What a mistake Sky turned out to be

A few weeks ago, I had to ditch Virgin (I didn’t want to – I just couldn’t get their service any more) so was on the look out for an alternative. For cost and features, the best all-in-one TV/phone/broadband package seemed to be Sky. BT Vision looked pretty good, but none of it is HD, and it relies on broadband of “an acceptable speed” – something I couldn’t find out until after it was all installed.

So I duly went and bought the lot with Sky. A couple of weeks later, SkyHD was installed in my house. And the start of the problems began.

1) Cable mess

When BT come and fit a phone socket, do they just poke the wires through a hole in the wall and plug them directly into your phone? When electricity is provided to your house, do they wire your toaster directly into the consumer unit, with no power socket?  No. They all provide you with a nice and neat socket on the wall. But Sky don’t do that. They run a cable (or in the case of SkyHD, two cables) straight from your dish, through the wall into the house, then directly into the Sky box. No sockets – just a big bit of coiled cable.

I want a socket. They certainly exist – they’re the same as the ones Virgin use. And, in fact, the same as the single socket already on the wall in my lounge. Could they reuse that? No. Could they replace it with a double? No. The best I could get was for them to run the cable through the back of the faceplate and then me go out and buy a new faceplate and some F-connectors and do it myself. And this 15 minute install job cost me FORTY POUNDS? For a few metres of cable and a man to drill a hole? Utterly ridiculous.

2) Where’s my phone?

When I ordered Sky, I was told that my phone line wouldn’t be activated until my TV had been set up as this would then “confirm” my Sky account. It sounded stupid (my Sky box wants to connect to a phone line, so it would have made more sense the other way round), but whatever. After the TV was installed, I rang them. Of course, I couldn’t get through on their customer hotline as they wanted me to input my home phone number into their menu system. A phone number I don’t have. Which is why I was ringing. Button mashing eventually got me through to someone.

They confirmed my account was now active, and that they would then start the “phoneline activation process”. The process was outlined to me as this: firstly, I would receive a letter within two weeks. This letter would provide me with a date for installation, which would be within two weeks of the date of the letter. Potentially, 4 weeks wait for a phone line. What?!

I asked why this process would take so long, as if I went to BT I could get my phoneline working that afternoon. They said it was because they had no record of my address actually having a phone line (it did – with the Post Office up until 5 days before), nor a phone socket (which it does), so would have to send an engineer. An ENGINEER. To identify if I have a phone socket.

3) No really, where’s my phone?

That call with Sky was on the 17th of April. On the 19th of April, I got a text message from SkyTalk.

Your order is progressing. In about 3 days we will text you with next steps and your new phone number.

Today is the 27th of April. They have not texted me (is 8 days “about 3 days”?), nor have I had my letter yet. I suppose I still have 4 days left of the wait time for the letter, but then why text me last week with that message?

4) The wonder that is SkyHD

Oh how I miss the VirginHD box. Here is a list of things better about the SkyHD box: the interface is quicker. Hmm. Does one item constitute a list? Probably not.

Some questions:

a) Why can I only see about 6 channels at once in the guide?
b) Why, when you press the guide button, does the guide not start at the channel you’re on?
c) Why don’t favourites stay stored for more than a day? I set them up, next day, they’re gone.
d) What is the point of Sky Anytime? Programmes I don’t want to watch (or in the case of most of them, programmes I can’t watch as I don’t subscribe to the channel they’re recorded on), using 250GB of my 500GB drive. It’s no substitute for On Demand.
e) Why can I only fit about 50 hours of recordings in my 250GB? On Virgin, I could get at least 80 hours on an 80GB drive. No, it’s not HD. Yes, it is probably compression (or lack of it).
f) Why can’t I hide, or at least make obvious, which channels I don’t subscribe to? Virgin greys them out.

Some observations:

a) You can only record one channel at a time, unless you’re not watching TV. Then you can record two. Virgin could do two recordings and watch TV at the same time.
b) The picture quality isn’t as good as Virgin. The HD channels in particular.
c) There’s no clock on the box!
d) There’s no channel number on the box!
e) The box is noisier than the VirginHD box.

5) You wanted HD channels? Pay up! Twice!

On the Sky site, on the Quick Buy page, it says this:

You click on it, and get a list of all the channel packs, and which channels you get in them. So I clicked “HD Pack” and got this:

Notice where it says “HD Pack includes:”? And then all them channels? Guess what I actually got? None of the sports or film channels. Or the Disney one. So I didn’t even get half those listed. Apparently, and this is only explained in little letters down the bottom of the page, you only get some HD channels if you also buy the non-HD equivalents. “HD Pack includes:”, then, is a bit of a lie. You pay your £10 extra a month for the “HD Pack” and actually get less than half the HD Pack, unless you then fork out another £16 a month for the films, and £18 a month for the sports. Plus however much ESPN and Disney want from your wallet. Even if you only want the HD channels.

Daylight robbery!

6) We may install your broadband. One day.

The final part of my Sky Package was Sky Broadband. Since my local exchange hasn’t been unbundled, I can’t get Sky’s “normal” broadband for a fiver a month, and instead have to get the BT-resold £17 a month connection. For once, this isn’t something I can blame Sky for. At least, I don’t think so.

What I can complain about is how long it’s taking to connect me up. Remember how I said that my phone could take as long as 4 weeks? Well, my broadband request can’t even start until my phone has been activated. Once Mr Engineer has been and checked that yes, I do in fact have a phone socket, my broadband order will be triggered.

What happens then is eerily familiar. Within two weeks of the phone install date, I will get a letter from Sky. This letter will tell me when my broadband install date will be, which could be up to two weeks from the date of the letter. So another 4 weeks. Which means, that with the 4 weeks for the phone and week for the TV, it could be 9 weeks before I get broadband. Longer if they deliver the broadband kit while I’m out.

As you can see, I’m not best pleased with them.