Cutting through the bullsh*t

robbeardsley

Hey all, just looking for some information about switching to UPC. Getting tired of being raped financially by Sky and Eircom (yes i was taken in by their names years ago). Ive always left my brother or dad to try and get it sorted but they always gave up. Therefore weve benn unwilling yet loyal customers of both for years and years.

Anyway first off ill start with cancelling both Sky and Eircom. How would I go about cancelling; phone, letter, email, personal visit? And what kind of penalties would be involved with those cancellations, bearing in mind my initial contracts were reached quite some time ago?

Then onto signing up with UPC, they claim if you transfer your phone number over that theyll handle Eircom for you, is this true? That would be a whole lot of effort saved like.
Ive read websites with people claiming its easy to cut off Sky. In fact my brother did it over the phone within minutes, but when it came to installing UPC the subcontractors claimed it was a health and safety issue to install at our house (dont understand why, we were with Chorus years ago and we've had Sky installed and repaired numerous times with no "health and safety" issues)

How would you go about self installing TV, Phone and BB? Im looking to get Multiroom HD+ in 3 rooms, and would like to know what exactly is required. And do they even allow that many multiroom subs? How much extra is a HD multiroom plan?

Thanks in advance:)

Ranicand

robbeardsley wrote: »

Hey all, just looking for some information about switching to UPC. Getting tired of being raped financially by Sky and Eircom (yes i was taken in by their names years ago). Ive always left my brother or dad to try and get it sorted but they always gave up. Therefore weve benn unwilling yet loyal customers of both for years and years.

Anyway first off ill start with cancelling both Sky and Eircom. How would I go about cancelling; phone, letter, email, personal visit? And what kind of penalties would be involved with those cancellations, bearing in mind my initial contracts were reached quite some time ago?

Then onto signing up with UPC, they claim if you transfer your phone number over that theyll handle Eircom for you, is this true? That would be a whole lot of effort saved like.
Ive read websites with people claiming its easy to cut off Sky. In fact my brother did it over the phone within minutes, but when it came to installing UPC the subcontractors claimed it was a health and safety issue to install at our house (dont understand why, we were with Chorus years ago and we've had Sky installed and repaired numerous times with no "health and safety" issues)

How would you go about self installing TV, Phone and BB? Im looking to get Multiroom HD+ in 3 rooms, and would like to know what exactly is required. And do they even allow that many multiroom subs? How much extra is a HD multiroom plan?

Thanks in advance:)

First things first you have to make sure phone and broadband are available at your address by asking UPC on 1908.

Next if you have no active UPC point in your home you can not do a self install.

Now all going well if your out of your contract period with Sky just ring them and give them 30 days notice.

If you go for the UPC phone and want to keep you EIRCOM number you let UPC handle this.

If you are willing to take a new UPC phone number you can just cancel Eircom yourself.

HD in 3 rooms no problem you pay the full sub on the first room and its 10 euro for each extra HD room per month with all the same channels as the first room.

Did you ask what the issue regarding health and safety was at your house?

Is it something simple you can fix?
Was it piles of junk and mess all around the place or something?


If you do not have an active UPC point in the house at the moment self install is impossible as all UPC services use the TV cable not the Eircom phone cable.

robbeardsley

Hey thanks for the reply. it said on the website that everything is available in my area. Im living in an urban area so it shiuld be fine. Ill be sure to call and ask regardless.

Well my uncle is a certified satellite and cable installer. I asled him yesterday and he said itll be no trouble installign everyhting i need. Theres an old chorus quad jack up by the roof connecting to 2 of my neighbours. I know ones not using his so ill ask him can i have that 3rd slot. Downstairs is already wired up from a previous Chorus installation. And the 2nd SKy box i have upstairs is already drilled out so id say it be easy to wire it. The only problem would be wiring the 3rd box which is at the back of the house, and its a terraced house so i cant just run it all the way around. I was told to just attach the cable to a tennis ball and slingshot it over the roof.
And my brother said we shoudl just ignore SKy and let them cut us off to save the hassle of gettin out of their clutches. His buddy did that and got no comeback about it.
Id say the subcontractors were put off by the height of the building. and the fact it was raining. which is why i really wana get it installed myself. what exactly gets installed, and what does the tap look like?

Ranicand

robbeardsley wrote: »

Hey thanks for the reply. it said on the website that everything is available in my area. Im living in an urban area so it shiuld be fine. Ill be sure to call and ask regardless.

Well my uncle is a certified satellite and cable installer. I asled him yesterday and he said itll be no trouble installign everyhting i need. Theres an old chorus quad jack up by the roof connecting to 2 of my neighbours. I know ones not using his so ill ask him can i have that 3rd slot. Downstairs is already wired up from a previous Chorus installation. And the 2nd SKy box i have upstairs is already drilled out so id say it be easy to wire it. The only problem would be wiring the 3rd box which is at the back of the house, and its a terraced house so i cant just run it all the way around. I was told to just attach the cable to a tennis ball and slingshot it over the roof.
And my brother said we shoudl just ignore SKy and let them cut us off to save the hassle of gettin out of their clutches. His buddy did that and got no comeback about it.
Id say the subcontractors were put off by the height of the building. and the fact it was raining. which is why i really wana get it installed myself. what exactly gets installed, and what does the tap look like?

