Poor internet / advised by call centre to not raise again as I will be asked to leave sky

[Lou-06]

We joined sky and since we did our internet connection is very poor upstairs in our home....which is quite small.

We have the max wifi boosters, pay for the guaranteed internet....however, regularly the signal is so poor upstairs that my son is unable to game..,which as you can appreciate is an issue. 

I raised it a couple of times and had an engineer come and he ordered boosters and told us where to out them.  Despite this it still happens.  When I called in and spoke to an advisor, she warned me not to raise it again as I would be asked to leave sky....as they cannot provide me with an adequate service.

since then I have kept my mouth shut and we have tried to muddle on with the connection dropping and having to regularly reboot the internet.

its so frustrating.......has anyone else been told they would be asked to leave due to the poor connection?  Seems to go against the wifi guarantee we pay for.

[daveNOS]

@Lou-06 The agent is being overly dramatic, you won't be asked to leave Sky, you'd almost certainly be given the option to leave penalty free(no early termination fee).

The WiFi guarantee only entitles you to a fairly low speed in each room(max of 23mbps on full fibre or 10mbps on other), if that's not achievable all you get is one month's refund and the option of cancelling WiFi max without penalty.

If I where you I would put in another complaint, take the refund, cancel WiFi max and look at buying 3rd party extenders or powerline adaptors which will probably work better for you(I use a TP link extender I bought from ebay for £11 that works great in a fairly large 6 bed house). 

[Me134]

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@Lou-06 wrote:

We joined sky and since we did our internet connection is very poor upstairs in our home....which is quite small.

We have the max wifi boosters, pay for the guaranteed internet....however, regularly the signal is so poor upstairs that my son is unable to game..,which as you can appreciate is an issue. 

I raised it a couple of times and had an engineer come and he ordered boosters and told us where to out them.  Despite this it still happens.  When I called in and spoke to an advisor, she warned me not to raise it again as I would be asked to leave sky....as they cannot provide me with an adequate service.

since then I have kept my mouth shut and we have tried to muddle on with the connection dropping and having to regularly reboot the internet.

its so frustrating.......has anyone else been told they would be asked to leave due to the poor connection?  Seems to go against the wifi guarantee we pay for.

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Perhaps she told you that you could leave penalty free due to the terms & conditions that both sides agreed on?

Even with a possible language barrier it sounds unlikely that Sky would state that (unless a customer has been extremely abusive possibly, not that I'm suggesting you were). In the latter case I suspect that Sky wouldn't be 'asking you to leave' so much as telling you.

[Chrisee]

@Lou-06 where Sky cannot resolve an issue raised in a complaint all they can do is offer to release thst customer from contract and advise them to go elsewhere this is usually considered good customer practice and is often the solution the independent arbitor will advise when complaints get to them.

Issues do arise that cannot be fixed one of which is poor performance of some partial fibre lines. Sky do not own the lines they use to deliver broadband most in the UK are owned by a BT subsiduary Openreach. Where a line is causing drops, slow speeds etc Sky ask Openreach to check the line many can be fixed but in a few the only solution would cost significant money and Openreach decline to do that. This is happening more frequently as Openreach are switching to a full fibre network so the copper network has a limited life although it coukd be years before you are offered a full fibre service. Sky's only option is to release the customer from contract. Theccustomer is then free to find a service that does meet their requirements like a mobile briadband service or something like Starlink which do not rely on a long copper phone line.

WiFi coverage is another area where Sky cannot always achieve usable coverage in every room in every home even with multiple extenders. Factors like home layout or thickness of internal walls are ourside their control. Gaming over poor WiFi is dire but fortunately there are alternative solutions the best being installing Ethernet cable feed but that is often impractical thst is where a good second best is to buy a Powerline networking kit which uses adapters that use the homes mains wiring toncarry the data to a distant room. These are not expensive and redily available from brands like TP-Link and Devolo. 

My own home does not suit Sky's WiFi Max extenders. Soon after these were launched an engineer tried to maximise thecWiFinspeed with 2 pod extenders but found the speeds achieved were lower than spedds my own basic WiFi system achieved so I rejected WiFi Max and use my cheap third party WiFi. There are loads of third party WiFi systems you can buy which can be used inolace of Sky's WiFi on a Sky broadband connection.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Lou-06 wrote:

  Seems to go against the wifi guarantee we pay for.

