Gigafast restricted by Q mesh - refund

[Trottski70]

Hi.  I had Gigafast for 18 months and despite oodles of time on calls and two engineer visits, there was no resolution found for the fact that I was getting 1/10th of the expected speed from the upgrade.  This was due to old cards in the Q mesh, restricting speeds to wifi devices.

Sky have never offerred any reimbursement for this and I am now persuing this further.  Has anyone else had similar issues?

Thanks!

[FLC]

There is nothing to pursue as long as the correct speed was being delivered to the router. Even if you signed up for Sky Boost the WiFi guarantee is a paltry 3Mb in each room.

[Trottski70]

Thanks for the reply but i'd be interested to understand what legal precendent there is here.  What would be the logic in paying for a gigabit service in an era where almost all of everyone's devices connect wirelessly, if there is no discernable difference when you've paid for the upgraded service?  What exactly am I getting for my money there?  I'm not sure the law would be favourably on their side here but that's more gut feel than it is an directly knowledge of precedent.

The first engineer that visited could see that the router was in a room with no direct cable connections into it, well away from all devices.  It was clear that this was a wirless only houshold so surely at that point, they should have offerred to downgrade the contract so I was not trapped into a service I could never benefit from for a further 17 months?

In my view, that is clear missselling.  They knowingly let me continue with a service upgrade that I could never use.

[FLC]

The issue is a fundamental misunderstanding of the purpose of a gigibit connection. It is not intended to provide gigabit connections to every device, but to allow multiple device/users to stream/download simultaneously without impacting each other. Apart from huge downloads such as games, there is virtually zero use case for a single device to have a gigibit connection.

As for legal precedent, all ISP contracts promise a minimum speed guarantee to the router.

Obviously no one here was party to your discussions with Sky or when they took place. But if unsatisfied, you would have had the option to leave penalty free during the cooling off period. Sky are I believe particularlry generous in providing 30 days, whereas most only offer 14.

[TimmyBGood]

@Trottski70 

Assuming you are referring to the mesh generated by Q television boxes, those were launched in early 2016 while their Gigabit broadband service started in 2022.  I'd think it's extremely unlikely there's any legal issue arising from older hardware being unable to fully support a newer technology because that's completely normal.  The Sky Broadband Hub is from 2019 and explicitly specified as 802.11ac: it's the 2023 Max Hub which introduced 802.11ax to Sky.

Realistically gigabit broadband is huge bandwidth delivered as far as the ISP router: they really aren't responsible past that point.

[Anonymous]

One thing I do remember from my limited schooling on English law is the concept of caveat emptor, or buyer beware. Sky can hardly be held responsible if customers don't do their homework.

You are choosing to restrict the potential of your connection by relying on WiFi and the Q mesh. As is well documented elsewhere on this forum, the use of Ethernet, Powerline and third party mesh systems can help to maximise the speed Sky is delivering to your router.

I'm with  @FLC , providing Sky is delivering gigabit speed to the router, the rest is down to the customer.

[Trottski70]

I don't think the expectation was that we would see gigabit connection speeds to every device but it was that we would enjoy speed improvements, which we barely did.  That was the premise of the upgrade, the premise of the complaints and the issues were obvious enough to Sky for them to send not one but two engineers out to try and resolve it.  Why would they do so, if they were happy that it was set up in a reasonable manner?

I'm not sure it was at all an unreasonbale expectation that upgrading a broadband service would improve individual device speeds, reagrdless of any gaurantees.  I'd be highly surprised if anyone upgraded to better speeds and didn't see any, would be ok with that.

[TimmyBGood]

---

@Trottski70 wrote:

I'm not sure it was at all an unreasonbale expectation that upgrading a broadband service would improve individual device speeds, reagrdless of any gaurantees.  

---

But it is somewhat unreasonable to think fundamental physics doesn't still apply.

If anything, a complaint might be that ISP advertising still confuses speed delivered to the address with that which it's possible for individual devices to access: as I frequently comment all WiFi is zero Mbs on the other side of a few walls or past some tens of metres of free air no matter how fast the router is running.

[FLC]

At the end of the day, you're only going to get opinions from other users on this forum, as Sky don't participate directly. I would think that those most likely to contribute probably have a better technical understanding of WiFi than the average customer, so unlikely to agree with you. But if you believe you have a case, your local Trading Standards office is probably the place to start.

ISPs certainly don't make it abundantly clear that a gigabit connection is completely pointless for the vast majority of their customes. But then very few businesses offering a range of products will talk you out of buying their most expensive. Try walking into a BMW dealership & asking to buy an M performance car. See if they take you one side & carefully explain you won't get anywhere any quicker than you currently do in your family hatchback. Then go back to them after delivery & complain that you can't do the advertised top speed anywhere & see if they'll offer a refund. 😉

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Trottski70 

@FLC 

In @mae-3  first response he describes lan broadcast storms :- 

https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband/SkyQ-box-throttling-speed/m-p/4778792#M427393

It may have a bearing on your issue over and above the fact that afaik sky q only has 100Mbps ethernet ports

[jamesn123]

---

@Trottski70 wrote:

I'm not sure it was at all an unreasonbale expectation that upgrading a broadband service would improve individual device speeds, reagrdless of any gaurantees.  I'd be highly surprised if anyone upgraded to better speeds and didn't see any, would be ok with that.

