BBC possibly to drop F1 coverage...

Begbie · 7 Sep 2011 at 02:01

trickycurve said:
You'd have to ask him to fully understand his motives, but in a nutshell he doesn't want an engineer coming round doing things his own way (main reason from what I gather). I can actually imagine my dad being a bit of a back-seat engineer if he did let someone come round. But I think the guy my dad was talking to also put on a bit of a poor show and came across as rude, which is now why my parents have sent an email to Sky complaining about their customer service. My dad has also heard things about Sky engineers not being so great and he has pretty high standards (he likes things absolutely perfect).

You just don't get how sky work, if an engineer came out and the cabling was already there do you think he would've ran new cabling?

Nope he would've noted it on a job and if there was any issues in the future the warranty for everything bar the sky box would've been void. (dish, LNB, cabling). The system doesn't allow for this to be done, just call them up and say ok send an engineer out and have the cabling ready for him being there.

MissChief · 7 Sep 2011 at 02:38

trickycurve said:
My hopes of having Sky Sports for the next F1 season have just been shattered.

Dad just cancelled our Sky subscription after an argument with someone from Sky. Basically Sky wouldn't let us have a Sky+ HD box without them sending an engineer out to fit some new cables, despite my dad explaining to them that he's having a friend round in a couple of days to upgrade our dish and aerial and that he'll do all the other necessary bits and bobs himself. So despite my dad (or rather, my dad's friend) being able to save Sky time and money from not having to send an engineer out, they're refusing to let us have a new box. The installation would have been free anyway, so it's not like Sky would be losing money from my dad's friend doing the work for them. So much for being a loyal customer for over 10 years.

I don't think it's a question of 'not allowing it', I think if the system sees that you don't have a Sky+ box it won't allow the 'self install' option as only Sky+ boxes are 'upgradable' to Sky+HD. When the system Sky use sees you only have a standard digibox (I'm assuming by your post) then it won't allow a self install of a Sky+HD box as you currently only have a single feed and Sky+HD requires two. By all means get your dad to 'allow' the engineer/installer to bring the box. When the Engineer/installer/ladder monkey sees a quad/octo LNB in place and all cabling he'll be made up. he'll plug in the box, check it works, get your Dad to sign the jobsheet and be off thinking he'll be finishing half an hour early today. I doubt he'd even note anywhere that he didn't do any cabling or LNB installation.

Skeeter · 7 Sep 2011 at 08:35

So whats your dad going to do now, dig up your drive and lay a VM cable himself for fear of having to let an engineer do it? :confused:

Duke · 7 Sep 2011 at 09:03

Skeeter · 7 Sep 2011 at 10:43

Sky have to send out an engineer for anythign that would require them to do any cabling work, regardless of wether its been done by 'a mate' already. If they are going to be responsible for the support on it they need to ensure its setup correctly to start with. They have no evidence that you have a correct setup other than your dads word. You could have a piece of electrical cable strapped to a dustbin lid, for all they know.

You can hardly wire a dish up and a couple of wires yourself, refuse to let a Sky engineer in, plug in a Sky box, and then phone Sky up and say your signal is dodgy!

Hence, they must send an engineer. Any normal person would have just said Ok and got on with it. Sounds like the 'poor show and being a bit rude' was coming from your dads end...

ps3ud0 · 7 Sep 2011 at 11:38

Skeeter said:
Sky have to send out an engineer for anythign that would require them to do any cabling work, regardless of wether its been done by 'a mate' already. If they are going to be responsible for the support on it they need to ensure its setup correctly to start with. They have no evidence that you have a correct setup other than your dads word. You could have a piece of electrical cable strapped to a dustbin lid, for all they know.

You can hardly wire a dish up and a couple of wires yourself, refuse to let a Sky engineer in, plug in a Sky box, and then phone Sky up and say your signal is dodgy!

Hence, they must send an engineer. Any normal person would have just said Ok and got on with it. Sounds like the 'poor show and being a bit rude' was coming from your dads end...

