Sky questions.

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pre65
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#1 Sky questions.

Post by pre65 »

We have a Sky box at home, a Sky + HD wi-fi box. We currently have the "original" package.

Looking at the possible upgrades, we can get a new Sky box for no extra monthly cost, but they quote an extra £199 upfront cost. :shock:

As the equipment is only on loan, what is the £199 for ?

What are alternatives to Sky that enable us to record, record and pause live TV, and get the same mix of channels that Sky offer, plus, if possible, the Discovery channels.

We are not interested in sport or movies.
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Neal
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#2 Re: Sky questions.

Post by Neal »

Looking at this myself Phil, BT seems the favourite and will save £10 a month. You can dip in and out of services like movies or sport on a monthly basis...
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#3 Re: Sky questions.

Post by JohnG »

Start a conversation with cancellations and mention the wonderful competitors offerings.

Just got a complete upgrade to SkyQ for Parity to the old package as a Customer Loyalty Gold Award.

The Blurb is not of interest, what is off interest is that in a very rural location, the Downloads are now running at 2500ish Bytes against the previous 1000ish Bytes that would deliver variances of 400-1100.

A 3GBish Download is I believe now less than, or very close to a Hour, where as previous 2.5 - 3GB Downloads could go into hours and on some occasions days.

Very impressed with the Updated Service and the New Interface on the TV.
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Nick
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#4 Re: Sky questions.

Post by Nick »

Just got a complete upgrade to SkyQ for Parity to the old package as a Customer Loyalty Gold Award.
But what does Q give you (other than a new contract) that you didn't have before. Sky won't have replaced your phone line to the exchange, so I suspect a new router would have given you the same speed increase.
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shane
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#5 Re: Sky questions.

Post by shane »

The speed you get on an Openreach line is dependant on the line, not the service provider. If you get X mb/sec with one provider, you should get the same with all the others.

Bear in mind that the speeds quoted by providers refer only to what is received by the router. They do not include the wi-fi link at the end of the chain.

BT Wholesale provide a line checker which will tell you what your line is capable of providing. All providers should match these figures.

https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/#/ADSL
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pre65
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#6 Re: Sky questions.

Post by pre65 »

For us, Sky Q would give a lot more hard drive space (nice) and the ability to record more than two programmes simultaneously (even more nice), so it would indeed be an upgrade.

But not necessarily nice enough to pay £199. :wink:
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#7 Re: Sky questions.

Post by Michael L »

I use Plusnet with a BT Vision Youview box. I've been very happy for the last 3 or 4 years.
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Nick
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#8 Re: Sky questions.

Post by Nick »

pre65 wrote: Mon Aug 03, 2020 8:28 pm For us, Sky Q would give a lot more hard drive space (nice) and the ability to record more than two programmes simultaneously (even more nice), so it would indeed be an upgrade.

But not necessarily nice enough to pay £199. :wink:
Yep, the last time I replaced my sky box, the engineer had a 2Tb one in his van, so that removed one of the reasons to get a Q. And with most of the things that we watch on demand, so doesn't use the satellite (and the latest software nicely finds alternative recording times when you hit the 2 limit) that another Q advantage gone.
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pre65
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#9 Re: Sky questions.

Post by pre65 »

Looking at the BT options, it seems that what we need could be had (as Neal suggested) for £10 month + £29.99 up front.

As we are currently paying £27.70 a month, it's worth a call to BT to get a few questions answered. My broadband should be fast enough, about 45mbps .

And if Sky disable our box when we change, I can use the dish on the TV as we have Freesat as well as Freeview.
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Nick
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#10 Re: Sky questions.

Post by Nick »

You can get a free to air card from Sky, but will loose the recorded programs if they are on Sky pay channels.
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#11 Re: Sky questions.

Post by Tony Moore »

I changed back to Sky (Q) when it first came out (2? 3? years ago). I've been on and off with Sky since when it was analogue, cancelling and coming back to them helps get the best deal.

The reason the Q appealed to me was the multi-room functionality. We have two mini Q boxes, using wired connection to the main box. (Which the installation "engineer" said wasn't possible but with an internet search and a bit of fiddling around I got it working fine) The Sky Q boxes by default communicate over their own 5Ghz wifi network but in our Victorian house 5Ghz wifi is no use due to the walls and distances.

There are other ways to get a multi-room DVR system now of course but at the time the Sky Q was quite innovative.

If you don't need multi-room though then it loses its edge.
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