I would give it another try to let them install.

If your going for HD in 3 rooms phone and broadband you sound like your going to be a good customer.

The taps on the top of the house are locked and you can not touch these.

Running 3 rooms off one point will weaken the signal for broadband and phone.

It sounds like your problem is the tap is very high up explain this on the phone and I am sure they will send out somebody that can handle the job.

The tap may be up high but somebody had to put it there in the first place.:)

The taps at the top of your home can supply 4 points you already have one into your home UPC will have to send somebody up to link onto two more of them.

I have 3 points into my home one into the back on the ground floor two into the front one on the ground and one upstairs.

One point can run a HD box and a modem to supply your phone and broadband.

The other two points will take care of your multiroom boxes.

Your question what does that tap look like? answer I am not fully sure you won't get me up a ladder.:D

Solair

Just a word of warning : the tap is UPC property. You can't connect anything to it, only their engineers can. It's similar to hooking-up your own phoneline to an eircom pole, they'll see you in court if you try!

Self-install means that there is already a live UPC socket in your house, not that there is a tap nearby !

robbeardsley

So it's not self install after all, it's just self plug in. Guess I'll be needing UPC installers then. I do have an old chorus double coax socket installed in the living room. It's still connected to the jack, so I'm sorted in one room??

Also, turns out noone else in the house is interested in HD, so it'll be just the one with two standards. Will I have to have the modem coupled with that seeing as it's prob the main box?

I hope they don't have a problem installing again, cuz it's like 40ft up and that Jack is likely nearly the same age as the house (50 years at least)

robbeardsley

I do have a worry about the technicians backing out again.

The Jack is at the front of the house, second house in at 40ft high. So to bring the wire across they'd have to either go along the roof or go around the houses. And why are there only 4 inputs to a Jack that's shared among 3 houses (ones used and the others plugged in needlessly so I'll be taking it since I need 3). Would they upgrade the jack at all?

Ranicand

robbeardsley wrote: »

So it's not self install after all, it's just self plug in. Guess I'll be needing UPC installers then. I do have an old chorus double coax socket installed in the living room. It's still connected to the jack, so I'm sorted in one room??

Also, turns out noone else in the house is interested in HD, so it'll be just the one with two standards. Will I have to have the modem coupled with that seeing as it's prob the main box?

I hope they don't have a problem installing again, cuz it's like 40ft up and that Jack is likely nearly the same age as the house (50 years at least)

Sorry I meant any point can run a modem and a box.
Running 3 boxes and the modem off one point would not work however.

If you only want standard boxes for the other rooms and not Digital Plus or HD well then those boxes will be only 5 euro per month each and will still have all the same channels as your main box apart from the HD channels.

I think you need to get onto UPC and explain the situation outside.

The contractor that arrived did not know what was waiting for him but I am sure UPC will have a team that can tackle this job.

robbeardsley

I was just onto them actually. They're sending a technician around next Monday. I made it clear what the situation with the building was. So if they arrive clueless I'll cause almighty war. Luckily the rep left me his name and branch. I'm gettin it installed the 21st. And I asked to be billed at the end of every month. So will the installation fees be due at the end of July or June?

Ranicand

robbeardsley wrote: »

I was just onto them actually. They're sending a technician around next Monday. I made it clear what the situation with the building was. So if they arrive clueless I'll cause almighty war. Luckily the rep left me his name and branch. I'm gettin it installed the 21st. And I asked to be billed at the end of every month. So will the installation fees be due at the end of July or June?

Well you have done everything right I wish you luck.:)

Ranicand

Just one more thing to be aware of you do know the channel line up is not the same as Sky?

Here is the UPC channel line up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_channels_on_UPC_Ireland

Edit here is their online tv guide to what is on now.
http://tv-guide.upc.ie/TV/

zilog_jones

robbeardsley wrote: »

And why are there only 4 inputs to a Jack that's shared among 3 houses (ones used and the others plugged in needlessly so I'll be taking it since I need 3). Would they upgrade the jack at all?

The taps could be 25-30 years old or more (cable TV didn't exist 50 years ago as you previously suggested), people usually only had one TV per household back then

I'm sure they could upgrade the tap if needs be, but you can usually run 2-3 TVs off one point no bother - broadband is more of a problem here.

Solair

zilog_jones wrote: »

The taps could be 25-30 years old or more (cable TV didn't exist 50 years ago as you previously suggested), people usually only had one TV per household back then

I'm sure they could upgrade the tap if needs be, but you can usually run 2-3 TVs off one point no bother - broadband is more of a problem here.

Actually, the OP is more accurate than you are The first cable services (that we are officially aware of) were launched by Marlin cables in 1963 in Ballymun, Dublin. That's 47 years ago. Then RTE Relays in 1968..

There may well have been unofficial systems before this date i.e. CATV in the true sense of a shared community antenna for picking up BBC signals from Northern Ireland or Wales.

That being said, the oldest local infrastructure you're likely to see still in use is from the 1980s.

zilog_jones

I didn't know they had stuff in Dublin that early. But yeah, the last thing you said is what I was thinking as well.