Sky Mobile - any good?

[Zetec-S]

Currently have home phone, broadband and tv with Sky, been with them for years and no complaints with the service. I logged into my account earlier and it suggested I could get an iPhone 7 with 1GB/calls/texts for £25 a month, no upfront payment (24 month contract).

If I check my upgrade options with Vodafone the best they can offer is £36 a month (+£69 up front) for a similar deal, so I'm thinking of leaving and going over to Sky.

Pros for moving to Sky:
- Cheaper
- Network coverage suggests I'll get good reception at home/work/friends/family

Cons against moving:
- I know I get good (4G) reception with Vodafone at home/work/friends/family
- Could be too "tied in" to Sky so harder to threaten to leave and get a discount for the TV/BB package?
- No idea what the service is like for Sky mobile (vs 15 years with Vodafone with no issues)

Anyone with Sky mobile, and how do they find it?

[eybic]

I'd say it's likely they will look after you better with having everything with them. They use O2 network in case you didn't know so check out what that's like in your area.

[Zetec-S]

Thanks for that, didn't realise it was O2. Think the Mrs is with them so should be good

[beko1987]

Sky mobile here. SWMBO has it as I have a very nice 30 day sim only deal and a phone I like, but she wanted a new phone, so we got an iphone SE on a £13.50 a month contract (I get sky discount codes via work

£10 pcm for the handset
£3.50 for the calls and 500mb of data a month

Signal is no worse in our area than the 02 network it's based on, and because we have sky TV she gets unlimited calls and texts, so I killed the home phone which saved £7 a month and she does all her gassing on the mobile instead, only my gran calls the housephone now! 500mb of data is barely enough, but she's on wifi nearly everywhere she goes, and if we are away for the weekend I have 7gb a month so just turn my hotspot on

[wilbo83]

Thread bump. Anyone with Sky Mobile and care to share their experience?

As I understand it, they piggyback on O2 network. Would it be the exact same coverage / signal strength as if you were on O2 (as I currently am)?

Pixel 3 seems a fairly good deal on the Swap 24 tariff, works out £660 0% interest free over 30 months (£22 per month) and you get a free Google home hub currently. You can buy the phone outright for £660 which still seems pretty competitive as its £739 on Google store.

[rscott]

wilbo83 said:

Thread bump. Anyone with Sky Mobile and care to share their experience?

As I understand it, they piggyback on O2 network. Would it be the exact same coverage / signal strength as if you were on O2 (as I currently am)?

Pixel 3 seems a fairly good deal on the Swap 24 tariff, works out £660 0% interest free over 30 months (£22 per month) and you get a free Google home hub currently. You can buy the phone outright for £660 which still seems pretty competitive as its £739 on Google store.

Yep, they use the O2 network and there's no difference in signal strength/speed (I've got a dual SIM phone with an O2 and a Sky SIM, so have been able to compare).

WiFi calling doesn't work on as many phones as on o2, so check if you think that might be important.

They've got a few offers in MySky for bonus data too.

[RichTT]

Went from O2 to Sky simply because they're one of the few providers that do data rollover. I work away for a month at a time so I was basically paying double for the data on O2. Now it builds up and i rarely have anything less than 50+gb stored up. Great for travelling away in the EU.

[journeymanpro]

No WiFi or 4g calling on Sky I don't think.

[jontykint]

You can use wifi calling on Sky

I'm currently on the best mobile deal I've ever been on with any provider
£10 a month for 8GB with unlimited calls and texts
Another plus is Sky Go streaming is free, doesn't use up any data allowance

[RammyMP]

I’ve just got the 8gb £10 a month sim for my iPad. The signal and data speed is very good and what I didn’t realise is that data used for Sky Go doesn’t come off your allowance so I should roll over a lot of data each month.

[Tyre Smoke]

Why does everyone get excited about wifi calling? Surely nearly every plan comes with unlimited calls and texts now?

Isn't it a bit like a Betamax VCR?

[Welshbeef]

Tyre Smoke said:

Why does everyone get excited about wifi calling? Surely nearly every plan comes with unlimited calls and texts now?

Isn't it a bit like a Betamax VCR?

Because in poor reception areas WiFi calling can be the solution.

[Tyre Smoke]

Are there any really bad areas still? I know living on the edge of Exmoor there are a few 'holes' but since I don't have a landline - long story, I don't use wifi calling.

