My Sky+ box is playing up. Basically, it keeps pausing when live tv is used or two programmes are being recorded at once. It is really annoying. The first time it happened was during the latest Doctor Who, the Waters of Mars, a programme I have really been looking forward too. Ruined by my Sky+ box.
The box is quite old is out of warranty and probably not covered by the Sale of Goods Act, so I went online to see how much it would cost to get a new one or a new HD one.
It may be just me but I find the Sky website really confusing. Anyway, when comparing the two options I noticed that a new Sky+ box comes with a £60 installation charge whereas the HD version is only £30. The effort involved in installing these must be identical, what are Sky playing at?
As I already have the satellite dish installed why do I need to pay installlation at all? How difficult is it to take the viewing card out of one box, put it in the new one and phone Sky customer service to pair the boxes?
It is very easy to do this yourself and Sky are obviously ripping consumers off.
You are of course right but it is not as simple as what you may think.
Sky use a system of offsetting the cost to new customers by using existing customers to subsidise them, while this doesn’t seem fair in the long run, when you came online to start with you may of had a free install deal or one of the cheaper connection packages which would of been offset for you to make the install cost appear attractive, it is similar to how mobile phone companies allow you to get a free phone when in effect the phone costs over £300 (does still surprise me when people think they cost nothing to make!)
You may be aware that the actual cost of installation is a great deal higher than the £60 they charge you, while I actually install rural broadband and not sky, the costs are very similar… for instance…
A, T & K Bracket costs around £20
Pole, around £8
Cable around 30p a meter
Call out around £40 – £50
Hardware around £200
Over a 12 month period on a basic sky package of say £15 that equates to £180 leaving a shortfall of around £108 before sky has even made a penny, by asking you to pay £60 this will go some way to pay off what the install costed to start off with and they take the opinion that most people will be with them for a few years without upgrading or terminating allowing them to actually make a profit.
While I can understand your point about the difference in price; sky+ is no longer charged as a premium extra, and again the costs of the new kit needs to be offset somewhere and the best way of doing that is a 1 time hit, rather than more expensive monthly bills.
I hope that helps you understand more about why sky still charge for installation.
Chris
Chris ^^ has explained it well, but there is a new ‘self-install’ option available to customers now, so that should be easier, but it can be tricky replacing the boxes 🙁 you really have to get to grips with it !