I recently decided to save myself some money and switch over to Sky Talk and Sky Broadband at home. They were offering a pretty good package deal and sky seemed to be rated quite high on broadband review sites. Sadly this turned out to be a big mistake.

Actually placing the order was the start of the nightmare. It is not actually possible to order anything via the sky website or to even make changes to your account, you just get an error that is it not working. It has been this way for a very long time, at least 6 months if not more, which is quite shocking really that they would leave it broken for this long.

So the only way to place an order is to call sky and do it over the phone, which is always a painful experience as you invariably end up sitting in a queue for ages, then being cut off a couple of times, then being told to call a different number which takes you to the exact same menu system, then being transferred to different departments only to be told you need to speak to the department you were originally speaking to.

It took about 1 week to get switched to sky, the router arrived in the post prior to the switchover and was all pre-configured with a little card with the wireless details on it (SSID and network passkey), the router also looks a bit like the Sky+ HD box, which I initially thought was quite neat. Sadly on the day of switchover when I plugged my router in, NADA, no Internet, also the DHCP was not working either so I couldn't even get my local network setup unless I used fixed IP addresses on all my devices, and even then it kept dropping the connection and I had to keep rebooting the router, so there was clearly something wrong with this router as well.

I then had to call Sky tech support and go through all the usual pointless crap that I had done already, check my network settings, check my ADSL filter, turn the router off etc. I was then put through to 2nd level support who told me I cannot have the router plugged into an extension socket or it will not work, I must use the master socket. This I thought was ridiculous as my ADSL has always been running off an extension with no problem and how poor must their router/service be if it cannot make it past the master socket. I was then told I had 114 errors on my line and I had a bad line, I had my filter and extensions wired up wrong, yada yada.

They seemed quite oblivious to the fact that I had told them I had a working ADSL only a few hours ago which had been working for 5 years and were coming up with all these reasons why the problem was at my end.

Eventually I was put through to fault management who eventually let me know that there was a fault at the exchange, so I had to wait several more days for this to be fixed. Calling for an update was another nightmare as there was no way to get through to the fault management dept, I have to call the general support dept first, then get put through to 2nd level support, then fault management, which took about 1 hour of sitting in queues each time. To date I have spent more than 4 hours on the phone to sky, most of that sitting in queues.

Several days later I then had a call saying "actually we think your router must be faulty, we need to send you a replacement". Hmm didn't I tell you there was a fault with it on day 1?

I decided then to play it safe and asked for a MAC code so that I could transfer back to my old ISP if the new router did not fix things.

Almost 1 week passed and the replacement router finally arrived, I plugged it in and it worked, even the DHCP, YAY! So I thought I would see if this master socket rule was true, so I moved the router to the extension in the lounge that had been used by my old provider/router without issue. To my surprise they were right, it did not work from the extension, I had no internet access. This was extremely annoying as like most people my master socket is out in the hallway, and there is also no power socket near it, so I had to trail an extension cable from one end of the hallway to the other in order to have the router plugged in to the master socket which is very inconvenient especially when you have small children running about. The only other solution is that I would have had to do some rewiring to get a new power socket next to the phone socket, but why should I have to do this? It is only sky who has this issue, I have never heard of any other broadband provider who stops you plugging your router into an extension socket. When I complained to SKY about this, they tried to sell me a wireless dongle, claiming this would solve that problem, which of course it would not as the wireless dongle is just for connecting via WIFI.

As if this was not bad enough I also noticed that the WIFI signal was extremely poor, I could only connect from downstairs with a GOOD or VERY GOOD signal but upstairs I got nothing at all, which means that my XBOX could no longer connect to either the internet or my network for

streaming video. With my old router I had an excellent to very good signal all over the house, and could even connect from the garden.

I also investigated the option of using my old router, but it seems Sky forbid you from doing this as well, and will not under any circumstances give you your login details so that you can even try.

By this point as you can imagine I had enough, but there was still no sign of my MAC code so I could not transfer away. I had already called them twice more since asking for my MAC code and being told it was not on the system so the person I spoke to before must have forgotten to order it (3 times). Then I got a reply to one of my  emails to Sky telling me I cannot have a MAC code and I would have to pay an early disconnection fee if I left. So I pointed them at the Sale of goods and services act 1982 and how I was within my right to cancel a service without penalty if it was not fit for use, which quite clearly it is not. So I have again been told that a MAC code has been ordered, this is now week 4 and still waiting. I doubt I will get it so I will just have to close the account and open a new one from scratch instead of transferring and probably be offline for another couple of weeks.

If you do a Google search you will actually find many others complaining of these same issues, poor WIFI, can't use extension socket, can't use own router, so they are obviously well known and documented issues, so it surprises me that SKY would rather lose a customer than let them use their own router.

Even the Sky Talk has not been without its issues. I got a letter from BT telling me that I would need to pay £85 if I wanted to transfer my line to sky talk, so I declined and told them not to transfer the line. But the line was transferred anyway. So now I have BT telling me I owe them £85 and Sky Talk telling me I cannot cancel my account with them without an early cancellation fine. I have contacted BT and asked them why they transferred the line and advised them that I do not owe them £85 as they should not have transferred it, and have told sky to talk to BT and not me. So far it has been over 1 week and no reply from BT.

So as you can see, Sky Talk and Sky Broadband is cheap for a reason, and you certainly get what you pay for.

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