6th April 2010

The following events took place on Tuesday 6th April 2010...
I have to say that in writing this stuff today, I may get the dates of things mixed up a bit - but the sequence of events is true! :)

I do the maths. I work out how much I’m currently paying Sky and BT for my telephone, TV and broadband. Sky inform me on their website that I am currently paying for 20mbit broadband, but actually receiving 6.5mbit. This is about copper cabling, and the distance that my house is from our local telephone exchange. This is beyond Sky’s control. If my understanding of the physics is correct, then I could buy any speed of broadband, and as long as it’s over that same copper wiring, and my house remains the same distance from the exchange, I’m unlikely to get much better than 6.5mbits. The only factor that might change is around contention.


I call Sky for a long chat. I learn some interesting things. For a start, they are able to tell me how much my family are downloading. The figure is higher than I thought – over the last six months it’s 65-76gb per month. I guess I can account for about half of this – I haven’t done the math on that yet – it’s not really important. I share this with my family, who are shocked, and the kids start apologising! If this is what we use, then this is what we use – and therefore what we need. Internet access is a basic human right now, and I’m not angry, and I don’t see why anyone should change their behaviour or usage. When the kids are on their computers – maybe six hours a night weekdays and most of the weekends – they continually have video and/or audio streaming. Sites like Youtube and Sixyone. We have an Xbox360 which is used for hours each day with multi-player games and demo downloads. We make extensive use of BBC iPlayer and the like to stream TV/video and radio content. If HD versions of things are available, we’ll take them. The only conclusion to come from this is that I need “unlimited” download – or a 100gb limit per month!

In terms of trying to help me, Sky looked at my package. They can’t give me HD for free. Hardware and installation – yes – no problem. It’s still going to cost me £10 a month forever, though, and that’s the thing. We review my channels. I’m paying for DIY and Sports/Fishing (!!) channels that we absolutely never look at. By paring down our channels, we can bring my package bill down £3 per month – meaning that we get HD for £7/month – still £2 more than VirginMedia charge, but for a lot more channels with Sky – including Sky1HD.

Having established the current state, I go to the VirginMedia website and check out their “design your own package” thing. I design a package that gives me:


• 10mbit fibre broadband. If I get this, and I actually achieve this – then it will mean that even though I’m buying less than I’m currently paying for, it’ll be an improvement. www.broadbandspeedchecker.com indicates that someone living just a couple of hundred metres away from me is getting 7.7mbit on the 10mbit VirginMedia package. At the same point in time, the website says I’m getting 4.3mbit!!!


• M+ TV. A box that is like the Sky+ box, but will also give me BBC iPlayer and the ITV and C4 versions on the box. This is a big deal. I’ve had complaints from the user community that the ITV player is virtually unusable on account of our slow Internet connection. The 65 channels are possibly less, and definitely different from the ones we have with Sky, but an evaluation of user community usage patterns indicates that we won’t loose anything we watch or care about.


• HD – we’ll get some HD channels. Not as many as we’d get with Sky, but we’ll get the BBC, ITV, and some others that we care about. We won’t get Sky1, which is a shame. Even if we maxxed out on VirginMedia TV packages, we still wouldn’t get Sky1HD.


• Telephone M – free calls in the evenings and at weekends

I do the maths – the above is cheaper than we’re currently paying BT and Sky. It’s cheaper, we’ll get HD, and the broadband will be faster. Seems an easy decision.

I compare the channels with what Sky give. I’m bothered about Sky1HD – I want to find out more about this. Time to call VirginMedia. While I’m doing this, I’m still on the broadbandspeedchecker site, and I’m re-running the best from time to time. The speed goes down below 3mbit – averages 4.6mbit – can’t be having this!

I speak to VirginMedia’s “Greta” in India. She tries to sell me VirginMedia’s wares. Including the £35 installation charge that the website offers for free. I tell her that I don’t want to pay the installation fee. She says that these are the packages that they offer, and that they are not the website. I ask my question about Sky1HD. She replies by listing all the HD channels I’ll be getting from ViriginMedia. I ask the question again. She says she’ll have a look. She says she’ll have another look. She says she’ll speak to her supervisor. She says YES – Sky1HD will be COMING SOON. I ask WHEN and which package(s) it will be included in. No idea – no apology. We get back to the idea of me moving to VirginMedia from Sky. I ask some more questions, and every time I ask a question, she says “hold please” and goes and finds me answers. Her answers are not great – they are short, and only prompt more questions. I get the impression she doesn’t know much/anything and is using some sort of knowledge management tool. She mentions a special package for Sky customers migrating to VirginMedia. This is the first I’ve heard of this – there’s nothing on the website – so I ask for more details.

At this point, I have concluded that every time I ask her something, she’s looking it up somewhere. I put this to the test now. Once I’ve asked her about this Sky migration package she just mentioned, I go looking for it on Google. I find one from a few years back. It’s ancient history. Eventually, she comes back and says “it’s nothing – ignore it”.

I’m not enjoying this conversation, I’m not getting anywhere, and it’s just worrying and upsetting me – so I end it. I’m not going to buy anything from her – she’s not helping.

I go online and tick all the boxes in the very easy-to-use screen that allows me to choose my package. Provide the usual details, wait for the credit check – job done in ten minutes. Sweet.

Having taken the plunge, I call Sky to cancel my TV, broadband and Skytalk subscriptions. It’s quite a long phone call. Sky’s representative in Scotland is friendly and helpful. I make it clear that I’m in no way dissatisfied with the service from Sky themselves – at the end of the day, they’ve been defeated by copper – and arguably lack of facilities/value in their TV package in places that are important to me. We part on good terms.

I call BT to cancel my line subscription. BT try to sell me everything that I’ve just committed to from VirginMedia. The whole conversation would have gone better/differently if she’d bothered to ask me up-front if I’ve already committed to another supplier. As it was, the conversation went downhill as she tried to sell me TV, broadband and telephone services and to cast doubt on VirginMedia. She actually tried to tell me that I may get better broadband over copper than fibre! I cancelled my subscription – the call didn’t go well – we didn’t part on good terms