[Welshbeef]

Isn’t anyone holding out to see what 5G will be offering?

[Teddy Lop]

eybic said:

I'd say it's likely they will look after you better with having everything with them. They use O2 network in case you didn't know so check out what that's like in your area.

That was my thinking when we had TV/BB etc with them.

Then they decided they were going to steal some extra money every month for an unrequested worthless calls package on the unused landline, and when I phoned to ask what they were playing at actually got fronty trying to explain to me they'd acted properly, their faux indignation and painting me as being "the one in the wrong" being more annoying than the theft!

[surveyor]

Welshbeef said:

Isn’t anyone holding out to see what 5G will be offering?

5G is a couple of years away from being particularly useful in my opinion. O2 are launching later this year - presumably sky will be linked into that.

As for the comment above (not WB), 4G is available on sky.

Daughter and wife are on the network. nothing bad to report at all.

[craig1912]

Tyre Smoke said:

Are there any really bad areas still? I know living on the edge of Exmoor there are a few 'holes' but since I don't have a landline - long story, I don't use wifi calling.

yes there are. I live half a mile from the M27 and can’t get any mobile signal. Sky have just implemented wi-fi calling on the iphone.

[surveyor]

Tyre Smoke said:

Are there any really bad areas still? I know living on the edge of Exmoor there are a few 'holes' but since I don't have a landline - long story, I don't use wifi calling.

'Not' spots are still an issue. Typically of course in remote areas with not many people making a financial case for coverage tough.

Operators are blaming high rents for the lack of roll out and have persuaded the government to bring in new legislation which they argue allows them to mug their landlords. A rural site that might have perhaps paid £4-5k pa in rent they now argue is worth £4-£5 pa. Obviously offer this to a farmer is not going to achieve a happy outcome...

On the other hand the Operators have agreed to roll out to not spots as part of their 5G spectrum bids.

Their latest wheeze is to persuade the government to release them from the not spot obligations, on the proviso that the big 4 set up a joint company to build the mast in remote locations and all share... (EE and Three usually share already, as do O2 and Vodafone).

EE also won (I'm not sure that they still count it as a win) the Emergency Services Contract to replace airwave who provide network coverage to the Emergency Services. They are building a lot of new sites in remote areas as a result, and one would assume will equip those masts with full network coverage. That programme is significantly behind schedule though.

[stevoknevo]

surveyor said:

'Not' spots are still an issue. Typically of course in remote areas with not many people making a financial case for coverage tough.

Operators are blaming high rents for the lack of roll out and have persuaded the government to bring in new legislation which they argue allows them to mug their landlords. A rural site that might have perhaps paid £4-5k pa in rent they now argue is worth £4-£5 pa. Obviously offer this to a farmer is not going to achieve a happy outcome...

On the other hand the Operators have agreed to roll out to not spots as part of their 5G spectrum bids.

Their latest wheeze is to persuade the government to release them from the not spot obligations, on the proviso that the big 4 set up a joint company to build the mast in remote locations and all share... (EE and Three usually share already, as do O2 and Vodafone).

EE also won (I'm not sure that they still count it as a win) the Emergency Services Contract to replace airwave who provide network coverage to the Emergency Services. They are building a lot of new sites in remote areas as a result, and one would assume will equip those masts with full network coverage. That programme is significantly behind schedule though.

I'm in a remote area in Argyll and EE fitted a new mast for the ES contract, mast is maybe a third of a mile away as the crow flies, but it's on the other side of the hill so there's no signal here (on any network) there's maybe 30 houses and a small caravan park on the other side of the village with no signal from the new mast PITA as there's no congestion on the mast and it's putting out mad speeds for 4g, I saw 90 down/30 up the one and only time I tested (used 190mb for a speed test! I was on PAYG at 1p per mb at the time, a rapid way to throw money away) So we both use WiFi calling over a flaky BT wifi hotspot, not very reliable at all.

[beko1987]

It's a cheap way to get a handset, but the airtime tariffs are a rip off for data vs sim only payg stuff

Ours was knitted so much into our TV contract too it seems, when I cancelled the TV and BB it went up by a tenner a month for the calls and texts, and they would not just not apply it so the contract had the calls and stuff it came with initially.

Can't wait for it to end in November (it's the ex's...)