Indeed no company will guarantee your service quality/level without inspection - I'm amazed your Dad didn't grasp that. Though I'd expect him to dig a better hole for VM with his experience

...

ps3ud0 :cool:

trickycurve · 7 Sep 2011 at 15:03

MissChief said:
I don't think it's a question of 'not allowing it', I think if the system sees that you don't have a Sky+ box it won't allow the 'self install' option as only Sky+ boxes are 'upgradable' to Sky+HD. When the system Sky use sees you only have a standard digibox (I'm assuming by your post) then it won't allow a self install of a Sky+HD box as you currently only have a single feed and Sky+HD requires two. By all means get your dad to 'allow' the engineer/installer to bring the box. When the Engineer/installer/ladder monkey sees a quad/octo LNB in place and all cabling he'll be made up. he'll plug in the box, check it works, get your Dad to sign the jobsheet and be off thinking he'll be finishing half an hour early today. I doubt he'd even note anywhere that he didn't do any cabling or LNB installation.

This is exactly it, except the guy my dad was talking to effectively told him to do one unless the engineer fitted the cables himself. My dad wouldn't have had a problem with a Sky engineer coming round to hand over the Sky+ HD box and check to see if everything is in order, but for some reason the guy my dad was talking to wouldn't allow it.

Skeeter said:
So whats your dad going to do now, dig up your drive and lay a VM cable himself for fear of having to let an engineer do it?

Don't be silly. :rolleyes:

Skeeter said:
Snip

My dad's 'mate' is a proper engineer in this field (does dish and aerial upgrades, etc all the time), so he knows what he's doing. I doubt he'd be any less competent than a Sky engineer. He's not some cowboy.

I guess I should have made myself clearer on this whole thing. The only reason my dad's friend is going to be upgrading our dish and sorting out the quad LNB stuff is because he'll also be round upgrading our aerial. Two birds with one stone (i.e. get the same guy to upgrade everything at once). It just so happens my dad wanted Sky+HD after everything was all upgraded, hence asking Sky for a new box. They refused because they don't have us down as being Sky+ and the guy my dad spoke to wanted an engineer to do absolutely everything himself. Maybe if my dad spoke to someone else, an engineer could have been sent round to just 'check' everything.

If I knew I'd get such a backlash, I wouldn't have bothered posting about my 'ordeal'. :/

Skeeter · 7 Sep 2011 at 16:06

But your completely missing the point, regardless of your dads mate an being expert engineer and the setup being spot on, unless Sky have done it themselves then they simply cannot guarantee and support the service. Of course Sky are going to insist they do the setup.

This isn't a backlash. Its statements of fact.

Perhaps an example might help. Imagine this, I setup a dustbin lid on my roof with 2 electrical cables running down and into my lounge. I then phone up Sky and buy Sky+ and say I have done the setup myself. Sky send me the stuff, I plug it in, and then it doesn't work. If I then phone up Sky and complain my stuff isn't working, how can they possibly support me?

The only way they can safe guard against ***** setups is to insist they do them all themselves.

Glaucus · 7 Sep 2011 at 16:10

Got to love idiots. Sorry but he needs some chill pills. All they would have done is check the lines and install the box.
Now you have lost out on so many channels.

utajoker · 7 Sep 2011 at 16:47

i installed my sky hd box myself, they sent it by courier.

Skeeter · 7 Sep 2011 at 17:50

utajoker said:
i installed my sky hd box myself, they sent it by courier.

Did you upgrade from Sky+?

ins0mn1ac · 7 Sep 2011 at 18:21

Skeeter said:
Did you upgrade from Sky+?

Must have because sky+ and sky+HD requires two inputs from the dish, sky alone is just one. It's just plug and play sky+ ->skyHD.

EDIT: By skipping right to the post and answering I have totally missed the twoddle above

thus what I've said is already up there

Kenai · 7 Sep 2011 at 19:21

Nothing like cutting your nose off to spite your face

Westyfield2 · 7 Sep 2011 at 19:37

I don't get trickycurve's attitude problem?

