Sky Broadband

Back in October 2009, I wrote about how I had cancelled my Demon account and switched to Be Broadband. Be were the broadband provider of choice for the discerning geek. None of their customers had a bad thing to say against them. All was well with the world.

And then, just over a year ago, the sky fell in.

Or, rather, Sky brought out Telefonica’s broadband business – and Be was one of Telefonica’s broadband brands. It was terrible news. Geeks all over the UK were appalled that their favourite ISP could be owned by a company that so many of us have strong political objections too. The news got worse soon afterwards as it was announced that we would all be migrated over to Sky’s broadband network within a year.

A mass migration of geeks started. The internet was awash with discussions of the best alternatives. If Sky were watching, then I’m sure that they were rather taken aback by the reaction.

I was one of the people who was determined to leave. I spent many an hour perusing other broadband providers’ web sites – weighing pros and cons.

But a combination of lethargy and business took over and I never left.

In January I got a letter from Sky announcing that I would be migrating in the spring. They proudly announced that my new plan would be cheaper than my old Be plan – a fact that was only true because of a 12 month discount that they gave me. The letter came with a brochure explaining all the advantages of being with Sky. It also told me that my old Be router would work with my new connection.

Still, I didn’t change providers.

In March I got another letter telling that I’d be on a different plan (fibre, not ADSL) and that it would cost quite a bit more than my Be plan. There was no explanation of the change, but I didn’t object as I quite fancied a fibre connection.

Then I got more communication. An email telling me my  new IP address. And another telling me that my new Sky Hub was on its way. That’s the replacement router that they told me I didn’t need. Then another letter telling me that my broadband would be switched over on 10th April. And then the router itself arrived.

Then, last Thursday, the day of the changeover arrived. In the middle of the afternoon my Be connection was switched off. And replaced with nothing. The Sky connection wasn’t turned on. I was told that it could happen at any time up until midnight so I didn’t worry (much) until I got up the next day and still had no connection.

I needed to call them. But their support line costs 5p/minute unless you call from one of their phones. So I waited until I got to work. On the way I got a text from Sky telling me that I had missed an installation appointment. Which was weird because a) I didn’t have an appointment and b) my wife had been at home all day.

When I got to work, I called them. And sat there on hold for thirty minutes. Eventually I spoke to someone. He couldn’t explain why I hadn’t been connected or why I had been told I’d missed a phantom appointment. But he said that our only option was to book a new time with the BT Openreach engineers (the people who actually needed to do the work in the exchange). He said he would phone them and call me back with a date. He also set my expectations and said that it wouldn’t probably be before the middle of the next week.

He called back in about half an hour. He said that he had been offered a date of 28th April but that he had argued that down to the 16th. I realised that there was nothing else I could do, so I hunkered down to weather six days without an internet connection.

Today was the day that the connection was finally going to be made. I was slightly worried as my “track your order” was still showing the “we have a problem” message from last week. But I put that down to Sky’s incompetence and tried to think positive thoughts. My wife was at home and resetting the hub every couple of hours to see if it would spring into life – but to no avail.

When I got home this evening, I plugged our house phone into the Sky line and called their support number. I got through quickly and explained my problem. At first the adviser tried to convince me that it could still happen any time up to midnight, but I persuaded him to speak to the actual installation team. When he took me off hold he had some rather bad news. Somehow, the change of date from the 28th to the 16th had never been confirmed. And the installation team weren’t planning to do anything to my line for almost two weeks.

I explained again what I had been told. He spoke to the installation team again but they were adamant that my service was going to be turned on at the end of the month.

So I finally did what I should have done a year ago. I cancelled the contract. Well, I asked to. He put me through to a colleague in what I assume was customer retention. I explained the whole sorry tale again. He asked for half an hour to try and salvage the situation, which I agreed to. But when he called back, he said that he could do nothing to fix things. So the contract was cancelled.

All of which leaves me with no internet provider. And a long weekend coming up. I might need to leave the house. Or I might just buy a Y800.

But it’s all very disappointing. Some fundamental mistakes have been made. What Sky don’t seem to realise is that Be customers are used to a company that routinely exceeds customers’ expectations. Sky seem content to fall well short of them. There are three areas in particular where I think Sky fell down.

• Their project planning is terrible. If you’re removing a service and replacing it with another one, then it’s basic common sense to ensure that you don’t remove the first until you’re sure that the second is ready to be put in place. I would happily wait until the end of April or beyond for my new Sky connection if they hadn’t turned off my Be connection.
• It seems that part of the problem here is the BT Openreach team who do all of the work in the exchange. Sky are making commitments to their customers using resources that they have no control over. This is clearly ridiculous. Sky (and, I suppose all of the other ISPs who resell Openreach products) need to get contracts in place that hold Openreach to their promises. If an Openreach engineer misses an appointment, then the customer should get an emergency appointment the next day – not in two weeks time. And Openreach should compensate the ISPs for any missed appointments.
• Sky’s communication with me throughout this has been terrible. A lot of the time I have felt like people are just telling me what I want to hear. Or I’ve been told contradictory things by two different people. I never got an explanation of why my service was upgraded from ADSL to fibre. Sky need to better train their support staff. They can learn a lot from the staff that they have inherited from Be.

So. What ISPs should I be looking at. I’m considering Virgin Media, because I already get my phone and TV through them. The broadband is a separate account (paid for by my company) but VM say I can get what sounds like a pretty good connection from them for only £2 a month more than I’m currently paying them.

But I’m open to alternative suggestions.

Update: There’s more to this story. And it doesn’t make Sky look any better!