sky broadband - ultimatum

Some weeks after registering an interest with Sky for their broadband
and getting one whole (!) email saying "we'll talk to you real soon"
I got a response from them today saying in effect that I must tell
them withing 2 days if I want to get Sky broadband.
The obvious assumption is that somewhere I've missed an intermediate
email, where they actually made me an offer .... err, no. can't find
one. Maybe the spam filter ate it.

I've got to say this is a rather novel approach to marketing - almost
that they're doing me a favour. I wonder if Tesco will start adopting
this attitude.
"Sorry Mr. Lynch, you can only buy stuff from us on Tuesdays and Fridays".

Somehow I can't see it being very successful. Anyone else had a similar
experience?

Pete
--
.................................................. .........................
.. never trust a man who, when left alone ...... Pete Lynch .
.. in a room with a tea cosy ...... Marlow, England .
.. doesn't try it on (Billy Connolly) .....................................

Peter Lynch wrote:
> Some weeks after registering an interest with Sky for their
> broadband
> and getting one whole (!) email saying "we'll talk to you real soon"
> I got a response from them today saying in effect that I must tell
> them withing 2 days if I want to get Sky broadband.
> The obvious assumption is that somewhere I've missed an intermediate
> email, where they actually made me an offer .... err, no. can't find
> one. Maybe the spam filter ate it.
>
> I've got to say this is a rather novel approach to marketing -
> almost
> that they're doing me a favour. I wonder if Tesco will start
> adopting
> this attitude.
> "Sorry Mr. Lynch, you can only buy stuff from us on Tuesdays and
> Fridays".
>
> Somehow I can't see it being very successful. Anyone else had a
> similar experience?
>
> Pete

If you've lost that email you've lost your activation code which is
supplied along with it. Big ooops, mind you my spam filter is
identifying their mail shots as korean coding which I have marked as
spam anyway, so yes I nearly lost mine as well.

One thing about Sky though, there's lots of fluff, promises but no
real detail. I've just phoned their enquiry line & was told basically
that it's all on line. No it's not it's the same guff I'm getting in
my emails.

£10 a month for unlimited (I won't be getting anywhere near 16Mb) is
fair enough, I've been soundly told on here that I should be able to
use my setup with dynamic IP, but how many, if any mail accounts can I
have, what usenet usage will they supply if any. It's things like
that which I do need to know before jumping ship & if it only last 12
months I would have saved over £120 compared to my current ISP & there
is a slight hope that I may be able to get slightly higher speeds as
well (but definitely not 16Mb).

Anybody out there who really knows, I'm all ears.

kráftéé wrote:
> Peter Lynch wrote:
>
> £10 a month for unlimited (I won't be getting anywhere near 16Mb) is
> fair enough, I've been soundly told on here that I should be able to
> use my setup with dynamic IP, but how many, if any mail accounts can I
> have, what usenet usage will they supply if any. It's things like
> that which I do need to know before jumping ship & if it only last 12
> months I would have saved over £120 compared to my current ISP & there
> is a slight hope that I may be able to get slightly higher speeds as
> well (but definitely not 16Mb).

The forum:-

www.skyuser.co.uk

has a fair bit of info, including a couple of people who have hacked the
router to discover their usernames and passwords.

However I've seen no mention anywhere of Usenet or multiple mail boxes.

Activation seems a problem. Some friends have signed up for Sky, and I've
had a play with their router. You can set up the LAN, NAT and Firewall bits
just like a 'proper' Netgear.

They were supposed to be connected on Sept 11th. However as of last night
there still appears to be no ADSL carrier on their line (I took my router
round there to detect its presence too). BT's order tracker mentions the
work and the date, but clicking on 'Details' brings up 'system error, try
later'.

Who knows eh ? They're not fussed, they're on dial up, and will just sit it
out a few more days. The internet is only a tiny part of their lives :-)

