Why did customer services tell me I cannot have fibre? Or how do you speak to a useful human at sky?

[avmc]

I am on an old legacy copper broadband package and want to upgrade to fibre (FTTC / 'superfast' package)

On my online account it shows the standard 'Superfast 80' broadband is available to me priced at £34.50 per month.  The exact same package is advertised for new customers at £27 per month.  And competitors offer the same level package for lower prices. 

So I called Sky to get them to discount it to match the lower price, but the guy told me I cannot get fibre at all and can only have copper.  I asked him multiple times to check this and to explain why, because there is definitely fibre FTTC available to all properties in my street.  He didn't even know what I meant by FTTC, didn't seem to have heard of the 'Superfast 80' package, and kept putting me on hold before coming back and repeating that they can offer me this copper package and trying to sell me that.  Eventually during a particularly long hold, the line went dead.

I can find no other way of contacting sky other than this bad line to a very noisy call centre with operators who clearly don't actually know anything beyond reading out what's on the screen in front of them.

How can I either speak to someone who knows what they're talking about, email someone who knows what they're talking about, or get them to discount the price within my online account??

Or do I just give up now and go with a better provider?

[TimmyBGood]

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@avmc wrote:

the guy told me I cannot get fibre at all and can only have copper.  I asked him multiple times to check this and to explain why, because there is definitely fibre FTTC available to all properties in my street.  

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Possibly a confusion in nomenclature.  FTTC is delivered to the subscription address over copper, with the fibre backhaul to the wider internet starting at the local Openreach roadside box ( hence 'Fibre To The Cabinet' )

They may have assumed your insistence on 'fibre' was referring to Fibre To The Premises (FTTP) which is optical all the way but only available where appropriate infrastructure has been deployed.

It's worth noting that both Ofcom and the ASA acknowledge how confusing the naming conventions are, and prefer the use of the term 'full fibre' to distinguish FTTP from FTTC.

[avmc]

I doubt this was the case, because he said the maximum download speed I could get is 12mbps (ie copper - would be 67+ mbps if it was fttc)

I wasn't simply "insisting on fibre" I did fully explain what I meant (fibre to the cabinet aka "superfast"  as per upgrade offered in my online account, and I knew that I could not have fibre to the home/premises aka "ultrafast" - obviously explained much more fully in a 20+ minute phone call than here on a message board) and I asked specifically about speeds so I could fully understand what he was offering and avoid confusion around nomenclature. 

If anything, it was him "insisting"that it was NOT possible to get fibre of any type at my address.

I can't remember the name of the package he was offering, but he said a few times it was definitely the only one available, that it was copper only, and 9-12 mbps download speed / 1mbps upload.  

He did not seem to know what I meant by the 'Superfast 80' package when I referred to that being offered in my online account (i had to spell it to him over the phone) and he could not find anything at all listed as "superfast" which is the naming used everywhere else by Sky for FTTC broadband.

Anyway, do you know how to contact a more useful department at Sky broadband?

[TimmyBGood]

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@avmc wrote:

I can't remember the name of the package he was offering, but he said a few times it was definitely the only one available, that it was copper only, and 9-12 mbps download speed / 1mbps upload.  

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That would be ADSL (or its digital-only replacement product SOTAP) which is presumably what you have now: the Sky product name is Broadband Essentials.

It's not unknown for FTTC to be unavailable in practice because the local cabinet is at full capacity.

Putting the address into the BT Wholesale Availability Checker should indicate which provisioning type is applicable.

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL/AddressHome 

It's the table and the two text lines below it which are most useful.

Remove any personal information (such as the address itself) if you post an image.

[avmc]

Thanks for this - it may be full to capacity as it says FTTC "Unavailable" on this link, and that would at least explain one part of all this.

(SoGEA is marked "Available" if that makes any difference, although I guess the sky system still needs traditional phone line availabilty as well as data. 

On the main Openreach availability checker / every broadband provider including Sky, it says FTTC is available, confusingly.)

And yes thanks I remember now he initially called it "Sky Essentials" 

Anyway, whether the cabinet is full or not, then 

a) why is different information shown on my online customer account than on the telephone customer services account

b) why did the customer service rep have no idea why/how to find any further information

c) and most importantly WHO CAN I CONTACT  to make any progress with this??

[mormegil]

Do you currently only have broadband with sky and the line with someone else?

[jamesn123]

@avmc 

Can you post the full table from the Openreach wholesale checker, would be easier to figure out if something is blocking you ordering it

[avmc]

@mormegil currently both phone line and broadband with Sky

@jamesn123 screenshot below

But PLEASE can someone just tell me how to contact a person at Sky who can directly deal with this for me?  Appreciate you are all trying to help, but I just need to speak to someone who can actually implement a solution.

[TimmyBGood]

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@avmc wrote:

I just need to speak to someone who can actually implement a solution.

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If an ISP can't order a wholesale service for the address then there is no 'solution'

What do other ISP online checkers say?

[avmc]

@TimmyBGood 

If I could speak to someone at Sky who could tell me this definitively, then I'll get Virgin.

All ISP online checkers I have looked that use openreach network, including Sky, say I can get superfast/fttc level broadband - as does the Openreach availability checker.

I just want to speak to someone at Sky, why is that so hard?

[mormegil]

There is a known glitch in copper withdrawal areas where openreach forgot sogea is also copper so prevents any orders until fttp is available

[avmc]

@mormegil thank you, that is useful to know, if I could speak to a Sky tech support or similar I could ask them to look into that as a potential barrier.  Maybe they could even arrange for it to manually override the automated system that is preventing the order.

So... how do I contact Sky tech support??

[jamesn123]

@avmc

https://sky.com/help  scroll to the bottom, expand the 'need more help' drop down and dial the 03 number

[mormegil]

The fault is with openreach so can't be fixed by sky

[Highlinder]

@mormegil  But in order for you to get this fixed it has to be Sky that talks to Openreach. Customers like ourselves are not able to talk to Openreach.