Has Sky restricted my switching options by switching my phone to digital?

[moniker]

My renewal is coming up and Sky sent me an email telling me not to worry as they've automatically extended the offers on my account, to me that suggested the price would stay the same, but on closer inspection it appears that while they did keep one of the offers active, the price has increased to £31.00 from £26.00.  

I had hoped to discuss this with customer service, but the chat wouldn't allow me to speak to a human and I have difficulty on the phone owing to a health condition, so I tried messaging the Sky Help Team on X, but never received a response. 

Given the £5 price hike and lack of available customer service I figured I best switch to another provider, however, it seems that's not currently feasable. Vodafone says that I can't get broadband at my address, despite using fibre here for years. When I looked into this I found other Sky customers saying the same thing, apparently, when Sky switched the phone line to digital (without asking) they restricted the options available to customers when switching away from them. Is this true?

In my area, Wester Ross, providers are slim in comparison to the bigger population zones, so by restricting providers, they appear to be the cheapest available provider who also offers a phone service. The quoted price being £26/month with the bonus of a £40 voucher, new customers only. Loyalty it seems is expensive. Now, had Sky not switched my phone line, I would've been able to get Vodafone Fibre 2 for £24/month with the bonus of a £60 voucher. 

However, since I can't take up either offer, and the next best price is BT at £34.99/month it seems I'm best off staying with Sky, not because I want to, but because Sky have taken out the competition. 

Can anyone here provide a text based contact for Sky so I can discuss this further? 

To be clear the costs I've been stating are for 70Mb fibre with a phone line (no calls included).

[Chrisee]

@moniker the switch to digital voice lines is being driven by Openreach's decision to de-commission the old analogue voice service. Most other ISPs are doing the same switch but unlike Sky not all have systems that can use the same analoguue phone. In most areas Openreach will decline an order for an analogue voice service unless the customer has kit like a personal alarm or medical device tgstvstill requires an analgue line. 

The digital voice line  should not impact your option to switch ISP but in remote areas like Wester Ross not every provider will have the necessary equipment in the exchange servicing your line however Plusnet and EE as part of BT group should be able to offer a service as BT seve every exchange Sky ooerate one of the largest LLU networks but even they dont cover every exchange.  It is a commercial decision for each network as to what products they offer where and with smaller exchanges the choice is often limited it is not something Sky can control or even influence.

[moniker]

Thanks for your response Chrisee. Perhaps I was misinformed, it's just odd why the MoneySavingExpert tool and Quidco, both provide a number of deals based on my address, but very few are actually availble to me when I follow the links. 

On MoneySavingExpert, I'm shown 15 deals, yet only 6 of them are actually available to me. And out of those 6 deals, I can only take advantage of 3 as the rest are provided by Sky. 

BT Fibre 2 Only @ £29.99/mth

BT Fibre 2 + Phone @ £34.99/mth

Plusnet Fibre @ £25.99/mth

Had I been a new customer to Sky, I'd have been able to take up the following offers:

NOW Superfast @ £23/mth

Sky Full Fibre 75 @ £26/mth + £40 giftcard (equivalent to £24.34/mth)

Sky Full Fibre 75 + WiFi Max @ £29/mth

I'm currently paying £26/mth for Sky Broadband Superfast, but this will increase to £31 when my contract ends in 17 days. Instead of rewarding customers for loyalty, it seems they're being penilised to ensure new customers can get better deals. 

I received a misleading email that stated, "We've automatically extended the offers on your account", "Your offers have been added automatically and there's no new contract, so you don't need to do a thing." It even went as far as stating that I'll be saving £144 over 12 months. Yet, when I logged in to take a closer look I could see that my broadband package would increase by £5 and when you look at the offers available to new customers, NOW Superfast for example. I'll be paying £8 more (35%) a month. 

When I click on View Renewal Options the only option I'm given is to increase my bill further by adding WiFi Max for an additional £5, despite new customers being able to get this addon included in their package for £2 less than what I'll be paying in a couple of weeks. 