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

kráftéé wrote:
> Peter Lynch wrote:
>> Some weeks after registering an interest with Sky for their
>> broadband
>> and getting one whole (!) email saying "we'll talk to you real soon"
>> I got a response from them today saying in effect that I must tell
>> them withing 2 days if I want to get Sky broadband.
>> The obvious assumption is that somewhere I've missed an intermediate
>> email, where they actually made me an offer .... err, no. can't find
>> one. Maybe the spam filter ate it.
>>
>> I've got to say this is a rather novel approach to marketing -
>> almost
>> that they're doing me a favour. I wonder if Tesco will start
>> adopting
>> this attitude.
>> "Sorry Mr. Lynch, you can only buy stuff from us on Tuesdays and
>> Fridays".
>>
>> Somehow I can't see it being very successful. Anyone else had a
>> similar experience?
>>
>> Pete
>
> If you've lost that email you've lost your activation code which is
> supplied along with it. Big ooops, mind you my spam filter is
> identifying their mail shots as korean coding which I have marked as
> spam anyway, so yes I nearly lost mine as well.
>
> One thing about Sky though, there's lots of fluff, promises but no
> real detail. I've just phoned their enquiry line & was told basically
> that it's all on line. No it's not it's the same guff I'm getting in
> my emails.
>
> £10 a month for unlimited (I won't be getting anywhere near 16Mb) is
> fair enough, I've been soundly told on here that I should be able to
> use my setup with dynamic IP, but how many, if any mail accounts can I
> have, what usenet usage will they supply if any. It's things like
> that which I do need to know before jumping ship & if it only last 12
> months I would have saved over £120 compared to my current ISP & there
> is a slight hope that I may be able to get slightly higher speeds as
> well (but definitely not 16Mb).
>
> Anybody out there who really knows, I'm all ears.

From what I understand you will get 5 mailboxes, and there is no usenet
access provided.

To be honest at these prices, you wouldnt expect usenet prices. Which is
better for me, as I subscribe to a 3rd party, so having to pay for a usenet
service from my ISP, which I dont use hacks me of.

There is also no webspace offered...again not some thing I have used whilst
being with my current ISP (NTL), so having to pay for it hacks me of.

"XPUser" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:450a74d3$1$3576$(E-Mail Removed)...
> kráftéé wrote:
>> Peter Lynch wrote:
>>> Some weeks after registering an interest with Sky for their
>>> broadband
>>> and getting one whole (!) email saying "we'll talk to you real soon"
>>> I got a response from them today saying in effect that I must tell
>>> them withing 2 days if I want to get Sky broadband.
>>> The obvious assumption is that somewhere I've missed an intermediate
>>> email, where they actually made me an offer .... err, no. can't find
>>> one. Maybe the spam filter ate it.
>>>
>>> I've got to say this is a rather novel approach to marketing -
>>> almost
>>> that they're doing me a favour. I wonder if Tesco will start
>>> adopting
>>> this attitude.
>>> "Sorry Mr. Lynch, you can only buy stuff from us on Tuesdays and
>>> Fridays".
>>>
>>> Somehow I can't see it being very successful. Anyone else had a
>>> similar experience?
>>>
>>> Pete
>>
>> If you've lost that email you've lost your activation code which is
>> supplied along with it. Big ooops, mind you my spam filter is
>> identifying their mail shots as korean coding which I have marked as
>> spam anyway, so yes I nearly lost mine as well.
>>
>> One thing about Sky though, there's lots of fluff, promises but no
>> real detail. I've just phoned their enquiry line & was told basically
>> that it's all on line. No it's not it's the same guff I'm getting in
>> my emails.
>>
>> £10 a month for unlimited (I won't be getting anywhere near 16Mb) is
>> fair enough, I've been soundly told on here that I should be able to
>> use my setup with dynamic IP, but how many, if any mail accounts can I
>> have, what usenet usage will they supply if any. It's things like
>> that which I do need to know before jumping ship & if it only last 12
>> months I would have saved over £120 compared to my current ISP & there
>> is a slight hope that I may be able to get slightly higher speeds as
>> well (but definitely not 16Mb).
>>
>> Anybody out there who really knows, I'm all ears.
>
> From what I understand you will get 5 mailboxes, and there is no usenet
> access provided.
>
> To be honest at these prices, you wouldnt expect usenet prices. Which is
> better for me, as I subscribe to a 3rd party, so having to pay for a
> usenet service from my ISP, which I dont use hacks me of.
>
> There is also no webspace offered...again not some thing I have used
> whilst being with my current ISP (NTL), so having to pay for it hacks me
> of.
>

Can I ask what 3rd party usenet service you use? I am considering Sky BB
but would like newsgroup access and so would have to get it elsewhere.
Cheers.

Skellers wrote:
>
> Can I ask what 3rd party usenet service you use? I am considering Sky BB
> but would like newsgroup access and so would have to get it elsewhere.

If you don't want binaries, then Individual.net http://news.individual.net/
is very good at 10 Euros per year (about UKP7:30/year)

--
Mark
Please replace invalid and invalid with gmx and net to reply.

