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Thread: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

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    News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    Broadband and fixed line businesses bought from Telefonica.
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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    He went on to say that existing O2 and BE customers “used to high-quality products and strong levels of customer service” are a great fit for Sky’s services.
    Folks I've spoke to in the past were of the opinion that Sky's customer service was just as "good" as Virgin's, in which case I feel sorry for O2/BE folks.

    That said, I didn't know that O2 had a fixed line product. Live and learn.

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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    They're all as bad as each other to be honest, though the worst customer service I've experienced recently has been the DWP! Took them 4 months to get my change of address sorted, even though they had sent over 50! letter to the correct address...
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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    To be fair, I have found Sky's customer service to be fine, I was annoyed they made me take half a day off work to set up my broadband (engineers visit) only to remotely activate it the day before but cant be helped. The english call centers were pleasant to deal with thogh

    Virgin media on the other hand was beyond useless. Utterly dire...lieing, miss leading, patronizing...you name it they were useless at it!

    However... Virgin had a far far faaar better product with TIVO & the fibre optic then Sky. I find the Sky box confusing, unintuitive (sp) and far too many menus to click through compared to Virgins. it is also lacking the third tuner TiVo had which was great. Thumbs up & down feature was brilliant and their menus whilst a bit slow at times (split second lag) were nicely laid out.


    edit; My views above are based off 3 years with Virgin Media, before moving house and having to take Sky. 2 months with Sky so far, and my parents/grandparents both having sky for years.

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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    Sad news. Love my O2 broadband (still on an old unlimited package). Hate giving money to the Murdock's but trying to sell house so new contracts are no go so guess I'm stuck until I move...
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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    Quote Originally Posted by Andehh View Post
    To be fair, I have found Sky's customer service to be fine, I was annoyed they made me take half a day off work to set up my broadband (engineers visit) only to remotely activate it the day before but cant be helped. The english call centers were pleasant to deal with thogh

    Virgin media on the other hand was beyond useless. Utterly dire...lieing, miss leading, patronizing...you name it they were useless at it!

    However... Virgin had a far far faaar better product with TIVO & the fibre optic then Sky. I find the Sky box confusing, unintuitive (sp) and far too many menus to click through compared to Virgins. it is also lacking the third tuner TiVo had which was great. Thumbs up & down feature was brilliant and their menus whilst a bit slow at times (split second lag) were nicely laid out.


    edit; My views above are based off 3 years with Virgin Media, before moving house and having to take Sky. 2 months with Sky so far, and my parents/grandparents both having sky for years.

    I concur. Virgin customer service has been about as useless as any I've ever had. While on the cable, I could forgive them because the product itself was very good and pretty reliable (customer service was mostly re: minor issues and billing). However, I made the mistake of taking their national service when I moved. You seem to get exactly the same dire customer service, only with aoverpriced, mediocre product (with none of the bells and whistles that allowed you to overlook the CS before) that leaves you NEEDING that missing customer service. To rub salt in, I keep getting flyers through the door trying to sell me their cable + tv package... which you can't get in this area.


    EDIT- If I can't get 'proper' cable internet here, does anyone have any strong opinions (either way) re: BT/BT Infinity re: the product AND the customer service? If it does half of what it says on the tin, it'd be a major improvement on what I have now, and I'd be tempted...

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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    Well, Be's gone downhill since O2 took it over. And I really don't like the idea of giving Sky my money. Guess I'll have to change ISP.
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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    Quote Originally Posted by Andehh View Post
    To be fair, I have found Sky's customer service to be fine, I was annoyed they made me take half a day off work to set up my broadband (engineers visit) only to remotely activate it the day before but cant be helped. The english call centers were pleasant to deal with thogh. Virgin media on the other hand was beyond useless. Utterly dire...lieing, miss leading, patronizing...you name it they were useless at it!
    I'm going to make a distinction between customer services and technical support. Virgin's customer services are actually okay when I've used them. First line technical support could be a shed load better, but when you finally do persuade them to send an engineer, then the engineers - on the whole - seem to be a good lot.

    Worse customer support I've had - by a country mile - has got to be Three. Even thinking of it now (and it's been eight months since I left them to move to T-Mobile) has got my blood pressure up.

