Sky TV - poor satellite signal

110chris

New Member
Nov 4, 2010
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Hi

I have had a Sky subscription for the last 5 years and just recently I am experiencing some signal issues on certain channels. The picture just glitches. When checking the signal strength and signal quality in my sky settings, the bar is virtually at zero.

I have contacted Sky about this and they have notified me that I will need to pay £30 (was £65 initially) for an engineer to come out because my box is out of warranty. I advised the customer services that it has nothing to do with the box and it is clearly a satellite signal issue. (I went through all the troubleshooting, replaced every single cable etc) So I wanted the engineer visit to be complementary as I am effectively paying a subscription for something that doesn't work properly.

Unfortunately the Sky advisors I spoke to just responded like robots with generic responses that didn't help and the bottom line was that I had to pay.

I am now looking at my options and would be grateful if anyone could provide any help regarding this area. The two options I am considering are:

1. Part of me now wants to cancel as I think it is poor that I am paying a hefty monthly subscription whereby half the channels don't even work but the only way they can attempt to resolve the signal problems is for me to pay for an engineer. Surely they are in breach of the contract. I think I have about 3 months left of my subscription. Would I have the right to cancel this without being charged a cancellation fee based on the circumstances?

2. Write a formal complaint to sky demanding that the engineer fixes the issue free of charge?

I would be interested if anybody has had any experience in a similar scenario. I completely agree that if for example my box was damaged then it would be the responsibility of the customer, but when the signal sky are providing is of poor quality, surely the onus is on them to fix this as per the service I pay?

Thanks in advance.
 

mico705

New Member
Oct 19, 2011
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Hi

I am not able to advise you on the legal implications of your case, but have heard numerous cases with similar symptoms. It's quite possible that something is interfering with your signal and there is nothing intrinsically wrong with your Sky signal. Sky relies on line of sight and a simple thing such as a tree coming into bloom during the summer months or a new hanging basket, can block the signal completely or just partially from getting through.
I'm not saying this is what has caused your particular issue, but before you go delving too deep and overthinking things, is it possible this might be the case? When I worked for a cable company we had a customer who would come to us every summer and then go back to Sky every winter, because the trees overlooking his garden blocked the signal almost completely as soon as the sun got out!
Might be worth checking for physical issues first if you haven't already.
Mico705