Peter Lynch wrote:
> Some weeks after registering an interest with Sky for their broadband
> and getting one whole (!) email saying "we'll talk to you real soon"
> I got a response from them today saying in effect that I must tell
> them withing 2 days if I want to get Sky broadband.
> The obvious assumption is that somewhere I've missed an intermediate
> email, where they actually made me an offer .... err, no. can't find
> one. Maybe the spam filter ate it.
>
> I've got to say this is a rather novel approach to marketing - almost
> that they're doing me a favour. I wonder if Tesco will start adopting
> this attitude.
> "Sorry Mr. Lynch, you can only buy stuff from us on Tuesdays and Fridays".
>
> Somehow I can't see it being very successful. Anyone else had a similar
> experience?
>
> Pete

Actually, i applaud Sky. Often we hear of companies that dont learn lessons.
Sky announced it was going to give FREE broadband, yes FREE to its
subscribers. No strings, no ifs no buts, they even give you a pretty darn
good wireless router for free, all they ask for is a £40 setup fee.

The demand for such a product would be high, far higher then sky would be
able to manage, so, they implement a system, where customer register their
interest on a website, and then Sky can manage demand to fit their capacity.

They release the confirmation emails on a drip drip basis, meaning a steady
roll out. Their customer services are not swamped, and their backup services
can slowly gear up as needed. Contrast this with the disaster that was
talktalk, who signed up anyone and everyone, resulting in massive
disapointment and no support.

Well done Sky..... A model for how a company should manage such a large
launch.

Gaz

"Skellers" <dcds2002@[removethisbit]hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:eeej7u$42m$(E-Mail Removed)...
> Can I ask what 3rd party usenet service you use? I am considering Sky BB
> but would like newsgroup access and so would have to get it elsewhere.
> Cheers.
>

If you want binaries, can recommend Astraweb's pay-as-you-go service ;-)

P.

On 15 Sep 2006, "Skellers" wrote:

>"XPUser" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message

<< BIG SNIP - is that "too difficult" for posters?>>

>> To be honest at these prices, you wouldnt expect usenet prices. Which is
>> better for me, as I subscribe to a 3rd party, so having to pay for a
>> usenet service from my ISP, which I dont use hacks me of.

>Can I ask what 3rd party usenet service you use? I am considering Sky BB
>but would like newsgroup access and so would have to get it elsewhere.

Depends on what you want from any service. There are some people paying
around a tenner a month to some for "unlimited" accounts (well, limited by
their UK ISP's limits, perhaps :-) and others at various costs which offer
lesser quantities of data.

If you're after binaries, then some groups produce low levels which could
easily be handled with a cheap (not quite free, there's a once-only $3.95
setup/check-you-are-adult fee) at www.teranews.com (which adds some
nasty advert signature on your postings), which allows 50 MB of data a
day (so over 1 GB a month), then for between $2.50 and $3 some will
allow 5 to 7 GB of data, and at $6 one allows 2 GB of data *per day*.

If you are either a heavy downloader, or happy with text groups but do
not want to have regular/annual payments, then Astraweb.com has an
offer that allows 90 GB (no time limit) of downloading for a fee of $25
or 25 GB for $10 (the 90 GB is "on offer" from time to time, "on" now)
See http://www.news.astraweb.com/

(PS they don't count download of headers as part of the data allowance,
unlike many services).

--
Change to DSL Max the way I did: switch ISP <http://www.dslmax.info/>

On Fri, 15 Sep 2006 18:36:50 +0100, Gaz wrote:
> Peter Lynch wrote:
....
>> I got a response from them today saying in effect that I must tell
>> them withing 2 days if I want to get Sky broadband.

> The demand for such a product would be high, far higher then sky would be
> able to manage, so, they implement a system, where customer register their
> interest on a website, and then Sky can manage demand to fit their capacity.
>
> They release the confirmation emails on a drip drip basis, meaning a steady
> roll out. Their customer services are not swamped, and their backup services
I can see your PoV. My issue was that if they only give me a 2 day
window to sign up (which is what their email implies - I appreciate
that in practice they may be more relaxed) then what would've happened
if I had been away, or not reading my email until the weekend or had
some other reason to not see it for a bit?

As an FYI to others signing up. I called Sky on friday morning,
their call-centre software told me that my call would be answered
within 25 minutes, in fact it was answered in just over 20. The
chappie I spoke to couldn't run the prerequisite BT line speed
test as the BT server(s) were overloaded. I called back later and
only had to wait 15 minutes in the queue.
This time the lady I spoke to didn't run the linespeed test. She
just accepted my enrolment and told me I'd get a letter in a few
days and the installation package in 5 working days.

My plan is to make sure that _everything_ is properly installed
and working at acceptable speeds. Only then will I cancel my NTL
cable BB.

Pete


--
.................................................. .........................
.. never trust a man who, when left alone ...... Pete Lynch .
.. in a room with a tea cosy ...... Marlow, England .
.. doesn't try it on (Billy Connolly) .....................................