In praise of Sky

It's finally happened (as you can probably tell by my recent radio silence) - I've got Sky TV. For the last four months I've had no TV signal at my flat, and combined with a lack of Internet access (see my previous posts), I was starting to feel somewhat isolated. The Pipex debacle made me evaulate other options, and I spotted that Sky charge a mere £5 a month for a 40GB/month broadband service (4x the capacity of the more expensive and non-functioning Pipex offering). Deciding to get Sky TV was a logical decision - I'm now paying £23 a month for about 200 channels, and a fast broadband service, as opposed to Pipex's offering of £15 a month and no TV.

Sky customer services have been pretty awesome. The engineer turned up on time, and got the whole thing rigged up within 2 hours. I was notified by text message the day before he came, and was given his mobile number, in case I needed to contact him. He tuned the Sky remote in to my TV, and checked that everything worked perfectly before he left. Setting up broadband was a doddle - they sent the router out within 24 hours, and the CD-rom based installation routine was the best I've ever seen. It's pretty fast too, at 4.5mbps. All Sky's paperwork has been clearly written, and their call centre staff are friendly and well informed. On top of all this, I'm getting £50 of Marks & Sparks vouchers, because I was recommended by a friend. Now THAT'S what I call service! Well done Sky.

As for the TV service itself, there's an awful lot of rubbish, but the UKTV channels are very good, and the documentary channels are quite compelling. Film4 is rapidly becoming a personal favourite, and I've found a channel that shows almost nothing but Star Trek. I've also been enjoying the Parliamentary broadcast channel, and have finally seen Channel 5! The only problem now, is finding time to watch the damn thing...