Need to cut my Sky bill, suggestions needed

modmo

Hi Guys,
I'm looking to cut down on my sky bill.
We have the full package including the movies and all the sports channels including BT Sport which comes from the former Satanta.
With a family made up of boys who are big footie fans we don't want to loose the chance of watching any games.
However, it's costing us a fortune.
We have a smart TV and was thinking about getting an android box and maybe cut of Sky bill down and stream the matches/movies etc but don't know which one to get?
My broadband provider tells me there's no fibre power on my road and the highest speed we can get into our house is 17 mbs.
Any suggestions/advice greatly appreciated please?
Thanks in advance.

mikeym

Ring Sky and tell them you can't afford the Sports/movies.

They should offer you a discount but you will be on a contract.

sammyjo90

If you dont watch a lot of the oher channels they can just cancel those ones.
We had the full package and now dad is the only one left in the house.so i rang them up, told them he only watches the sports and anything from channel 101 to whatever and they cancelled everything else. His bill was practically halved

joebloggs32

Move broadband to eir and get free bt/eir sport.
I have 3mb broadband and it streams sports for me on my android box so long as no one else is watching you tube or netflix.

TanFlash

If you persevere you will get the basic package for half price E15 or so, then get dodgy box, sit it on top of your sky box, and watch your sports etc through that. You keep all your recording for basic channels, she can her record her soaps etc you get to watch your stuff, petit dejuner as the say in the basque region.

The Ayatolla

If you're out of contract, ring sky and cut everything off. Everything. Try not stay too long on the phone. Tell them you're in a hurry. No, you don't want to move the account to someone else's house. And no, you don't want to hear any offers. They'll say you'll lose all your Sky+ recordings, but you actually won't (see next step).

Ring back on your "switch off" date and say you're half interested in coming back and whats the best deal. Try get a deal for 12 months or a 6/9 month deal with no commitment/contract. Repeat after 6/9/12 months as needed.

Also ring eir/Setanta and do the same, they should be able to give you 30-50% off for 3-6 months. Repeat this step.

TanFlash

Mr.S wrote:

If your going down the illegal route, why bother paying for Sky at all

You'll can rely on your basic package for recording etc., it's also reliable and you won't be getting any jip off the family if dodge goes down. Also the non recording dodgy is cheaper.

Hollister11

I'd love to get rid of Sky from our house, but my mum want's it.
Now we have the full package multiroom, plus, hd, sports and movies ect.

What we are going to do this month is cancel multiroom, sports and movies. Keep the sky+hd in the living room and replace the sky in our kitchen with an android box, so we still have sports.

omerin

joebloggs32 wrote: »

Move broadband to eir and get free bt/eir sport.
I have 3mb broadband and it streams sports for me on my android box so long as no one else is watching you tube or netflix.

under no circumstances do this. There is a usage limit with Eir and they will charge you for going over, I know from experience.

Johnboy1951

omerin wrote: »

under no circumstances do this. There is a usage limit with Eir and they will charge you for going over, I know from experience.

Got a link for that?

muffler

omerin wrote: »

There is a usage limit with Eir and they will charge you for going over, I know from experience.

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Got a link for that?

Would love to see that in black and white also

Gerry Wicklow

Most if not all BB suppliers offer unlimited packages. It's mainly only wireless BB that is limited these days

joebloggs32

omerin wrote: »

under no circumstances do this. There is a usage limit with Eir and they will charge you for going over, I know from experience.

You need to get an unlimited plan. I had one with eir until i moved to vodafone about 18 months ago.

Armchair Andy

muffler wrote:

Would love to see that in black and white also

I was caught out with over usage on a 15G monthly allowance with eir. Cost me a few bob, how much I don't remember.
Upgraded to unlimited for an extra 5er a month not a bother since.(about 6 months ago).

sheff the ref

My Sky bill was getting too expensive I think it was €114 or so for the following. I would need to check, but I think the breakdown was as follows

HD Package €15
Multiroom Second Box €15
Sky Variety Pack and Sports €79

I decided to remove the Sports and the HD package and rang Sky for a reduced package of around €54

I was put on hold 5 times in the past week by the automated answering for 20-30 minutes only to be cut off without getting through and finally got through today. The call today took 38 minutes of which I was on hold for about 30 minutes and at the end they told me the computer system is faulty and they could not disconnect me.

This is clearly a tactic but I refused to accept it and they wanted to schedule a callback. I am not prepared to wait for another 30+ minutes on Monday and told them so. I told them I will accept a callback to confirm the instruction that I have already delivered and that the notice period starts today and that it should be starting from my first attempt to call them a week ago.

For what it is worth, they offered a token discount that would have reduced the bill to €94 euro. I think it was half price HD and the remainder deducted from the Sky Sports. However I wasnt interested in a discount. I want to pick and choose the months I have Sky Sports in the future.

