SKY VS Virgin Media

[ruthie]

Well all I want at the moment is for someone from VM to come and fix the badly tilting cable cabinet that a car backed into on January (yes January) 14th. How on earth can I get someone here? I have reported it so many times, even had someone call me back telling me she has reported it, and still no one has come to fix it. I'm scared it's going to fall over completely and the entire street will lose all their cable service.

[Captain_caveman]

just to add my 1/16p worth to this already crowded debate, I'm going to stick with virgin,I have only had 1 major problem in the past (installer put foot through ceiling of flat below) , they are the cheapest available for all three, and would be for all 4 if i didn't have to pay for the phone. apart from a year and half of not being with them (landlord at the time wouldn't let road and garden be dug up), I have been with ntl/virgin since 2000, and still only see losing sky as a minor irritation. I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC, and ITV are watching this argument and planning to fill the gap in the market (If not virgin itself) so it wouldn't be a loss for too long.

[maxeh]

Originally Posted by gooner4life

Sky have no indian call centres by the way, the Sky CS, Retentions, Billing, etc teams are in Scotland, there is a large sales office in London and also one in scotland as well as localised selling in shopping centres etc.

Sky currently outsource NOTHING and they intend to stay that way with Sky controlling the business and no third parties involved.

VERY misleading indeed. Broadband support (Sky BB, Easynet/UKOnline) is outsourced all over the shop, one of the companies they outsource first line support to is down here in Portsmouth.

Also Sky outsource lots of their install work to cowboys. My install here with a Sky engineer went fine, my parents on the other hand had a contractor and the chaps that upgraded their service to Sky+/Multiroom were absolute cowboys. Sky engineers themselves and sky call center staff admit that some of their local contractors can be less than satisfactory with installs, and Sky have to send out their own engineers to fix/clean-up the aftermath quite a lot.

To add to this also, when you come up to your 10th month or so, Sky will pass your details over to a 3rd party servicing company to contact you and sell you box and dish repair cover for £84/year or something stupid. They warn you that a replacement may cost upto £300 (iirc) plus £60 for the engineer to come out and install if you don't sign up. Great. Thank god the last time my box broke (I'm on my 4th) they gave me a new Thomson box which has lasted since

Also Sky may have asked for slightly more from Virgin Media but they were taking into account the fact that they previously had arrangements with NTL and Telewest and now the companies have merged the price had to reflect the fact they would receive a SINGLE fee.

When buying at a wholesale level, prices are supposed to go DOWN when you are buying more. The increase in cost reflected the difference in per subscriber costs averaged out across the whole group when the minimum payment guarantee was taken into consideration.

It's clear from the latest articles in the press that Sky probably had no intention of renewing the deal anyway, and their moves on Freeview support this.

[dranny69]

anyone else heard the rumours that sky are going to start putting football on sky one? would they be allowed to do so?

Originally Posted by dranny69

anyone else heard the rumours that sky are going to start putting football on sky one? would they be allowed to do so?

There's a link somewhere on here to a report that they are THINKING of doing just that - whether it would be allowed, particularly if they move it from a Premium channel that VM still have - is another matter.

[dranny69]

yeah i read a link somewhere but can`t remember where! i think it would be unfair if they did but , knowing sky !!!!!

[GuestUK]

Originally Posted by dranny69

yeah i read a link somewhere but can`t remember where! i think it would be unfair if they did but , knowing sky !!!!!

If it helps, a couple of links on the matter are here (guardian) and here (digitalspy)

The new service will allow customers to receive some of Sky's most popular programming, including live Premiership football and Holllywood films.
BSkyB's new DTT pay-TV offering will use compression technology to squeeze four services out of the spectrum currently used by its three Freeview channels - Sky Three, Sky News and Sky Sports News.
Customers will pay a monthly subscription to get the service through a conventional rooftop aerial and a digital TV box.


To access the service, customers will have to buy a new set-top box that includes the relevant conditional access software and MPEG4 decoder - suggesting it will not be available via existing Freeview DTT receivers.

However, this is possibly currently postponed, as written in another recent article here (brandrepublic)

Sky is to postpone plans to take its channels off Freeview and is considering showing football on Sky One, as part of its strategy to avert a £30m loss in advertising revenue because of its war with Virgin.
Sky Media bosses have held emergency talks with all the major media agency buying points, amid fears of a major hike in the cost of advertising with the sales house

Hope this helps

[pedg]

What do people think of the story that sky are considering putting some movies and sports on sky one? One would have thought that as soon as they start putting premium material like that on that it would have to go on the rate card like the sports and movie channels? Maybe that's what they want as by moving a few bits around, at little cost to themselves they could claim they had to charge more for it?

[Downloads]

Originally Posted by pedg

What do people think of the story that sky are considering putting some movies and sports on sky one? One would have thought that as soon as they start putting premium material like that on that it would have to go on the rate card like the sports and movie channels? Maybe that's what they want as by moving a few bits around, at little cost to themselves they could claim they had to charge more for it?

I don't really understand the rate card, what is it and what reasons would they have for doing it? Could someone explain?

[AndyCambs]

Originally Posted by Downloads

I don't really understand the rate card, what is it and what reasons would they have for doing it? Could someone explain?

Sky movies? Is that the channel where you get the same films over and over again each month?

Originally Posted by Downloads

I don't really understand the rate card, what is it and what reasons would they have for doing it? Could someone explain?

These links give some more information
Olswang

RateCard

[Downloads]

Originally Posted by AndyCambs

Sky movies? Is that the channel where you get the same films over and over again each month?

lol That still doesn't help me understand what the rate card is! Tried googling it but couldn't see anything that explained it well.

---------- Post added at 11:04 ---------- Previous post was at 10:57 ----------

Originally Posted by foreverwar

These links give some more information
Olswang

RateCard

Thanks for trying, i think i am just more confused now though! heh

[pedg]

Originally Posted by Downloads

lol That still doesn't help me understand what the rate card is! Tried googling it but couldn't see anything that explained it well.

I think, but may be wrong, in cases where sky has an near monopoly such as the sports and movies they are forced by law to make these available at a reasonable rate (which appear then on the rate card). If some of this content goes onto sky one then it might be viewed as being in the same category as the movie and sports channels so have to be made available at a reasonable rate.

Reasons for doing it maybe two fold:

Firstly if they can charge a premium rate for sky one to cable they might be able to get more money in even if they have to drop the rates for the others a bit.
Secondly they appear to be using this as a sop to the advertisers to stop them renegotiating deals with the loss of the VM customers in a sort if 'jam tomorrow' way.

[Downloads]

Originally Posted by pedg

I think, but may be wrong, in cases where sky has an near monopoly such as the sports and movies they are forced by law to make these available at a reasonable rate (which appear then on the rate card). If some of this content goes onto sky one then it might be viewed as being in the same category as the movie and sports channels so have to be made available at a reasonable rate.

I sort of thought that's what you were getting at, but i can only see a couple of reasons for this. One, they are confident that their new high price is fair, or two, rather than accept a lower price in a deal with Virgin, they could save face and use this process?

I'm not making any bold statements here, just trying to understand further...

I just think they are batting a dozen here and this might disillusion people further, who wants football on Sky One?? I'm a footy fan, yet i feel there is enough content out there already, this will right hack some women off who hate it as it is!

[Tama1314]

Look I'm 25 this year and from Motherwell i bet i know you boy.