Vonage and SKY systems

Posts: 109 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Mar 30, 2005 Posts: 109

and what do Sky say when you phone them up with the error code?

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 06, 2005 Posts: 18

sky will send out an engineer

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 06, 2005 Posts: 18

the usual way of going about it would be sky will have you reset the box unplug the box send signals to the box then send out an engineer then if you have multiroom they will send you a letter saying that you sky box hasn't called them back. then the rest is history Lol

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 03, 2005 Posts: 9

OK, here it is.

After being on Vonage for a few months now, BT was finally disconnected a couple of months ago, but I only got round to hooking up my Sky boxes to Vonage on Sunday when I got a nice letter from Sky.

I then called them, after looking at this thread to get them to check it - they initiated a callback and told me to call back on Monday.

Finally today got round to calling them after seeing over 30 call attempts per day this week to 448007317929 most about 14 seconds, none longer than 20 - all obviously failed connect attempts.

After speaking to Sky this evening and finally getting through to someone who knew what VoIP was, they said they are aware of the problem but have no fix as yet as there is no way of changing the modem speed in the boxes. It was pointed out to me that it does say in the Ts&Cs a 'fixed' line, but they admitted that when Sky started they didn't predict home VoIP usage. Another point was that since VoIP is portable it is open to corruption.

The answer I was given was to write to Sky customer services explaining the situation and that I believed I was complying by having them both connected to the same phone line. The more letters written, the more attention they will get for this and the more weight that engineering will have behind them to find a solution.

The name and address I was given to write to was:

Caroline Connor
Customer Care
SkyCare
FREEPOST SEA8387
Kingston-Upon-Thames
Surrey
KT1 2ZW

So, everyone get writing - include you account details and the fact that you are using Vonage, and that the problem is believed to be a modem speed issue and that you believe that you are meeting the Ts&Cs and should therefore not be charged extra.

In the meantime, if Vonage would enable the lines to support V.90 then all would be well, and we would be able to use interactive services properly (which I don't and have only ever bought 3 Box Office films in over 5 years of subscribing)

Here's hoping!!!

Posts: 18 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Jul 06, 2005 Posts: 18

well people we have a mission lets start writing those letters mine will be in the post tomorrow any one else

Posts: 109 · Vonage Forum Senior Joined: Mar 30, 2005 Posts: 109

Mine too!

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Jun 03, 2005 Posts: 9

So,

I decided that after writing to Caroline Connor on 15th I decided she had had enough time to reply, so I called Sky. Here's what happened:

On hold for 22 mins waiting!!!!

Spoke to "Ravi" who gave the usual front-line response, and tried to tell me it was because they had my old BT phone number on their system. I tried to explain to him that it makes no difference what the phone number is, it is to do with connect speed, but got nowhere. He refused to put me through to Caroline Connor, tried to put me through to technical (fob-off) and eventually, 48 mins into the call I got to speak to the "Floor supervisor" - "Sinita".

I went through the same story again with Sinita, just a bit quicker this time. She again said she couldn't put me through to Caroline Connor, as she doesn't accept phone calls. Tried again to put me through to technical dept but after me saying I really didn't want that, she put me through to "Internal Customer Service" who "deal with escalated calls".

Now 55:30 into my call, I got to speak to a Karen Bromby. She was fantastic and very helpful. She had no idea what VoIP was, but had heard of "Skype". Once I had fully explained my situation, she put me on hold for a short time and then told me I had been made exempt from paying an extra subscription. She did however make a caveat that the company may at some point in the future choose to revisit exempt accounts and start charging me for the extra box, so I should keep an eye on my post and direct debits.

Karen was very helpful, and sounded concerned when I mentioned the fact that BT, Dixons and Wanadoo are very shortly going to go big with VoIP (Dixons doing it through their stores like Freeserve) and this will increasingly become a problem for them. Exempting me is OK as I don't use phone-based services, however as VoIP usage increases, people are going to be upset when BoxOffice doesn't work!!!

Good hunting,

Joe.

Posts: 71 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jul 19, 2005 Posts: 71

Any statement from Vonage as to where they are with resolving this issue with Sky?

Posts: 11 · Vonage Forum Associate Joined: Sep 30, 2005 Posts: 11

I can think of one other possibility of getting sky working, it's ugly and it makes an assumption that may not be correct:

Have a Sky box modified by doing the following:

Step 1. Open the box and tap the serial port connections i.e. the INPUT to the modem on the data side of the modem, as opposed to the telephone side.

Step 2. Fit a serial cable and connector onto the end of the port.

Step 3. Use the computer to send the relevant AT commands to the modem to initialise it at a lower speed.

Step 4. Try and get the Sky box to call out in the normal manner.

There are two assumptions that I'm making here:

Assumption 1. The Sky box initialises the modem at boot up time, and not every time it makes a call (if it initialises it every time it makes a call, then that is tricky... but I have an idea to get round that)

Assumption 2. The servers at the Sky end are not configured to accept only v.90 connections (and if they are, then it's game over)

There is another way, but that is even uglier:

Step 1. As above
Step 2. As above
Step 3. UGLY UGLY UGLY: Use a computer to intercept the data, strip out the initialisation string and replace with more suitable string, and pass the rest of the data either via the computer modem, or somehow back via the Sky box modem.

All of this is really proof of concept stuff, obviously not a solution for the masses. But if it can be made to work, then the possibility exists to design a mod that can be retrofitted (which would obviously break all warranties and probably several T&Cs too)...

I should add that I don't recommend anyone do any of this. I wouldn't, but that's because I still have BT...

Posts: 63 · Full Forum Member Joined: Jan 29, 2005 Posts: 63

Unfortunately, we are aware there are issues with Sky and the Vonage service.

In the US, there were originally problems with TiVo and Vonage but those were eventually resolved by both organisations working together.

In the UK, we have tried to engage with SKy to try to address this problem, but they have no responded to our requests. This might have something to do with the commission paid by BT to Sky.

We are continuing to try to engage with Sky. In the meantime, if anyone does find a solution, hopefully they will post.

regards

Kerry Ritz
Managing Director
Vonage UK