Email Notification of Full Fibre Availability, but Upgrade not an option on sky.com

[RonGd]

Hello,

I received an email from Sky last month notifying me that Full Fibre was now available at my address; a check on Openreach's website has confirmed this, and other providers have confirmed that Full Fibre deals are available from them at this address. However when I select "Upgrade your Package" on the Sky website, I'm told that we're already on the fastest broadband at our address. We're on Standard, and getting barely 5Mbps on a good day. Our contract's up for renewal next month, so it would be good to know which of these messages is true and why there might be a contradiction before a decision is made to possibly switch.

Thanks

[cookiemonsteruk]

@RonGd 

Sky tend to be slower by 2-4 weeks in getting their database updated

[stegarkickit]

I have this exact same issue though my existing speed is around 60mb. Ive tried emailing, calling & live chat and the closest ive got to any sense is that skys system shows that fttp would provide a slower speed. 

My frustration is that neighbours with other suppliers have been upgrading their broadband to ridiculous speeds. 

From what I've read I suspect Sky don't want to cover the cost of replacing the telephone line the properties of existing customers as I believe that's required in some cases.  I've checked broadband speed availability on skys website without logging in and they can offer much faster speeds if I were a new customer. Pretty disgusting really

I've also read on this forum that the number of Sky Q mini boxes you have can prevent them from moving you to fibre but I've no idea why that would be the case. 

Either way, I'll be off to a different supplier in January when my contract expires 

[TimmyBGood]

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@stegarkickit wrote:

I have this exact same issue though my existing speed is around 60mb. Ive tried emailing, calling & live chat and the closest ive got to any sense is that skys system shows that fttp would provide a slower speed. 

Given the minimum FTTP speed band is 100Mbs, that makes no sense either.

My frustration is that neighbours with other suppliers have been upgrading their broadband to ridiculous speeds. 

1Gbs from most Openreach ISPs, 1.8Gbs from EE

From what I've read I suspect Sky don't want to cover the cost of replacing the telephone line the properties of existing customers as I believe that's required in some cases.  

Sky and other Openreach ISPs don't do so.  Openreach has a budget of  c£1800 per property for the national FTTP rollout: it's beyond that cost where the householder is expected to contribute.  The cost to an ISP for a new optical circuit is around £100.

I've checked broadband speed availability on skys website without logging in and they can offer much faster speeds if I were a new customer. Pretty disgusting really

Which would suggest a sales system glitch.  Why wouldn't Sky want to sign you up for a new minimum term?

I've also read on this forum that the number of Sky Q mini boxes you have can prevent them from moving you to fibre but I've no idea why that would be the case. 

The total number of Q boxes and Q boosters is the determining factor in whether Sky will supply a Max Hub, and that's now the default hardware for Ultrafast from Sky.

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[stegarkickit]

@TimmyBGood 

Thanks for explaining all that. From what youve said, i think my issue is the number of sky q mini boxes i have (3 in total).

Having looked into it, the Max Hub can only support 1 mini box and so it's likely thats the reason why they wont let me upgrade i think. 

I'll have to give them another call with a view to returning a couple of the boxes that are hardly used

[TimmyBGood]

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@stegarkickit wrote:

From what youve said, i think my issue is the number of sky q mini boxes i have (3 in total).

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I think that would be correct, yes.  We've suggested Sky puts a rather more useful message in the online order path in these circumstances: it also affects the telephone support people who tend to advise 'Max isn't available in your area' which is equally incorrect.

[RonGd · Accepted solution]

It's been a while but finally we have an answer. An engineer visit in July hadn't been flagged as completed on their system, and this was blocking any amendments to our broadband package as it still had an outstanding order. So if you find yourself in this scenario go to Orders & Visits in your sky.com account and check if there are any orders or visits that haven't been marked as Completed. If so, give Sky a call and point this out. They can't fix this on the spot, they need to pass it on to another team, but if you keep checking in on the Orders & Visits, once it's completed you should be able to upgrade. It's also worth confirming it is actually available at your address by going on sky.com or calling, and pretending to be a new customer who's just moved in.