Previously I'd be inclined to contact my broadband provider to discuss this, but Sky appears to have done away with customer service and replaced it with unhelpful bots who promise to transfer you to an expert who never arrives. I have a health condition which makes it incredibly difficult to use the phone and since that's the only way to actually speak to someone, it seems I'm out of luck. You'd think in this digital age when landline phones are being de-commissioned, large companies like Sky might be more accessable for people who have difficulty using the phone. Unfortunately, it's far easier for them to lock people into expensive contracts if the remove the ability to communicate with them.

Plusnet says, "You'll no longer have to pay for a landline phone service you don't use." yet the price is the same as it was when a landline phone was included. As far as I remember the cost of the landline in their broadband packages was more than 50% of the cost.  In the end, the providers are getting paid more while providing less services and the customers are getting squeezed for whatever they can get away with. 

[moniker]

I replied to this earlier, but it appears my reply has been removed. 

[Chrisee]

@moniker the forum has a number of filters if your post was caught it should be released when the forum mods have checked it. Usual issue are something that identifies you or something that could break foorum rules.

[moniker]

Well I've no idea what kind of rules I may have broken with my response, but filtering my response just seems like an additional barrier to support. Sky Help Team at both X and Facebook are unresponsive. The bot at Facebook went off looking for an expert 3 hours ago, but appears to have gotten lost. Where is the accessability for those who are unable to make phone calls due to disability? 

[daveNOS]

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@moniker wrote:

Where is the accessability for those who are unable to make phone calls due to disability? 

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@moniker That would be provided by the accessabilities team https://skyaccessibility.sky/ you need to register with them first , once registered you will have a few other contact options that don't require calling.

[moniker]

Thank you!

[moniker]

Unfortunately "Chat with a Sky expert" is currently unavailable. I guess I'll try again later. 

[TimmyBGood]

@moniker 

The concept of a 'landline' is rapidly becoming obsolete, but terrestrial broadband requires a data bearer circuit and part of the ISP subscription pays for rental of that circuit from a wholesale provider.  What's optional is a voice call bundle (inclusive minutes or 'free calls') : without that, outbound calls over the 'landline' (actually VOIP) are charged at a high pence per minute rate.

[Chrisee]

@moniker your earlier post has now appeared as the mods have cleared the spam filter no idea why it was caught it happens even to the Forum Superusers.

The comparison sites generate their lists using their own software so no idea why you got offered deals the companies could not in fact supply. Its unusual but not unknown. Sky like most other companies make offers to attract new customers that they wont offer to exisiting customers. This isnt illegal and is quite common in many industries but I agree  its very annoying.  However it is likely continue until the regulator bans the practice.

Couple of corrections new customers dont get Sky's WiFi Max thrown in for free AFAIK what they can get though is the WiFi Max hub on certain packages but that does not include the extenders , parental,control and engineer visits the full bundle contains. However as previously stated Sky are free to set what prices they like to attract new cstomers

Sky have several thousand customer support agents taking calls from at least 8am to 8pm daily but unfortunately the lines get very busy especially recently due to bad weather and a major failure of one of the TV platforms has clogged the call centres. The accessibility team is quite small but have the time and experience to help customers with additional needs but to preserve that service you need to register so it is not used as a means to queue jump.

Sky are owned by Comcast a huge American media company and they are far less willing to offer deals than they were in the past thry are in business to make a profit so will charge what they believecthe marketvwill bear. However Sky do offer a Social Tariff to recipients of means tested state benefits which is strictly enforced see https://www.sky.com/help/articles/sky-social-tariff

What Plusnet are saying is the same as Sky. A digital voice line is included in the broadband package for which you only pay for calls. Going back some years you paid separately for the  line rental charge and broadband service. Ofcom decided this was confusing as you cannot get broadband without having a  line so told companies to include the line rental in the broadband package.