Free Sky Broadband service

[waisal]

Hello,

As you may be aware headline TV news yesterday that SKY will be offering existing SKY TV customers free broadband service.
Today recieved a letter from SKY saying that I would not be able to get the free broadband service but offering SKY Broadband Connect at £17.99 per month.
Why is it that I can have a paid for Broadband service and not a free one ?
I duly rang SKY who stated it was because of my proximity to a Broadband sevice site, this is complete rubbish I have had a BT broadband service for a number of years and Broadband is readily available in my location, when I challenged the SKY customer service guy then said that the infrastructure is owned by BT and therefore a free service is only provided to customers who are close to a SKY owned service site. I thought all the infrastructure was owned by BT ?
Any way frankly I am very annoyed putting it politely about the cynical marketing and misinformation provided that I will be cancelling my SKY TV subscription and taking my business to more ethical service providers.

[James Ferrier]

surely this is the same as TalkTalk free broadband - your local exchange has to be TalkTalk enabled to take advantage of their free offering otherwise you pay a normal broadband charge and they lease the line off BT.

With Sky i expect the same thing happens, if it's not a Sky enabled exchange they would be leasing the line from BT and you would pay normall broadband charges as they don't have exclusivity.

There is a very long discussion about this on another thread.

[Waveform]

Sky walked straight into this PR SNAFU and its their own fault for weasel wording their announcement so it mislead, and ultimately disapointed, lots of people.
As has been noted on the other "Free Sky Broadband" thread, free only applies to those exchanges that are EasyNet LLU (local loop unbundled) ie exchanges where Easynet have installed thier own equipment (Easynet got bought by Sky recently). This currently applies to about 30% of home in large metropolitan areas (Manchester, London etc) although the target is 70% of these areas by end '07. Whether this will ever extend to areas outside of big cities is unknown. Therefore if you don't live in a big city don't hold your breath expecting FreeBB from Sky...

[Mr Incredible]

And did anyone notice the Max service at 16Mb with Unlimited download......
subject to acceptable use policy!

Does anyone know what this AUP is?

Either access is unlimited or it isn't. You can't offer unlimited access with conditions attached!

[neilmcl]

Originally Posted by Malice

And did anyone notice the Max service at 16Mb with Unlimited download......
subject to acceptable use policy!

Does anyone know what this AUP is?

Either access is unlimited or it isn't. You can't offer unlimited access with conditions attached!

Show me an unlimited max broadband product that doesn't have a fair usage policy that doesn't also cost the earth. Its practically impossible for an ISP to offer a fair and reliable max BB service without having some controls on usage.

[DJT75]

Got my letter this morning saying I'm good for free broadband, not gonna bother just yet though.

[wandersen]

Originally Posted by neilmcl

Show me an unlimited max broadband product that doesn't have a fair usage policy that doesn't also cost the earth. Its practically impossible for an ISP to offer a fair and reliable max BB service without having some controls on usage.

www.bethere.co.uk for one.

[Mr Incredible]

Originally Posted by neilmcl

Show me an unlimited max broadband product that doesn't have a fair usage policy that doesn't also cost the earth. Its practically impossible for an ISP to offer a fair and reliable max BB service without having some controls on usage.

Be that as it may, IMO it is misleading to promote "unlimited" with conditions, even if other ISPs do the same. multiple x wrongs ≠ 1 x right.

[neilmcl]

Originally Posted by wandersen

www.bethere.co.uk for one.

Not quite:

"In principal there are no download or upload limits on any of our broadband products, but they are subject to our “Fair and acceptable usage policy”. All fair and acceptable usage is included in our Be unlimited and Be office and with Be lite the first gig of usage is included and then you pay for any additional usage over an above that. But even with Be lite, we do not stop your internet activity when you exceed the included usage and we won’t force you to upgrade either."

Like I said, its a pretty rare thing to find an ISP without an FUP on an unlimited product, maybe AOL but they have different business model to most other ISPs.

[Knyght_byte]

Originally Posted by neilmcl

Not quite:

"In principal there are no download or upload limits on any of our broadband products, but they are subject to our “Fair and acceptable usage policy”. All fair and acceptable usage is included in our Be unlimited and Be office and with Be lite the first gig of usage is included and then you pay for any additional usage over an above that. But even with Be lite, we do not stop your internet activity when you exceed the included usage and we won’t force you to upgrade either."

Like I said, its a pretty rare thing to find an ISP without an FUP on an unlimited product, maybe AOL but they have different business model to most other ISPs.

and even if they have a relatively flexible unlimited policy, they seem to love traffic shaping...lol.....

[Monty Burns]

Originally Posted by neilmcl

Like I said, its a pretty rare thing to find an ISP without an FUP on an unlimited product, maybe AOL but they have different business model to most other ISPs.

Telewest. And they will be doing 100meg to the door by the end of Q3.

[wandersen]

Originally Posted by neilmcl

Not quite:

"In principal there are no download or upload limits on any of our broadband products, but they are subject to our “Fair and acceptable usage policy”. All fair and acceptable usage is included in our Be unlimited and Be office and with Be lite the first gig of usage is included and then you pay for any additional usage over an above that. But even with Be lite, we do not stop your internet activity when you exceed the included usage and we won’t force you to upgrade either."

Like I said, its a pretty rare thing to find an ISP without an FUP on an unlimited product, maybe AOL but they have different business model to most other ISPs.

iI have downloaded over 500Gb in many months on Be and have never been caught by their policy. And neither has anyone else - they haven't enforced against anybody.

[wandersen]

Originally Posted by Monty Burns

Telewest. And they will be doing 100meg to the door by the end of Q3.

Where did you hear that ?

[Rygar]

Originally Posted by Malice

And did anyone notice the Max service at 16Mb with Unlimited download......
subject to acceptable use policy!

Does anyone know what this AUP is?

Either access is unlimited or it isn't. You can't offer unlimited access with conditions attached!

Unlimited is an intersting word legally an in the eyes of the advertising standards authority.

Sky having an FUP/AUP is not a bad thing, it's a good thing IMHO. Any professional ISP should have one. I don't like the fact that ISP's can use the word unlimited but as things stand they can. Until that fact changes most ISP's will use this word as it attracts customers.