Will Sky waive my early cancellation fee due to poor service?

[pburgess2208]

I've been with Sky for 6 years now. Originally with Sky TV, Phone and Broadband. As services have become more expensive, I've really had to cut back to just broadband. However, recently I've noticed that the service in our area has had taken a big decline.

Since renewing my contract back in October, each month we have had issues, with loss of service for over a week, at times. I work from home and need the internet, so this has caused big issues with my employer. 

When I contact Sky about it, they always say that it's my internal setup, but I ask neighbours on our estate Facebook page and they all say that they have also lost connection, so it's definitely not an internal issue and it's only Sky customers who keep having these loss of services. 

I have complained time and time again and I've got to the point where I've had enough with it all and I need to switch to a provider with a more reliable service. However, at this stage in my contract an early exit fee would be around £190, an amount that I am definitely not willing to pay.

Would Sky waive this fee if the service they are providing is not up to standard?

[Chrisee]

@pburgess2208 Sky do normally handle issues quite well but you would have to ask them yourself. if you raise the issue as a formal complaint if Sky dont agree to release you can take the complaint to independent arbitration. See How to make a Sky complaint | Sky Help | Sky.com

However if the fault is external then it will probably follow you to another ISP.. While theoretically possible the issue is on the Sky connection from the exchange it is extremly unlikely faults in the Openreach connection far more common. I wouldn't trust a Facebook forum myself as few people actually understand how broadband works. If you post your Sky hub's stats forum members msy be able to tell you what is going on see Find your Sky Broadband router statistics

[TimmyBGood]

@pburgess2208 

Potentially, yes, but only if speed arriving at the Hub remains below the Guaranteed Minimum Download Speed after Openreach attempts to resolve the situation have been exhausted.

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/sky-fibre-speed-guarantee 

And if you want to, you can change your broadband package at no extra cost or cancel with no early termination charges at any time within your minimum term.

[pburgess2208]

Thank you for your response. I think the issue is one of 2 things, an issue with the external network, but as you quite rightly point out, this would affect all users to that particular cabinet OR an issue with the Sky routers themselves.

We have the latest router that Sky offers, a free 'upgrade' and so have the people in my neighbourhood who have also had issues. This is not just a Facebook forum full of people I don't know, these are my neighbours, who I know and talk to on a regular basis. They too have had enough of the constant drops and outages of their internet connection. It's just not an acceptable service, especially for people like me who have no choice but to work from home.

I guess I'll just have to try and speak to someone about it. 

thanks again for your input

[TimmyBGood]

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@pburgess2208 wrote:

We have the latest router that Sky offers, a free 'upgrade' and so have the people in my neighbourhood who have also had issues. 

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The Sky Broadband Hub has been distributed for more than three years, and so any similar widespread issues would be likely to show up in posts here.  I guess it's conceivable there's a mismatch between that model of router and your particular exchange/cabinet, but I'd think it's unlikely.

[Chrisee]

@pburgess2208 you assumption that any issue would always affect all users in the road is potentially incorrect for two reasons. First the routing of your line can be different from your neighbours. Where lines have been installed at different times you can get a new line routed to a different cabinet it isnt common but does happen. Secondly there can be issues on the physical line which does not affect other users such as a poor joint which hasn't been found so far. 

As @TimmyBGood points out the SR203 is not new and several million are in use there is no evidence I have seen of any incompatbility with cabinets. I used one myself for several years on a FTTC connection and it was 100% stable.