sky broadband...with smart telecom wont switch

velvet1989

Hi all, I am with smart telecom the speeds are pittyfull.
Was thinking of changing to sky tv and broadband, we cant get upc broadband here.
I called up and was told they couldnt switch us due to being with smart telecom.
If i cancelled smart telecom and then rang can they set it up with no current broadband supplier in the house.
I dont see why i should have to be with a provider in order to recieve a provider.
All modern houses have the eircom line anyways.......

Patrick2010

velvet1989 wrote: »

Hi all, I am with smart telecom the speeds are pittyfull.
Was thinking of changing to sky tv and broadband, we cant get upc broadband here.
I called up and was told they couldnt switch us due to being with smart telecom.
If i cancelled smart telecom and then rang can they set it up with no current broadband supplier in the house.
I dont see why i should have to be with a provider in order to recieve a provider.
All modern houses have the eircom line anyways.......

Skys customer support seems very untrained. If you have a smart connection you obviously have an active phone line. Its probably an LLU line going into Smart equipment in the exchange but any provider can take it over, just that it will be a WLR line (as in a standard Eircom wholesale reseller product)

velvet1989

Hi Patrick, yes I have rang a few times and they've basically said "oh your blocked from the exchange smart does that".
So I rang up again and said I had no broadband provider, they said they had to find me geographically as they cant through the line.
TBH this is turning into a larger thing than it needs to, I only wanted to change because it made things easier having one bill for both services...well that and smart offered us up to 24mb and we get 1.2mb at best most days...

ED E

velvet1989 wrote: »

Hi Patrick, yes I have rang a few times and they've basically said "oh your blocked from the exchange smart does that".
So I rang up again and said I had no broadband provider, they said they had to find me geographically as they cant through the line.
TBH this is turning into a larger thing than it needs to, I only wanted to change because it made things easier having one bill for both services...well that and smart offered us up to 24mb and we get 1.2mb at best most days...

Changing provider wont change the speeds you get most likely, its the local infrastructure that limits you, not the ISP.

velvet1989

Yeah i know but at least it may prevent the drop in connection constantly

Nonoperational

Your only getting 1.2 Mbit? (not Megabyte)?

V1llianous

Patrick2010 wrote: »

Skys customer support seems very untrained. If you have a smart connection you obviously have an active phone line. Its probably an LLU line going into Smart equipment in the exchange but any provider can take it over, just that it will be a WLR line (as in a standard Eircom wholesale reseller product)

Smart doesn't use WLRs in the exchange they connect your line to their own equipment that's why there is the issue and Sky can easily take over Eircom, UTV or Vodafone customers.

V1llianous

I am in a similar situation - looking to move to Sky from Smart. I placed my order with Sky in February and it is still pending. Smart use the eircom lines to the exchange but their own equipment in the exchange so the line isn't the same as a Vodafone or other resold product (I believe the line is disconnected from the standard equipment in the exchange to Smart's own system). Sky are still trying to rectify the situation (I am getting weekly updates) as they want to be able to offer their product to all. Other providers are having issues taking Smart customers over too. Until Sky have the issue resolved and the "trial" people from Smart ported over they have decided not to take any further orders from current Smart customers as they don't wish to have people waiting.

I've been told by one of the higher up techies on the broadband rollout that the only way Sky can take over someone's broadband is if they have an active line. Cancelling Smart will not move the line back in the exchange by default so don't cancel. I was advised that we can only wait for the resolution - alternatively I can go back to Eircom who would sort out the line in the exchange and when my contract was up with them move to Sky.

If you are a Smart customer when you ring up Sky to check about moving to them they are only able to check on your line and it's capacity if they have your UAN and the original Eircom phone number and not the current Sky number.

velvet1989

oh ok so your in the same situation..its hust frustrating that smart telecom actually rent lines from eircom but shut off any other company in regards to changing etc.
pretty sure its illegal under the communications act but oh well

V1llianous

velvet1989 wrote: »

oh ok so your in the same situation..its hust frustrating that smart telecom actually rent lines from eircom but shut off any other company in regards to changing etc.
pretty sure its illegal under the communications act but oh well

I don't think (and hope) that it's not deliberate on Smart's side. I suspect it may be semantics / politics regarding the exchanges and access to them. I remember when I went to Smart initially there was a delay as the Smart engineer had to be scheduled to be in the exchange at the same time as the Eircom engineer to perform the switch over. Sky as far as I know don't have their own engineers so if this is the case they have to request an Eircom engineer (to do the work on their behalf) and probably a Smart engineer to disconnect their side.

dub45

Have you made an inquiry with Comreg about this?

V1llianous

dub45 wrote: »

Have you made an inquiry with Comreg about this?

