Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

Met a friend at a BBQ over the weekend that I hadn't seen for years.

He said that ages ago, he switched from Sky to VM and that as part of the installation service, they offered to tidy up his property by removing the now redundant satellite dish. I guess that this made sound business sense.

I just wondered if they still did this; although with the advent of Freesat, things are different now.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

Never happened

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

I'd be very surprised if this was actually true Richard.

For one thing, they would have a no un-necessary working at height rule in place, plus the time that is actually taken to remove someone else's property would mean less time for further new Virgin installations that day.

I suppose it could be an isolated case that the engineer did out of the kindness of his heart, but I can't see it being normal behaviour.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

Apply that logic to 94% of the stuff the dude says and your on the right course :D

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

Yep this happened with me when I switched from Sky to Telewest about 20 years ago.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

I have never heard of this happening. Not in the last 15 years anyway.

Its not their equipment so they shouldn't be touching it.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

It was done in the early days of Nynex but it was not the dish they collected but intead it was the old sky settop box. The campain was called "dump the dish" and if you let them take the settop away you did not pay for install.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

Then I stand corrected ... live and learn !

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

A sky installer was about to snip a freeview wire i had while he was installing with the phrase " you won't be needing this any more"

aye right,

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

At the time I was happy to see the back of the dish as it was quiet big.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

How would you know, were you at the BBQ too :dunce:

Apparently, they did ask for permission first.

Thanks to those that confirmed this, I didn't think that he was lying, but I'd never heard of this before so thought I'd ask the forum.

I believe he was in a former NTL franchise.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

When i cancelled BT and went with Nynex BT did a total disconnection of the line and told me i'd have to pay a new install cost if i wanted to go back with them.

Talk about cutting your nose off! The result was i haven't gone back to them for over 25 years :)

Although it's cheaper to get a new line installed now and if i wanted fibre it's a new install anyway.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

How would fibre be a new install over ADSL?

It would just use the same phone line/socket...

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

When I started using cable 16 years ago BT removed the line not too long afterwards.

A tenant answered the door when I wasn't in and was asked if the line was still in use and if not, could they remove it.

He told them no and that they could! I would have preferred that it stayed in case I wanted to ever return without paying the full installation charge.

I would have argued that he did not have the authority to authorise this should I have needed a phone line again.

Doesn't really matter though, as I believe that Sky reimburse customers without a phone line.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

dunno about the rest but when bt installed my fibre here they installed / replaced my master socket with one that had a phone / internet socket on the front.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

when my parents when from Sky to Videotron (which became NTL, and later Virgin) they never touched the sky dish.

Similarly when we moved into this house, and got cable installed a day later, the NTL engineers didn't touch the BT phone line, just added their own, however, I think they did say that some engineers do use the existing internal BT fitted phone cabling, but they shouldn't really.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

NTL never touched or asked to take down my Sky dish, but I did tell them that I would still be using satellite as a back up (been useful twice when VM has gone down) and for the extra channels, so maybe that's why.

They brought the phone in completely separate to the BT socket.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

Having never really looked into any other BB suppliers, or how it works, i assumed to get the 76Mb that it says i could get it would be FTTP?

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

By Law any telecoms provider cannot disconnect a BT line.
as for sky dishes as an ex service engineer sometimes we removed them out of goodness of heart, sometimes to get the sky+ stb as the hard drive can be striped and sold. a spare dish or lmb always came in handy if doing a freesat or sky repair on the side.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

A few years after we left BT to go to Telewest there was work going on in the street that required them to take the phone pole down for a few days. After the work was done BT reconnected everyone still with BT but those with cable were never re-connected.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

Either BT or a BT contractor would have completed the works, they would only re-connect an active customer as a cost saving exercise. however a non customer would be entitled to a reconnect FOC.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

As I posted earlier, a similar thing happened to me.

If I went back to BT, would it be free then?

It might be easier than getting Sky to pay for it.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

The only experience I've had of Virgin 'interfeing' with something not belonging to them was when an engineer tidied up my bt phone wires outside the house.
My sister when she switched from Sky to Virgin ,the engineer installing her tivo box 'kindly' offered to take her Sky box away for her! I was rather annoyed with them as he,in my opinion took advantage of her naivity.

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

Under the WEEE directive Virgin technicians are obliged to take sky boxes for recycling if asked, also routers/hubs from other providers

Re: Do VM still take down Sky dishes?
 

The impresion I got from my sister was that he offered to 'take it off her hands' and my thinking was that he wanted it for himself which could then be sold on ebay. If that wasn't the case then fair enough.