Vodafone SKY bundle — moving to fibre they say SKY is unavailable

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Ardgowan

53 posts

Master Geek

# 169837 27-Mar-2015 15:41

We've just requested that Vodafone upgrade us from ADSL to Fibre (100/20 unlimited). We used to have SKY bundled in with the ADSL plan, but were told that when you move to fibre, Vodafone only allows you to bundle Vodafone TV. Since that's not available in Oamaru, they told me I have to remove Sky entirely from our bundle and go with Sky directly, which costs about $40 a month more.

Has anyone managed to get Vodafone to keep their old "via satellite" Sky account bundled with their Vodafone account after moving to fibre in a non-Vodafone TV area?

dylanp

768 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

# 1269124 27-Mar-2015 16:25

Hi Ardgowan

The main SKY discount is the free MySKYHDi decoder rental, valued at $15 a month. I guess you might also have another SKY discount running in parallel, like free SKY Sports for 12 months or similar.

Does your current ADSL invoice have Ref:TCL in the top corner? (and do you manage your account in CustomerZone or My Vodafone?)

Cheers

Dylan

Ardgowan

53 posts

Master Geek

# 1275248 1-Apr-2015 13:26

Hi — thanks for your reply. Now I have to admit a bit of a loose usage of the term "us" in my first post :) I was posting on behalf of a neighbour (I'm helping her sign up for fibre) so I'm not too sure of her Sky specifics other than what I was told. I think she does have the Sky sports deal, so it's likely that's the cost difference.

JamesL

956 posts

Ultimate Geek
Inactive user

# 1275260 1-Apr-2015 13:36

Take a read through this thread, http://www.geekzone.co.nz/forums.asp?forumid=106&topicid=160441&page_no=4, there's an 0800 number you can call where the offer has been SKY basic + Sport + Movies with mysky hdi+ decoder for $48/mth or $58/mth with HD ticket

Contract term is 6 months free to cancel after that, offer last 12 months. It'll need to be an account under a new name not the existing one.

Myself and lots of others picked up this deal, unsure if its still ongoing

Malpaso

36 posts

Geek

# 1275284 1-Apr-2015 13:50

Hi, unfortunately this is the case when you take up ultrafast fibre through Vodafone.

The staggering issue i had with this is that at no stage did Vodafone inform me that this was the case before i had the fibre installed. Throughout the process no one advised me either verbally or in promotional material. I only found out this was the case after installation. So instead of a "free" fibre upgrade, i now end up paying more since i can no longer get the sky discount which i had under ADSL. So i then had to ring Sky to organise a new account and then payment to them direct.

Vodafone force you to use the Vodafone TV if you want the Hi Def discount, which is hopeless if your router is nowhere near the TV and you don't have the required ethernet running between them, which is usually the case in older houses.

Also don't forget your land line phone will need to be connected directly to the UFB router and not the traditional phone jack in the wall. I found this out when my phone suddenly stopped working a week after i had the fibre installed. Once again, no mention of this requirement from Vodafone, and the usual 30 minute wait on the help desk to find out why and what the solution is.

More than happy having fibre; zero out of ten for Vodafone for not telling customers the full story. Also watch your first bill from Vodafone for the fibre - i was overcharged $160 due to them stuffing up the changeover dates and which i had to tell them this was the case.

kiwifidget

1761 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

# 1275302 1-Apr-2015 14:03

I have just this week signed up with Vodafone, primarily for the SKY discount. I have a text from the Pukekohe Vodafone office advising me that the SKY discount is available on both fibre and ADSL connections. I wanted to make sure of this before signing the dotted line as fibre might be available in my area early next year. Have I been tricked?

Life is too short to remove USB safely.

Ardgowan

53 posts

Master Geek

# 1275311 1-Apr-2015 14:09

@kiwifidget, if you're in one of the (many) areas where Vodafone TV is not available, then yes, you've been tricked, as far as I can tell.

@Malpaso — wow, that's not a great story :( Also, I had assumed that they would wire the phone outlet from the UFB router into the house's existing phone cabling. Is this not the case? What about houses where there are multiple phone jacks? Do they all suddenly stop working? What are you supposed to do about that?

