Let down after let down after let down... 100% failure

We moved over to Sky broadband when we were dissatisfied with our previous provider. To begin with we paid for a 20MB service. We were told that Sky had its own network and were assured that they had nothing to do with British Telecom... Wrong! We were the victims of BT's lack of investment and could only achieve about 4.5MB if the wind was blowing in the right direction.

Frequently we experienced a slowing down of the service until my 3G internet connection on my phone was much faster than our supposed Broadband. I complained on numerous occasions and were fed all sorts of nonsense like the line needed to be reset or that they would perform other tweaks to improve the dreadful service.

The situation reached a head about a month ago when we started to get an intermittent service. Thus, the Broadband would drop out for a few minutes and then resume. Sky acknowledged that there was a problem and told us to change the filter at the telephone socket. This achieved nothing. We were then told that the fault was outside the property and that an engineer from BT would be sent... Nothing happened. After phoning for the umpteenth time, Sky promised to send an engineer to my home today. The engineer from BT failed to attend. After several more telephone calls I was told that the engineer had gone to the wrong address and that he had tried to telephone me. As I had sat in front of my mobile and landline phones all morning, this was clearly a lie.

I had reached the end of my tether and I contacted Sky and demanded compensation for the fact that I have not had a decent service since we signed up and the fault had still not been fixed. I also decided to abandon Sky and move to another provider.

The most disgusting part of the whole story is that the first mention of compensation (a pathetic £45-00) was made by the retention team but was strictly conditional on me staying with Sky. Because I am leaving, their attitude is stuff you! In 10 days I will have a new service and will no longer have to suffer at the hands of this despicable organisation.

Please take my advice... do not go near Sky with a barge pole. Our experience is that it is a lousy and expensive service with no redeeming features.