Re: Sky broadband

Martin wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jan 2008 23:35:15 -0000, "kraftee"
<Kraftee@b&e-cottee.me.uk> wrote:

Martin wrote:

The density of exchanges is higher
the population is more concentrated. Perhaps they don't offer
broadband here until they are certain the exchanges,distances from
exchange, cabling etc. are suitable.

There you go then you are comparing, quite literally, chalk &
cheese which is the norm when comparing other countries offerings
& the UK's, note more local exchanges means shorter local loop,
less attenuation, less noise etc etc. Also most of their
infrastructure is less 60 years old (due to the nations having a
little war), whilst BT's can go back almost 100 as the urban areas
& many smaller towns were relatively untouched.

I realised all that. :-)


You really should think before opening mouth & putting both feet
firmly in you know. You've asked for advice it has been given,

and I am very grateful for the advice given.

if you
want somebody to call & they then find that the problem is inside
the property you start paying from £160-180 & that's before
anything really happens & in point of fact you would be charged
this whether anything is done to rectify the internal problem or
not & these are standard charges, agreed with OFCOM & the ISPs

I think that says more about how weak Ofcom is than anything. Do
you really think that GBP160-GBP180 is a reasonable charge to check
that the problem isn't external. KPN installed ISDN in our house
for a fraction of that.

Yes I do, remember you have to pay for the engineers training, tools,
his travel, even his wages, wear & tear on the vehicle as well as tax
tyres & diesel & then you have to make a profit as well (oh & I forgot
you have to pay for the upkeep of the network as well). £60 is a
fairly common visit charge & quite normally you'd have to pay a
minimum time on site fee no matter what service you look at & some are
even more expensive & have a lot higher costs per hour. As for OFCOM
being weak, it's the other way round BT split itself up as OFCOM was
going to do it anyway (as the market place was demanding it, now that
it's happened in real terms, in otherwords some parts become
costs/profit driven when they weren't before they aren't so vocal any
more). Unfortunately for the end users the bit of old BT now called
Openreach is the one part of BT which was not profitable & if you
think before you knee jerk you will understand why. A fault report is
a loss, an install is also a loss usually so the only way that
Openreach can earn revenue is to charge for all the things they should
have been charging for (but didn't) in the golden years of one big BT.
If you think it's expensive, try getting a quote from your local
utility to come & repair damaged/replace your water pipeinto your
house. That's right if it's on your property (& not after the stop
*** as many people would have you believe) you have to pay a lot more
than £160 & if your sewer is blocked you will have to pay a hell of a
lot more to get it unblocked.


If you called out a TV maintence engineer, under guarantee, & they
found the problem was caused by a aeriel feed not up the job, a
noisey mains supply etc or even the aeriel itself has blown away,
then you would get charged, why expect something different for DSL

I expected better advice from the help desk and I didn;t expect to
be bound to a 12 month contract for GBP17/month before being able
to check the service provided, especially as the amount quoted was
GBP5/month

It is very simple, your daughter should have looked before jumping &
there lies the real problem. If you want better support call SKY
demand a refund of all monies as they haven't been able to give a
stable connection & then pay (at least) twice as much to sign up with
an ISP who has got a good reputation for support. You'd still have to
do your own diagnostics if you did have any problem & still would be
liable for any visits caused by your equipment or wiring on your
property, but at least you should get someone who may be able to talk
you thru them instead of a script driven droid who isn't interested &
doesn't care.


.