    I shouldn't slag off Sky since they've got two customer support centres within about 30 minutes drive of where I live, (three if you count an outsourced one too), so I really should be cheering on the "local" team!

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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    Quote Originally Posted by Andehh View Post
    To be fair, I have found Sky's customer service to be fine, I was annoyed they made me take half a day off work to set up my broadband (engineers visit) only to remotely activate it the day before but cant be helped.
    Virgin Media arranged to come pick up my old cable box when I moved. I took a half day off work, called them three times (12pm onwards, I had to be at work for 2pm), being told the engineer was 'on his way', and they were a no-show. One month later I got a call - "Hi, I'm in the area at the moment - right outside your house. Would now be a good time to pick up the box?"...in the middle of another working day. As it is, this was a year and a half ago... and they still haven't bothered to come pick it up.

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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    I didn't even realise that O2 wanted to get out of the broadband market. I guess they felt it was detracting from their main business of being a mobile network.

    Perhaps they also felt that they were subsidising it too much and getting little to no benefit out of it?

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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    Quote Originally Posted by Tpyo View Post
    EDIT- If I can't get 'proper' cable internet here, does anyone have any strong opinions (either way) re: BT/BT Infinity re: the product AND the customer service? If it does half of what it says on the tin, it'd be a major improvement on what I have now, and I'd be tempted...
    I've recently moved back to BT to take up Infinity, which is proving to be pretty good, so far. What wasn't so good: I placed the order to move my phone and broadband over to them all at the same time; what actually happened, however, was that they moved over my phone service and then I had to place a new order for the broadband/Infinity switch over. Was a tad confusing to get messages from my old supplier saying that they were glad I'd stayed with them, after moving my phoneline, for my broadband; got on the phone straight away to BT, only to be told that they couldn't place the order for the broadband until the phoneline had been switched over, which makes the whole ordering both at the same time, on their website, a bit stupid.

    So, if you do go with them, just keep an eye open for them dropping the ball in the same way, apart from that it's a good service.

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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    This is bad, purely because there will be less competition.
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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    Quote Originally Posted by cheesemp View Post
    Sad news. Love my O2 broadband (still on an old unlimited package). Hate giving money to the Murdock's but trying to sell house so new contracts are no go so guess I'm stuck until I move...
    I'm in the same boat. I'm think about a broadband only deal from Virgin as I have zero need for a landline. I hate to go to virgin, but the options seem to be dwindling fast.

    I want a fast reliable unlimited connection with good customer service. Up until now 02/Be have been great, but I will not give Sky any money if I can avoid it.

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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    Quote Originally Posted by cheesemp View Post
    Sad news. Love my O2 broadband (still on an old unlimited package). Hate giving money to the Murdock's but trying to sell house so new contracts are no go so guess I'm stuck until I move...
    Likewise, and will be interesting to see how this change is going to affect what I pay as I get the discount for being an O2 mobile customer. Sky looks like the same price but can only find bundled with line rental so does that mean also changing this from BT.

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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    I always found when i was with Sky it took ages to speak to someone if you were leaving or making changes but instantly you got through to someone if you were a new customer (ive tried this as well). Heavy snow and rain effects the signal on the dish if an engineer hasnt lined it up properly like mine. Since being with Virgin for the last 4 years i get through straight away when i want to make changes or cancellations and its free to call as well. The products are better otherwise i would be with sky. Tivo is tops and in the past 12 months every customer has had their braodband speed at least doubled for free with current 100 meg customers to get a further free boost to 120 meg in the next 12 months. If i ever move again i will make sure the area has cable. I do have sky sports though which is over priced and hope that Virgin get the rights with their new takeover and bring the price down.

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    Re: News - Sky to become second largest UK ISP as it snaps up O2 and BE

    As i am not in a fibre or virgin area I am sort of limited for choice, but be being taken over by sky is as worrying as it was when talktalk took over my freedom2surf account. It's interesting that sky havent mentioned about the broadband & phone being integrated into their "free broadband" package however.....

    Anyone have any tips for good independant (or small) ISP's with unlimited bandwidth that do not rip you off?

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