Sky Broadband line checker fraudulent/misleading?

[PatWard]

Hi,

with the lack of WBC/21cn at my local exchange and no enablement data on the horizon (3 dates have been set and retracted so far, good old BT), I've been waiting on an LLU provider to get some kit in there.

As a Sky customer already, I'd been hearing good things about their LLU product.  The non-LLU Connect product is, of course, rubbish and I wouldn't touch it if Sky paid ME

Anyway, the past few months the checker has been saying the following:

Great news - Sky is expanding our broadband and calls network in your area! We'll be completing this rollout over the next 3 months.

This is ofc, complete rubbish.  I have a friend in another area who bought into the marketing bs on the strength of this "promise" and took the interim option, even though he was surprised that Sky would be bothering with his small town sub-3,000 line exchange.  The stopgap is described on the Sky checker as follows:

In the mean time we can offer you Sky Broadband Connect with up to 8Mb* download speeds and a monthly usage allowance of 40GB.
When the Sky network rollout is complete we'll automatically transfer you to our Sky Broadband Unlimited product with up to 20Mb* download speeds and truly unlimited monthly usage allowance.

So, consumers sign up to a sub-par broadband package which is absolutely dire and completely unfit for purpose, on the strength of being moved to an LLU-based package within 12 weeks, which never materialises.  Aren't they breaking the law here by promising something they have no intentions of delivering?  Could we complain to OFCOM or the ASA about it?

[Rik]

Hi Pat and welcome to the forum.

In theory you can go to the ASA and/or Ofcom. I regard the former as a waste of space, after all, they allowed people to advertise unlimited packages which are, in fact, limited. Ofcom seems to be little better and would only really get involved as a last resort, and then you would need a written undertaking from Sky that they would provide the faster service in a given time frame.

[DorsetBoy]

BT troll out the same cr*p too and they don't get stopped, not sure what the answer is really. Which exchange are you on?

BTW  

[Technical Ben]

Keep getting the same/similar notices from Virgin so I feel for you.
To add to that, Virgin advertise "We will not charge for the speed you cannot get" and then quote "we have a fixed price of £15 whatever speed you get". So is this not misleading? They will charge me £15 regardless of the speed. So technically I'm not paying for 8mb when I can only get 7mb... but only because it's a moving goalpost!!! 

[Rik]

Isn't the ASA wonderful. 

[pctech]

Unfortunately BT charge your ISP a single rental charge for the ADSL portion of your line.

If they charged by actual throughput prices would vary widely and it would prove difficult for BT to administer and for ISPs to develop and sell products (I gather ADSL is quite a low margin business as it is)

It is likely that customers would also be outraged at the difference in prices on perhaps the same street.

I would also say to anyone looking at the LLU providers such as O2, Sky or any others I haven't mentioned that have a large footprint but don't cover everywhere to avoid their connect or access products as they under invest in BT Centrals so the BT pipes into them tend to be very congested.

[Rik]

Rather than outraged in general.

[pctech]

Yes Rik

[Technical Ben]

Oh, I've no quibbles over what's possible or reasonable pctech. Just over the blatant underhanded adverts on offer from Virgin. If it's exactly the same pricing structure as everyone else, don't try and lie to me that it is not!
IDNet say they are "Fast and reliable". That is the service I've received, so I'm happy. Other companies seem to offer "Great prices!* *for unicorns" and get away with it. (For now!  )

[PatWard]

My exchange isn't on any planned list atm, which narks me off big style.  For instance, we have Hawarden in Flintshire getting FTTC this year, despite the fact that they have less residential and business lines than my own exchange.

Emails and letters to Ann Beynon go unanswered, although she was happy to correspond extensively with me in 2002/2003 when I ran our local broadband campaign to get my 3 exchanges enabled and was giving up a lot of my time for free to make BT money.

The common denominator for "viable" exchanges, in BT doubletalk, seem to be Market 2 and Market 3 exchanges.  I have not seen one exchange get enabled since the start of the rollout that didn't already have an LLU operator there.  BT's business plan seems to be more about trying to steal business from competitors than actual viability due to area ADSL uptake and physical exchange upgrade costs.  You can't fault them I guess, they have shareholders to answer to and profits come first.

It's still galling as a customer to have to pay the same call charges and line rental as Joe Bloggs in London, with his 100mb FTTH connection, while I'm on 9 year old ADSL Max with not even WBC to look forward to at anytime in the future.  Guess that's the price I pay for living in Wales and not having a Cardiff address 

Just ranting now, sorry    Back to Sky, my m8 has been on Sky Connect for 7 months now.  Any attempt to get information as to when his promised 20 meg LLU service will materialise is stonewalled by clueless phone centre sock puppets.  This has to be a case of mis-selling and misrepresentation.  I've advised him to complain to both the ASA & OFCOM.

Watch this space.

[DorsetBoy]

My exchange is listed as having only ADSL max and Talk Talk, all checkers and ISP's bar 2 confirm this.............. they are WRONG. LLU services often get added to an exchange and months go by without the info being updated. I even pointed out to Sam Knows that there page was incorrect, they mailed back to say I was wrong .....  they are wrong and don't want to listen 

It is worth checking with other ISP's to see just what is out there. As to BT they have no clue what they are doing, we have now had engineers in our road 3 times over a period of 5 months "checking " poles/connections, they insist we are having FTTP/h here, BT deny any knowledge of this. This week they have been back marking the curbs and pavements with yellow arrows /crosses/circles/numbers ......... perhaps they are just bored.

[Rik]

It's their way of casting spells, Dorset.

[DorsetBoy]

It's their way of casting spells, Dorset.

Are yellow pentagrams more or less potent than red ones ? 

[Rik]

More, much more...

[pctech]

I'd be a bit concerend about ordering service from an LLU provider whose checker was not up to date as you could end up with an Access product instead of LLU.


Could also be indicative of sloppy service.

[Rik]

The name Sky tends to make that a certainty.