Sky Q & WiFi Max - a cautionary tale

[Steve-35]

Hello all,

As the title would suggest this is more of a warning to others in the forum to hopefully help you avoid the same mistakes I made. 

I opted to try out Stream & in doing so added the new WiFi Max subscription/hub alongside it as the parental control option on the broadband side was a bonus for me having 2 kids who can never seem to drag themselves off their respective devices.

Anyway after approaching the end of my cooling off period I decided to revert back to Q & my previous broadband hub as the whole stream/wifi max service was just too glitchy & problematic for my liking. 

I duly phoned the call centre & submitted my cancellation request along with my reasons for doing so....all was going well until the agent tried to reinstate Q to my account.

"Can't be added as WiFi Max is on your account & the two products aren't compatible" were the next words said to me. Now I was already fully aware that this was the case hence why I cancelled it along with stream. 

From this point on is where the problems started & are still continuing. As of time of writing there is still an "imprint" of WiFi Max on my account/Sky's systems that prevents Q being added back to my account, MySky app still shows everything for Max hub & hasn't changed in over 2wks. 

Numerous resolution forms have been raised & submitted to "back office" teams & at every turn they've been rejected with the same reason of  "can't have Q & WiFi Max on same account".

My argument each time afterwards has been I no longer have WiFi Max or the associated hub. Hub was sent back & WiFi Max subscription cancelled but still Q can't be added to my account. 

As a result of this I now have the one thing Sky say you can't have, 2 separate accounts at the one address, 1 for TV & 1 for broadband.

To add insult to injury I've now "lost" all my Buy & Keep purchases from my main account that I had access to previously on my Q box....almost 60 movies purchased over the course of 11yrs. They're still accessible online but that's little use to us as a family or even my kids if they want to watch something purchased previously. 

I'm now told that nothing can be done about what's happened & that "at some point in the future" I'll be able to add Q back to my  longstanding account when Sky figure out a resolution to this problem which apparently has affected others too.

I just need to keep phoning once a month & keep asking the question can I add Q to broadband account & hope that one day they'll say yes. 

Until then I'm left with my frustration continuing to build & a whole lot of regrets surrounding my decision to trial stream & WiFi max. 

I'm sorry for the long post but hopefully this will help others who may be considering the same move I made to think extra carefully before potentially making the switch from Q. 

If anyone's had a similar experience & managed to get it resolved then I'd love to know how you done it as I've had enough of banging my head against a wall to last a lifetime. 

[masterkik]

So Wifi Max and Stream didnt mean, does that mean the new wifi6 router wont work with sky Q either ?

[cuke]

Currently no, the Sky Max hub isn't compatible with SkyQ..

[Daniel321]

Nothing short of rubbish from Sky and they are so far behind the curve on this. All the major providors have excellent wifi/broadband controls not Sky. Cant wait to jump from their broadband. 

[TommyJB]

Surly SKY would have ensured that the HUB was and is compatable??  This is unbeleivable?  

[TommyJB]

Unbeleivable!!! 

[TimmyBGood]

@TommyJB 

Q is now eight years old and was developed at a time when domestic wireless mesh hardware basically didn't exist: it was a very early example of the technology.  Things have moved on rather a lot since them, and insisting on backwards compatibility with the proprietary Q mesh may well have crippled WiFi Max going forward, which would be very shortsighted when the Max Hub can reasonably be expected to still be in use for broadband past the end of satellite television broadcasting itself (which may occur as early as 2028)