---

Actually I would argue it is an unreasonable expectation when you take into account the whole picture. When your using older grade hardware & potentially older grade client devices, that speed improvement could be lost. Unless an ISP has specific marketing that states that all types of devices would see a speed improvement when upgrading, you dont really have a leg to stand on legally. You'll find every ISP states in their T&Cs that the speeds seen on advertised packages are to the router, (with the exception of WiFi guarantee addons), and the whole infrastructure to the point of your routers connection is cabled. 

As other posters have already outlined, the idea of Gigafast is to allow many devices at once to function in a busy home where people may be streaming, downloading, browsing etc. It also has a second benefit of allow ultrafast downloads via cable, which you mentioned earlier that nobody really uses anymore. However you would be surprised how many people do still use ethernet, its still definitely the recommended way to connect PCs & games consoles which can be high bandwidth users.  

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Trottski70 

Per @jamesn123 post only when 8k streaming is a common thing will streamimg speeds approach 100Mbps

[Trottski70]

I would agree with you if the technology that was outdated was our technology, procured from a different company.  This was Sky's technology and at no point during the sales process did they care to mention that we would not ecperience much or any upgrade to wirless speeds, due to the restrictions in the technology in the Q mesh.  How on earth were we to know this was going to be the case and how on earth would we find out what cards are in the box?  You don't feel there was even a duty of care from Sky, to mention that their own technology would prevent us seeing the expected benefit from a new service they are selling?  I can't believe you really believe that.  The upgrade has been useless to us and it's THEIR technology's fault that it has been.

I will also add that the last engineer who visited said that the whole situation could have been rectified if Sky had replaced my router with the new (max?) router which would have allowed for a decoupling of the broadband and Q mesh.  This had never been offerred despite them being aware of my displeasure and them making failed attempts to resolve it.  There was a simple resolution but they failed to offer it..

I'm not really sure how this is a lot different from a car manufacturing selling you an electric charging point for the home.  It works just fine but you can never use it because the same company sold you a petrol car and did not explain that there is no battery in your car that needs charging.  Is all the fault there on the consumer because they didn't researh that the car isn't a hybrid or did they assume it was because the salesperson tried to flog them a charging point?   There's electricity going to point alright and the charging point is as advertised.  Should they pay up simpky because of that?

Very surprised at how few of you seem to be on the side a consumer who has clearly been missold.

[Trottski70]

Thank you and that is indeed my course of action.  There is some benefit to us having gigafast here though but apprevciate that's not the case for everyone.  We have a gig speed service from another provider now and it's made a sizable difference (as it works!!).

Ultimately, if I (as a consumer) feel completely ripped off then surely there's something wrong in how these are being sold?  I'm not a technical person neither am I a technophobe yet I could not have forecast that there was no point in me upgrading.  Sky would have know and should have know and a resent the idea that it's the lack of consumer education that's the fault, not the seller.

[jamesn123]

---

@Trottski70 wrote:

You don't feel there was even a duty of care from Sky, to mention that their own technology would prevent us seeing the expected benefit from a new service they are selling?  I can't believe you really believe that.  The upgrade has been useless to us and it's THEIR technology's fault that it has been.

---

Again no. Think its been said on this thread 3-4 times now, Gigafast is designed to provide many clients with a sufficient connection speed to complete typical tasks like streaming, downloading & browsing. Sky's Q hardware doesnt prevent this from happening in any way. Additionally the speed would have been & is available via an ethernet cable which is a perfectly acceptable method of connecting to the internet. The only thing the Q hardware stopped was you seeing shiny high numbers on your speedtest app. 

---

@Trottski70 wrote:

I will also add that the last engineer who visited said that the whole situation could have been rectified if Sky had replaced my router with the new (max?) router which would have allowed for a decoupling of the broadband and Q mesh.  This had never been offerred despite them being aware of my displeasure and them making failed attempts to resolve it.  There was a simple resolution but they failed to offer it..

---

This is because originally the Sky Max hub was not compatible with Sky Q households so you would not have been provided it or offered it. Sky Q is now compatible with the Max hub so Gigafast customers will receive it when taking out the package, additionally if you take out the WiFi Max addon when on a non-FTTP package you'll also receive the Sky Max hub. 

---

@Trottski70 wrote:

Very surprised at how few of you seem to be on the side a consumer who has clearly been missold.

---

Thats a strong way to describe it. I will admit from reading the thread it sounds like Sky did not explain the full extent of how Sky Q may affect wireless only based speeds and the resolution has taken longer than it should. However I do not believe that legally Sky have done anything wrong because as mentioned the T&Cs of your contract will state speeds are measured down a cable to the hub, not Wirelessly. Morally you may feel hard done by which I tend to agree but the subject of this thread was legally which I don't agree with.