Behodar

6731 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

# 1275377 1-Apr-2015 14:49

Ardgowan: @kiwifidget, if you're in one of the (many) areas where Vodafone TV is not available, then yes, you've been tricked, as far as I can tell.

Vodafone TV appears to be available in Pukekohe (which is the same UFB area as Auckland):

Available in areas of Auckland, Wellington, Kapiti, Christchurch, Palmerston North, Levin, Invercargill, Rotorua, Napier, Hastings, Dunedin, Queenstown, Timaru, Ashburton, Blenheim, Masterton and Whakatane where Vodafone Ultra Fast Broadband is available.

Malpaso

36 posts

Geek

# 1275381 1-Apr-2015 14:52

I'm no techo when it comes to phones; however i do know that i no longer require a copper line for my land line phone and that it is now connected directly to the UFB router via fibre. There is no other connection to the fibre. In other words, if i the internet service is down, then i have no phone connection - this is how the help desk explained to me. Fortunately i have a main phone connected top the router with wireless base stations for elsewhere in the house; from what i can see that is the only solution. You may want to discuss it to see if you can keep the copper service; in my case i was not made aware of it and i wasn't given an option.

Malpaso

36 posts

Geek

# 1275389 1-Apr-2015 14:58

"I have a text from the Pukekohe Vodafone office advising me that the SKY discount is available on both fibre and ADSL connections:

The Sky discount is definitely not available on fibre if you want to keep your MySky box; you need to transfer to the Vodafone TV box - i spoke to 3 different people at Vodafone who verified this. Just a minor issue which the Vodafone office has neglected to tell you by the sounds,

kiwifidget

1761 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

# 1275438 1-Apr-2015 15:34

Malpaso: "I have a text from the Pukekohe Vodafone office advising me that the SKY discount is available on both fibre and ADSL connections:

The Sky discount is definitely not available on fibre if you want to keep your MySky box; you need to transfer to the Vodafone TV box - i spoke to 3 different people at Vodafone who verified this. Just a minor issue which the Vodafone office has neglected to tell you by the sounds,

Thats pretty poor and indeed unprofessional of Vodafone. May I even say incompetent, especially with respect (*snort of derision*) to their Pukekohe rep.

Life is too short to remove USB safely.

Ardgowan

53 posts

Master Geek

# 1275467 1-Apr-2015 15:46

...and especially poor when the Vodafone TV box is only available in 16 places in the entire country (I will keep whinging about that until it's available where *I* live lol)

Malpaso

36 posts

Geek

# 1275483 1-Apr-2015 16:04

Also bear in mind, the Vodafone TV box must be connected to the UFB router by ethernet - it doesn't work over wireless. So either you need the router and the OMT box near the tv which Vodafone recommend (yeah right, who wants to see a whole lot of multicoloured blinking lights in a darkened room?) or you need to run ethernet from the router to the tv which in an older house can be extremely problematic. Vodafone TV just isn't an option for a lot of people (read some reviews of people who have it also) and therefore we lose the discount. I understand that this may be out of the control of Vodafone, however my point with all this is THEY NEED TO TELL PEOPLE THIS IS THE CASE.

ifrikkenr

2 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 1276053 2-Apr-2015 13:03

I just had this issue the other day - current Vodafone TV subscriber but the TBOX is appallingly slow and rubbish, mostly though, my Mrs can't stand it (she had Sky at her flat).

I called VF to see if I can switch to a standard sky box but as I'm in an area serviced by their cable network, T-Box is the only option. They quickly put me through to retentions but before I could even point out the obvious to the nice woman, she said easiest thing to do is sign up for Sky directly with Sky and that she'd book the removal after it's all set up. I did point out it's a shame we can't keep it all together on one bill with VF since they do offer regular Sky decoders to folk outside the cable area. She agrees but it's jus tthe way it is - must be some bizarre agreement with Sky.

Anyways, I did exactly that. Signed up for sky, dumped the TBox and VF now misses out on the fee. Bizarre