You're telling me. I cancelled my subscription on January 2nd, it took half a morning and when I got the bill it was for nearly 4 quid - glad I did though - Humax is much better

I'd heard of long waits on 087 numbers so I
1 Told my bank to stop the Direct Debit.
2 Sent an email to Sky telling them so

No phone bill, no wasted time & no argument !

Why should it be any different? They both tune in the same frequencies, you know. Anything that knocks out part of the Sky service will knock out Freesat as well.

There might be minor differences in sensitivity amongst the electronics of the receiver but I doubt it makes much difference. When you watch BBC One your box tunes in exactly the same transmission as your neighbour does using Sky.

No difference worth mentioning - drop out due to snow is basically down to too little signal at the LNB, not at the input to the receiver.

A Recorded Delivery letter would be a more foolproof method. Sky can easily deny receiving an email & may even be telling the truth as sending an email is no guarantee that the addressee will actually receive it.

I cancelled my Sky.. Not because that HD Freesat is a killer service which it isn't compared to sky, simply because I couldn't justify the price I needed to pay to go SKY HD and to be honest had felt for a while I was throwing away good money for something I wasn't really utilising.

Went for the HDR simply because I knew I would miss SKY+ recording and wasn't going to pay £5 a month to sky to keep that. Plus I wanted to get the chance to watch the odd BBC HD viewing.

My feelings so far - Haven't missed SKY. HDR has been quite good and excellant replacement to the sky+ box. Just be glad to see more HD content to show off my LCD.

Do I think HDR is going to effect SKY, well er no as people will still pay SKY's prices if thats what they want. Yes the HDR will attract people like myself but we are a minority.

Lol it was just a joke Once up on a time it only had to look like snowing or raining and people would moan that their Sky picture would drop out, as I said just a joke.

As for the cost; that is why I would never sub to Sky. I do not agree in having to pay to use something you have paid good money for.

I know a couple of Sky+ users who would love HD but object to having to pay Sky an extra £10 a month for the privilage of using it and are thinking about FSHD. When I got my Humax a friend of mine who has Sky+HD asked how much it cost. I said £299 + £149 for installation. He said not cheap then. I said how much did you pay for yours, £299? He said yes at least that. I said how long have you had it 2 years? He said about that if not a little longer. I said £539 so far then, not cheap aye? After explaining to him how I got to that figure he agreed what I paid wasn't too bad after all.

Actually emails are legally binding contracts, far more than a phone call and even a letter.

ok - coming to the end of my Sky HD contract and to be honest all I ever watch HD wise is BBC HD and C4HD. The killer for me in terms of switching is GOLD and Paramount 1/2. Also the cost of the Freesat PVR is shocking, may just get out my old Toppy.

Just out of interest as I have the dish etc, would it just be a case of buying the box and swapping over?

Thanks

D

why not just cancel the HD part then?

I posted,
I'd heard of long waits on 087 numbers so I
1 Told my bank to stop the Direct Debit.
2 Sent an email to Sky telling them so

No phone bill, no wasted time & no argument !


Dazbear's response---
Actually emails are legally binding contracts, far more than a phone call and even a letter.

---This can be confirmed by anyone who has been sacked for, in an email, describing his/her boss as something I could not repeat here.

Some ways of ensuring proof are
1---use web-based email e.g. Hotmail, Gmail etc. proves sending easily & lack of a "could not deliver" shows arrival.
2---Send as a "reply" to an earlier email.
3---Send to multiple Sky recipients ( remember Oscar Wild's "losing one parent is unfortunate losing 2 smacks of carelessness!)
4---provoke a response! If I say how I did it, then it wouldn't work for you !!

SWIZZ?

Email proof can easily be done, use www.readnotify.com - I do for every email I send. it tells you the time, date, IP and headers of the machine it was opened on and requires no input from the recipaint.

It's still nowhere near proof! Any Linux mailer could easily avoid this.

Most people who I know who have Sky seem to have it just to seem 'cool' or just because they CAN have it. They're hardly at home to watch it, and when they do it's never anything that you'd consider worth the £50 odd quid. Only Sky Sports is worth it, and only then if you watch it a lot.

If you wanted to take them to court over an email you could, because like all corporates BSkyB is obliged to record and store all emails arriving and leaving.

Bob

Mario, I'm sure we can help you out here as you seem to have a bit of a problem.

Sky want as many customers as possible for obvious commerical reasons.

Many people now are giving up Sky (or not subscribing in the first place) because they realise that they do the vast majority of their viewing on the channels that are available on Freesat (even more do so because they can get what they want on Freeview).

If you can just tell us which aspect of 'competition' you are having trouble with I'm sure someone will be able to explain it to you.

That's total wishful thinking! Sky are doing extremely well at the minute and getting masses of new subscribers - especially for HD (all from their report last week). They are well ahead of their target to get 10 million households by 2010!

ROFLMAO!

'Total' wishful thinking? (Whatever that means ).

I'm afraid you are a little out of touch with reality. I was a Sky subscriber for many years before Freesat came along and I 'gave them the finger'. I know a fair few other people who have done the same. No matter how much it upsets you, Sky ARE being affected by competition form Freeview and Freesat. Sorry, that's just the way it is.

Hardly a very accurate sample, you and a few friends have acancelled - the facts are simple, more people are subscribing than are cancelling - numbers are increasing.

Neither Freeview nor Freesat are competitors, as Sky is a subscription service, and they aren't - Sky's only real competitor is VM. But even counting VM, the ONLY place to get HD is Sky HD, all other HD offerings are too pitiful to be counted.

Ask the man in the street "Have you heard of Freesat ?" The reply is usually "No".

I've told several people that I have Freesat, and they mostly say "What's that ?"

The country generally thinks that Satellite = Sky, and that's the way it is.

Apart from the odd page in Radio Times, I can't remember seeing any adverts for FS.

With DSO in progress now, surely this is the best time to PUSH, PUSH, PUSH ?

Actually I've seen plenty of ads in the Times/Sunday Times, none on TV though that I can remember.

As you can't get the boxes, what would be the point in advertising?.

There seem to be quite a few people here who either do not understand what competition is or are in denial about the competition Sky face from various sources.

As long and anyone might consider Sky but ultimately reject it in favour of another source, that source is competition for Sky. That is such a simple concept a child of five should be able to understand it.



Not sure which planet you are living on, Nigel, but here on Earth standard Freesat boxes are in plentiful supply.

I'm living on the planet where SD Freesat boxes aren't available (and haven't been for many weeks), and the one where Alba are designing a new one rather than having any more of the old ones manufactured.

There are small numbers of SD boxes left in the shops, but once stocks have gone there are no more until a new model is released.

As for the Freesat PVR, that's never even reached 'being available' at all yet

So I don't know where you're imagining a 'plentiful supply' from?.

OK, so not Earth then as I've seen them in Argos this weekend.

Plus, a little look at their website: Shows this (Just one example of boxes they have available).

Or do you have a non-standard definition of 'available' as you do for 'competition'?

Actually to correct myself I think there was a Panasonic TV ad for the Freesat TVs, though that is not specifically a Freesat ad. Presumably cost of TV advertising is what is holding them back, but you'd think Freesat, Alba, Humax and Panasonic might have been able to combine forces to afford it.