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Neither WiFi coverage or broadband speed is actually 'guaranteed' : the 'guarantee' is of a small refund and the option to leave a minimum contract term without penalty if the specified lowest figure cannot be achieved.

Ultimately the industry regulator doesn't require ISPs to spend more on resolving issues at a particular address than they are going to make in profit on that account.

[Lou-06]

Thank you for your response.  I could understand if I had been rude to the advisor (as no doubt they get customers who are rude) and most definitely there was no language barrier..... I was really taken aback when she said do not raise a repair or issue with broadband again or you will be asked to leave sky.  I even queried her response......she repeated her comment.  Perhaps it was not worded correctly by the advisor and she did mean that we could leave penalty free........ who knows.....All I know is since then we have not raised any further issues and spend every day rectifying frozen tv shows, tv programmes that restart after every advert and persistently dropping out internet.... 🫣

[Lou-06]

Thank you for your reply, we had to use a deco mesh system with our previous provider and this rectified our coverage issue with them.  I did ask the engineeer from sky when he came to install the 3 WiFi boosters regarding the mesh system however he said we could not use it with sky.

After your response advising of the TP-link we have found a mesh system that should work with sky and are awaiting delivery.....so fingers crossed it solves the issue.

I am going to cancel the WiFi guarantee......I should have done that a long time ago.  

[Lou-06]

Thank you for replying.  We are definitely looking into a mesh system to bypass the sky as the booster extenders do not work here at all.  I should have addressed this a long time ago and cancelled our WiFi max.  

We had been told by the engineer when he was installing the boosters in our property, that sky was not compatible with mesh systems but clearly after yourself and other responses I have had, people do use them with great success.

[Daniel0210]

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@Lou-06 wrote:

Thank you for replying 

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You've just made 3 slightly different replies but it's difficult to work out who they are to. It's much easier if you tag the user name you're replying to by using the @ symbol and then the relevant name such as @Lou-06 

[Chrisee]

@Lou-06 you can definitely use a Deco mesh system with Sky I do exactly thst myself. There are multiple possible set ups I have my Deco system set in Access Point mode connected to the Sky hub by ethernet it provides extremly good WiFi coverage. There are two other possible set ups first is to runnthe Deco in router mode behind a Sky hub creating what is called a double NAT  which can csuse a few apps to stoop working but in the main works well. The last and maybe what the engineer meant was connecting the hub directly to the ONT if you have a full fibre service this works on most Sky lines but rougly 20% of Openreach lines wont work. Pretty obviously the Deco canot be directly  connected to a phone point delivering a  partial fibre servicecas it doesn't have a suitable modem built-in.

Sky may not offer support for these setups ups but cannot tell you cant use them and privately encourage forum members like myself to offer support.

Regarding your call from your description it sounds like the agent was out of order.  given Sky record all calls so if you complain the whole conversation can be listened to. See How to make a Sky complaint | Sky Help | Sky.com

[Lou-06]

@Daniel0210 Thank you.....shows how I am completely not tech savvy at all.....I assumed just clicking reply on each post worked.  Hopefully this has worked and I appreciate your help.

[Daniel0210]

@Lou-06 

That's it. Also handy to use the " symbol to copy the post you're referring to. 

[Lou-06]

@Chrisee Thank you.  I am so grateful for the responses and tips people are giving.  I just want to sit and watch one programme without having to fast forward to where we were prior to the advert, or freezing mid show and seeing the massage poor internet connection.

i am confident the deco mesh system will improve things.

[Me134]

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@Lou-06 wrote:

@Daniel0210 Thank you.....shows how I am completely not tech savvy at all.....I assumed just clicking reply on each post worked.  Hopefully this has worked and I appreciate your help.

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There's also a 'quote' option in the toolbar at the bottom of the reply window that you can use instead. It's not automatically applied unfortunately, I think it has performance impacts on the servers or perhaps it's purely to tidy up the forum as it quotes everybody in the chain of replies.

[Chrisee]

@Lou-06 happy to help. Each home is different but I found the Deco system significant improvement on using the Sky hub with two pid extenders but yo becfair my home is quite an unusual layout. If you want any more help just tag me again.