Luckily the calls for me dont cost anything but I got stung before when ringing them on a different package

kbell

muffler wrote: »

Would love to see that in black and white also

From eir website


"Excess usage is charged at €2.03 per GB up to a maximum of €24.40 inc VAT per month. eir Fibre packages with an unlimited usage allowance are subject to a fair usage policy of 1TB per month. Usage in excess of 1TB will be charged at €2.50 inc VAT for every 10GB up to a maximum of €100 inc VAT per month.

Further information can be found in our terms and conditions."

This is for their fttc service, I'd imagine their adsl service carries similar.
Numerous threads on the eir/BB forums about this.

Joeseph Balls

In fairness if you go over 1tb a month, you need to get out more.

CalamariFritti

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

Got a link for that?

Regardless of limits eir is as bad a deal as everyone else, probably slightly worse than some. For the most basic broadband and home phone package they want 60 a month. But they give you bt sports for 'free' ha

Generally speaking media and internet subscriptions are very very expensive in Ireland. Across the board really. There is no escape unless you go android streaming. But there quality and reliability is less than underwhelming and one wonders how long its going to last anyway.

The TV market is breaking up a little just now with internet TV providers coming into the market, but only a little. Nobody wants to rock the boat too much, those profits are just too handy.

Edit: Also everything suffers from the horrendous line rental decision/rate. Don't get me started on line rental. Another on of those were we got sold out to pamper a few vested interests

Damien360

Joeseph Balls wrote: »

In fairness if you go over 1tb a month, you need to get out more.

Easy to get there with a family. All on the bloody net constantly.

theoneeyedman

Mr.S wrote: »

If your going down the illegal route, why bother paying for Sky at all

Well indeed....

But seriously, if we go down that road, why stream on an android box then, equally dodgy I'd say.

One way to save is cut multiroom, and get a fta combo box for the second room. 80-100 e will get a middling fta HD box. I'd say you'll find 80/90% of what you watch is probably fta anyway, all the RTE /BBC/ITV soaps ETC. Boxes can be configured to look and feel like sky if that's important with 7day epg/recording etc.

Even without doing anything dodgy it will save you paying for **** that can be gotten free and you have the wires there already. If you want the premium channels, keep the sky in the main room on your main sky box. If you want BT/eir sport look at eir BBC packages.

mrskinner

You can have free satellite TV without paying for Sky.

It is called FREESAT

All you need is a dish(€40) and a set top box(€60). Nothing else to pay.

Over 100 choices including Sky-news, all BBCs, all ITVs, Ch4, CNN, RT, ALJ, FR24, ++++

theteal

mrskinner wrote: »

You can have free satellite TV without paying for Sky.

It is called FREESAT

All you need is a dish(€40) and a set top box(€60). Nothing else to pay.

Over 100 choices including Sky-news, all BBCs, all ITVs, Ch4, CNN, RT, ALJ, FR24, ++++

And he already has the box and dish as sky is currently running. Some kind of sports sub will still be needed

donegal.

for regular stations theres no need to pay anything , you can sort saorview + freesat easily enough.

for movies and programs on premium stations you can use an android box, not exactly illegal and fairly easy to set up with a bit of googling .

sports are the problem. The android box is kinda sh1te at live tv and sports.
you can either pay a heap to sky etc, or go completely illegal (with up front costs of maybe €200 and €15 per month for all sky stations).

firstly you should ring sky and find out what your actual reduced rate will be make any decisions.
if your with sky for broadband get that reduced too.

donegal.

theoneeyedman wrote: »

But seriously, if we go down that road, why stream on an android box then, equally dodgy I'd say.

i've done a bit of looking at this and can't find which laws are being broken.

Johnboy1951

donegal. wrote: »

i've done a bit of looking at this and can't find which laws are being broken.

The final decision on streaming is due soon from the European Court of Justice

Interestingly, the European Commission doesn’t believe that consumers who watch pirate streams are infringing. From the user’s perspective they equate streaming to watching, which is legitimate.

Based on the hearing the Advocate General will issue a recommendation later this year, which will be followed by a final verdict from the EU Court of Justice somewhere early 2017.

https://torrentfreak.com/watching-pirate-streams-isnt-illegal-eu-commission-argues-161001/

sheff the ref

As an update to this, I received an email today confirming the changes, having specified what I wanted removed..............conveniently they still did not remove Sky Sports and conveniently I never received the callback specified.

