi booster like this

or failing that a couple of homeplugs

Your DH or DS should easily be able to sort out the above devices.

Hope that helps

harassedandherbug · 22/07/2011 09:20

The main problem with the Sky routers is that you have to use them! When we were with Virgin dh bought a really decent (he's a geek!) but apparently it's really difficult to set your own one up on Sky. Although he's threatening to try!

So for now we have a lead trailing from the phone socket in dd's room, to the computer in the spare room. It looks lovely Hmm.

harassedandherbug · 22/07/2011 09:21

a decent router...

Sorry!

DamselInDisarray · 22/07/2011 09:26

My experience of BT is also awful. Their customer service is just indescribably bad. If you've got a problem you do really have to email the chairman's office before they'll do anything at all about it and even then the phone numbers they give you will stop working before they've come close to resolving anything so you'll have to keep emailing/writing to the chairman. They are really expensive, your home hub will be crap, it may take 3 months for them to provide you with any service, the speeds they advertise will not materialise unless you live in the exchange, they will put the price up a lot once you're stuck in a contract.

Don't imagine that going with BT is going to miraculously help anything.

niceguy2 · 22/07/2011 09:35

It's not that hard harassed. There's a website you can google which many sky users use. Some clever clogs has written a program to work out the username & password which is the only bit you really need. The rest are all default settings for ADSL.

I did it the other day when my neighbour's BB died and he'd spent 2 hours on the phone with Sky diagnosing a broken router! So I swapped it for my spare because they said it would take 3 days for someone else to ring him back then finally after nearly 2 weeks he got a new router!

icooksocks · 22/07/2011 09:39

DON'T go to BT they are awful. Over priced hunks of shite.

Now if you are prepared to not have the digital Tele that sky and BT provide then I would wholly recommend plusnet. Fab service, competitively priced and are bloody helpful if you have a problem.

SpecialFriedRice · 22/07/2011 09:43

I used to work for BT Broadband technical support - I wouldn't go near them for broadband!!

harassedandherbug · 22/07/2011 09:43

Thanks niceguy I'll tell dh, that'll give him something to do over the weekend!

It was a BT engineer who came in to sort the Sky phone line out that said that it was really difficult and a lot of hassle.

redlac6 · 22/07/2011 09:49

Can I suggest HomePlugs? They act as a cabled network through the electricity sockets and means you don't use wireless.

A wee tip for Sky users is visit the skyusers forum (search on google) they are a mine of information and really good at pointing you in the right direction on what to say to the first tier of telephone support so that you get to the second tier really quickly. AND always phone Sky at either 6am or after 9.30pm - you will nearly always get the Scottish call centres

Angel786 · 22/07/2011 10:08

YANBU! Sky have screwed up our broadband for nearly 2 months, promise call backs which never happen and lose all the details of the issue so you need to explain it every time. BT not much better with our phone line tho... Connected another line to it fir no reason?!

squeakytoy · 22/07/2011 10:23

I have had the opposite experience. BT's broadband service was dire.. constantly crashing and losing connection and very slow. We have had Sky for a year now and it is so much better.

harassedandherbug · 22/07/2011 10:28

So this thread proves that it's luck of the draw!!!

I'd always rate Virgin, but I know they've performed really badly for some people.

Swipe left for the next trending thread