It pays to haggle..

I had a fixed contract broadband with sky with several layers of deals coming to an end. Hard to remember what you agreed to as a good deal one to one and a half years ago!

Let alone the exact dates they end and acting in time to shop around and switch!
I had an email from Sky about my broadband on the 26/2/2020 saying my Broadband was going up £2. I had been paying £27 so expected £29.
I looked at my bank statements and noticed the new debit by Sky was actually £29.89!

I’d recently had a Vodafone leaflet through the door about a better deal at £25 for fast speeds too!

We were on 38Mbits/S with Sky – fast enough for us. Vodafone were offering 53+Mbits/S!

I rang Vodafone but they couldn’t enact a switch me as my line was marked as Silver with Open Reach! They couldn’t do anything until it was uprated to Gold they said, my current provider needed to ask Open Reach to upgrade the rating – it sounded like a keyboard exercise, rather than a physical thing!
I called Sky the next day and asked about the Silver to Gold uprating. The first 2 people I spoke to didn’t know anything about it. I got put through to Technical and the chap had to ask his supervisor. He asked me why I wanted it done – I said “to leave you!”.

At this point I wasn’t feeling hopeful and wondered if it was a trap to stop me Switching away from Sky?

After a few minutes wait, I was told it was marked as to be requested with Open Reach and I could expect it to take 5-8 working days. Open Reach would email or txt me about it.

Great I thought, I’ll wait and see.

Then I looked at my bank statement again and on the 5/3/2020 Sky had debited £40.99 as the monthly charge!
I called them and explained the above. The customer support person said it was due to discounts that had been applied coming off as the fixed contract was up!

I asked why they had not informed me before imposing the new charge?

I said I’d heard on BBC Radio 4 You and Yours programme that Offcom were insisting Broadband suppliers do this!

He said it was probably done before the Offcom ruling came into effect but sounded unsure..

I explained how as a loyal customer I felt rather deceived by this especially as they had written to me in Feb – I was expecting that was the discount coming off and I could swallow £2. I could not swallow a whopping £13.99 a month = £168 a year price hike just like that.

I said I would be switching unless there was something they could do.

He asked me to hold and went away for about £10 minutes.

Went he came back, I was offered £25 a month all in, for 18 months fixed contract.

I asked if I would be informed in good time when this came to an end and was told definitely. I then asked about the price hike from £27/29.89 to £40.99. He said they could credit me £15 one off to cover that happening in Feb / March.

I was also told that my line speed would be minimum 53Mbits/S and could be upto 74Mbits/S even!

This sounded fine so I accepted. I will save £168 a year by doing this!

I’ve already had the email from Sky confirming changes to me account are going ahead.

I'm getting over 60Mbits/s on WiFi and more on Lan.

I'll be waiting for the notification of this deal coming to an end in 17 months time..


Just ran the test on Lan = 68.6Mbits/S download. 17.9 up 10ms latency
I guess it's a Gold line now MFs! 😀