The operator I spoke to tonight claimed that the system said I requested to remove Sky Movies, but they had a recorded call the other day and my account details will show that I haven't had Sky Movies for a couple of years

Another half an hour on hold and eventually I got Sky Sports disconnected. It is not as simple to get Sky Sports disconnected as you would expect

sheff the ref wrote: »

My Sky bill was getting too expensive I think it was €114 or so for the following. I would need to check, but I think the breakdown was as follows

HD Package €15
Multiroom Second Box €15
Sky Variety Pack and Sports €79

I decided to remove the Sports and the HD package and rang Sky for a reduced package of around €54

I was put on hold 5 times in the past week by the automated answering for 20-30 minutes only to be cut off without getting through and finally got through today. The call today took 38 minutes of which I was on hold for about 30 minutes and at the end they told me the computer system is faulty and they could not disconnect me.

This is clearly a tactic but I refused to accept it and they wanted to schedule a callback. I am not prepared to wait for another 30+ minutes on Monday and told them so. I told them I will accept a callback to confirm the instruction that I have already delivered and that the notice period starts today and that it should be starting from my first attempt to call them a week ago.

For what it is worth, they offered a token discount that would have reduced the bill to €94 euro. I think it was half price HD and the remainder deducted from the Sky Sports. However I wasnt interested in a discount. I want to pick and choose the months I have Sky Sports in the future.

Luckily the calls for me dont cost anything but I got stung before when ringing them on a different package

Hollister11

sheff the ref wrote: »

As an update to this, I received an email today confirming the changes, having specified what I wanted removed..............conveniently they still did not remove Sky Sports and conveniently I never received the callback specified.

The operator I spoke to tonight claimed that the system said I requested to remove Sky Movies, but they had a recorded call the other day and my account details will show that I haven't had Sky Movies for a couple of years

Another half an hour on hold and eventually I got Sky Sports disconnected. It is not as simple to get Sky Sports disconnected as you would expect

How much did you get your bill down to. I'm looking to reduce ours from 114 to about 50.

sheff the ref

From about 114 down to 54 or 55. Got rid of HD and got rid of Sky Sports

I now have Sky Variety Pack along with a second multiroom box. Still have the best feature of all Sky+

I presume RTE 1 HD etc. will remain HD

murpho999

sheff the ref wrote: »

From about 114 down to 54 or 55. Got rid of HD and got rid of Sky Sports

I now have Sky Variety Pack along with a second multiroom box. Still have the best feature of all Sky+

I presume RTE 1 HD etc. will remain HD

Don't think so, think you need the HD pack for that.

Edit: I was wrong as shown by post below.

Damien360

sheff the ref wrote: »

From about 114 down to 54 or 55. Got rid of HD and got rid of Sky Sports

I now have Sky Variety Pack along with a second multiroom box. Still have the best feature of all Sky+

I presume RTE 1 HD etc. will remain HD

Yes. I got rid of HD years ago. RTÉ remains in HD. As does BBC1 and 2. BBC1 HD is on 215 as SD is on 141.

Damien360

My bill below for reference. I got sports for €20 per month as a deal for year.

sheff the ref

Just went into the Sky Site there to clarify prices. For a new customer without any deals

Basic Packages:
Sky Basic Package is €29.50 per month
Sky Basic with Variety Package is €39.00 per month


Add ons
Sky Sports Package is €40.00 per month
Sky Movies Package is €29.00 per month
Sky Sports and Movies Combined Package is €49.00 per month

Sky HD Package is €17.00 per month


Sky Multiroom is not priced but I think it is €15.00 per month

omerin

Joeseph Balls wrote: »

In fairness if you go over 1tb a month, you need to get out more.

Idiotic comment :rolleyes: and that's what the agent said, no one uses that amount. We'll look back on these types of comments in a year or two and laugh

Damien360 wrote: »

Easy to get there with a family. All on the bloody net constantly.

Precisely, downloading skybox sets, films kids using it for school, work, updates to a few laptops and PCs, loading games, etc etc

kbell wrote: »

From eir website


"Excess usage is charged at €2.03 per GB up to a maximum of €24.40 inc VAT per month. eir Fibre packages with an unlimited usage allowance are subject to a fair usage policy of 1TB per month. Usage in excess of 1TB will be charged at €2.50 inc VAT for every 10GB up to a maximum of €100 inc VAT per month.

Further information can be found in our terms and conditions."

This is for their fttc service, I'd imagine their adsl service carries similar.
Numerous threads on the eir/BB forums about this.

[QUOTE"Excess usage is charged at €2.03 per GB up to a maximum of €24.40 inc VAT per month. eir Fibre packages with an unlimited usage allowance are subject to a fair usage policy of 1TB per month. Usage in excess of 1TB will be charged at €2.50 inc VAT for every 10GB up to a maximum of €100 inc VAT per month.

Further information can be found in our terms and conditions."

This is for their fttc service, I'd imagine their adsl service carries similar.
Numerous threads on the eir/BB forums about this[/QUOTE]

Thanks for saving me the trouble, Eir offer their service to Sky and Sky have no limit

Joeseph Balls

omerin wrote: »

Idiotic comment :rolleyes:

Just my opinion, but then again I don't sit in front of it all day.