I totally get that the Sky fitter who comes does not have a MEng or anything so shouldn't be called an 'Engineer'.

I totally get that if you've already got a dish pointed at 28.2°E you don't need their fitter to come and put one up. But if they want to then... well... it's their money so let them!

We're probably going to get Sky soon. We already have a dish with octo-LNB pointed at 28.2°E that we fitted ourselves for Freesat (Freeview HD hadn't been released when we put it up). We've already got cabling from it into the various rooms (very neatly through the wall cavities I might add, comes straight from the dish into the loft and then emerges as F-type faceplates in the relevant rooms). We'll do the cabling for a telephone extension to the relevant rooms ourselves using white cat5e and proper faceplates (want it under the floor boards rather than tacked along the skirting board).

If Sky then insist on sending their fitter then good for them! He'll turn up, plug the Sky Box in, pair the viewing card and that's it. Nothing I couldn't do myself, but if they want to pay a man to do it then oh well I'll let them.

Skeeter · 7 Sep 2011 at 20:06

The Sky engineer will turn up, go "wow, good job", plug the stuff in, make sure it works, maybe have a cup of tea, and leave.

The important thing is someone from Sky will have seen and documented your setup, and seen it working. This is the key requirement that they won't get if they just shipped out HD boxes to everyone who claimed to have the correct cabling setup.

Weebull · 7 Sep 2011 at 20:10

Skeeter said:
Perhaps an example might help. Imagine this, I setup a dustbin lid on my roof with 2 electrical cables running down and into my lounge. I then phone up Sky and buy Sky+ and say I have done the setup myself. Sky send me the stuff, I plug it in, and then it doesn't work. If I then phone up Sky and complain my stuff isn't working, how can they possibly support me?

Why should they have to? Why isn't there, say, a box they can tick for trickycurve's dad on their system somewhere, so that if he ever rings up to complain about his connection, they can just say "Oh well, you put the line in, your responsibility to deal with it"?

To use my own example, I work for a company that essentially makes server software. But when we offer it customers, we also offer the ability to provide them with the hardware itself too, and various options in between. They can have it on a server we control, host, and look after, or they can have it on their own box, and have us simply provide someone to come and install/service it. Or they can simply take an installation disc off us, and do what they like with it. Entirely up to them.

Sky don't have to install the box for their customers every time, that's simply a decision they've taken.

This isn't a backlash. Its statements of fact.

From you, yes. But most of the other posters on here appear to have gone for the quick route of simply insulting/mocking the guy's dad.

Skeeter · 7 Sep 2011 at 20:19

Weebull said:
Sky don't have to install the box for their customers every time, that's simply a decision they've taken.

Spot on. Sky have chosen to insist that they install the cabling for their own service. Therefore when someone purchases their service they... insist on installing it.

If they made the decision not to, then it would be a different story. But they haven't.

Weebull · 7 Sep 2011 at 20:39

Yes, but everyone seems to be acting like just the idea of Sky letting you install your own stuff is ludicrous, when it's hardly out of the realms of possibility for them to do that.

Both sides in this argument appear to be unnecessarily inflexible.

Glaucus · 7 Sep 2011 at 20:49

Who's acting like that? It's not that you can't install sky stuff yourself.
That's what he was told and he made a huge fuss about nothing, rather than just letting egineer come round and plug it in, he cancelled. That's not the right response.

Many people who have built or don up there house have put all the cabling and stuff in. Just let them come round plug it in and make sure it works. What's the issue.

Steeps · 8 Sep 2011 at 01:27

VM wanted £50 to move a box from one side of the house to another, a run of coax and a couple of connectors we had the job done and tidier than the last install in an hour. Upgraded the service with a "free installation" a few months later and all the guy did was connect the box and test the line to see if the signal was fine, they're not going to re-run cable if it does the job, just let them get on with it.