I discussed it with my level 2/3 sky techie who updates me weekly. He said I could if I wanted to but didn't expect it to sort out the issue. It would probably be worth it if they weren't working to resolve it.

dub45

V1llianous wrote: »

I discussed it with my level 2/3 sky techie who updates me weekly. He said I could if I wanted to but didn't expect it to sort out the issue. It would probably be worth it if they weren't working to resolve it.

I meant the general question of people leaving Smart and encountering difficulties in doing so. It is difficult to believe that people don't leave Smart on a fairly regular basis so why should this problem only be arising now?

velvet1989

My partner is in the process of reporting it to comreg

V1llianous

velvet1989 wrote: »

My partner is in the process of reporting it to comreg

Let us know how he gets on, if it is something they can act on we can all report it too adding weight to it.

velvet1989

will do, its just gotten to the point now that I want sky broadband just to prove a point to smart telecom haha.

V1llianous

velvet1989 wrote: »

will do, its just gotten to the point now that I want sky broadband just to prove a point to smart telecom haha.

I just want it in so I can fully utilise my Sky Wireless on demand connector and the sexy modem / router !

wintersoldier

you hardly have the adsl filter connected

Solair

dub45 wrote: »

I meant the general question of people leaving Smart and encountering difficulties in doing so. It is difficult to believe that people don't leave Smart on a fairly regular basis so why should this problem only be arising now?

There's absolutely no issue leaving Smart Telecom if you want to. There's also nobody blocking you.

Sky only need the UAN + the phone number (which are on your bill).

Sky seem to be incapable of doing a whole load of things.

Smart Telecom's service is provided by their own exchange co-located with eircom's. So, basically all Sky have to do is put in a request to take over the line, as normal. Eircom Wholesale would then process the request and move it back over to whatever Sky are using in that exchange.

You really shouldn't have to be aware of any of those details as Sky are supposed to just deal with it.
I'd make a complaint to comreg about it as they're not really supposed to be turning down port requests from LLU customers.

It's nothing to do with Smart though, it's a Sky issue.


Might I just enquire, why are you moving to Sky from Smart anyway? Smart's speeds are actually pretty top notch as DSL providers go and they're cheap too.

You're highly unlikely to see an improvement in speed by switching to another provider. Your line may be just too long / poor quality / faulty.

dub45 wrote: »

I meant the general question of people leaving Smart and encountering difficulties in doing so. It is difficult to believe that people don't leave Smart on a fairly regular basis so why should this problem only be arising now?

There isn't an issue moving to any other provider. This is something to do with Sky's customer service setup / lack of setup.

Also, since Smart are probably the lowest priced 24mbit/s service around, there wouldn't be all that much churn to other providers apart from UPC (which is a lot faster than ADSL2+) and maybe Magnet (also DSL LLU provider)

€34.95 / month for up to 24mbit/s down and up to 1mbit/s up on Smart - including off peak calls + line rental.

Sky break the package up into "sky broadband" and "sky talk line rental"

The broadband unlimited package is €10
Sky Talk evening and weekends is €30

Bringing your costs to €40/month.

Smart's service is also extremely low / no contention where as Sky's service is getting reviews saying there are a lot of people having serious issues with speeds and contention.

V1llianous

Moving to sky for the following reasons;

1) want to take full advantage of sky on demand plus so unlimited bandwidth is a plus.

2) smart have got progressively worse over the last 2 to 3 years. There has been 3 outages over Christmas and bank holidays to the broadband service coupled with the fact there is no weekend or public holiday customer support I have decided this is no longer acceptable to me.

Re sky and contention - there is only contention on the non-LLU exchanges - sky clearly specify to customers signing up that this is something that can affect your speeds at various times. If I move to sky and I have such issues and I am on a unbundled exchanged I will cancel the contract and weigh up my options again.

The sky price you quote includes anytime landline calls if you apply the same to the smart package it works out at the same price.

Solair

People are reporting those kinds of issues on their LLU product. There are a *LOT* of teething problems with Sky Broadband. I'd suggest you read their forums before signing up.

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/ROI-Broadband-Talk/Broadband-Speeds/td-p/1068380

Personally, I'd give them a miss until their network 'teething problems' have been sorted out.

It looked like they underestimated the demand and had insufficient capacity to cope on their backbone network (which would be capacity they've leased on BT Ireland's network)

Oracle

I had a look at Sky Broadband packages and prices. Its €30 for phone and basic broadband called Sky Talk and Broadband Lite, or €40 for phone and unlimited broadband, called Sky Talk and Broadband Unlimited. Both packages come with off-peak calls. The €30 package has just a 2Gb broadband download limit. Higher prices or different packages apply (Sky Connect) if you're outside the Sky areas.

Sky say a Monthly Usage Limit of 2Gb is "Perfect for daily internet browsing, shopping and emailing." and "Ready for TV on demand". I'd like to be generous towards broadband newcomer Sky, but there's no way you could do all that, on a 2Gb monthly usage allowance: