Sky Broadband and the Question of Preferential UK CityFibre FTTP Install Dates
A couple of weeks have passed since Sky Broadband became the largest retail ISP to go live on CityFibre’s national Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network (here). But some rival providers have privately begun to note that customers who sign-up to Sky’s service seem to be getting earlier installation dates than they can. We take a closer look.
According to CityFibre’s website (here), customers who take one of their consumer full fibre broadband products via a supporting ISP should get a fairly short “6 day standard install lead time“, although other ISPs have expressed that the “service will be provided in approximately 10 working days” or sometimes up to 14. Experiences will of course vary by location and type of install (new provision vs migration etc.).
However, in theory, all ISPs should be pulling their dates from the same appointment book, which would mean that – no matter which ISP you choose on CityFibre’s network – somebody with the same address and provision type should expect to get either an identical installation date, or at least something very close to that. But ISPreview has observed something different.
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Over the past week a number of network engineers, consumers and ISP reps have privately suggested that Sky Broadband appeared as if they could be getting preferential treatment for installations on CityFibre’s network. The feedback indicated that Sky’s customers were often able to pick installation dates (during the order process) that were up to 2-3 weeks in advance of anybody else – checked across multiple cities.
In response, ISPreview decided to conduct a few anecdotal tests via several ISPs, using a random selection of addresses covered by CityFibre in York, Poole, and Dundee. We only tested against new provisions (not migrations) and also excluded any possibility that the results could be polluted by the order process picking up different networks, such as Openreach. We also repeat-tested via different web browsers to avoid cache conflicts and to confirm our findings.
The Results
Address in Dundee:
The earliest installation date offered by Sky was “Tuesday 5th August (AM slot)“, while every other ISP we tested (e.g. TalkTalk, FibreCast, Zen Internet and several random picks) returned an earliest date of Monday 18th August (almost a two week gap).
Address in York:
The earliest installation date offered by Sky was “Monday 28th July (PM slot)“, while every other ISP we tested returned dates between 31st July (Zen) and out as far as 6th August (TalkTalk).
Address in Poole:
The earliest installation date offered by Sky was “Monday 28th July (AM slot)“, while most of the other ISPs we tested returned dates for Monday 4th August.
The limited testing we conducted showed that Sky Broadband always came out with the earliest date, while every other ISP tended to get a date that was anything from a few short days to several weeks further into the future. The results seemed to support the initial feedback we’d received, although only one of the examples tested highlighted a c.2-week gap. But we suspect that we might well have found longer gaps by testing against a larger sample.
ISPreview queried this trend with both Sky and CityFibre, although Sky did not respond to our follow-up queries and instead directed us back to the network operator’s statement below.
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A CityFibre spokesperson told ISPreview:
“CityFibre offers the same market-leading products and services to all of our customers and we always aim to offer an installation date within days of an order being placed. Whilst there will be variances in the first available date, informed by demand, customer equipment availability, or the complexity of the planned install, the vast majority (around 90%) of our offered install dates are within ten working days, with around half offered within five working days.”
Once again, the issue isn’t so much with how long it takes to install, but rather the fact that one ISP – Sky – seems able to give out earlier dates than all of the other providers we tested, including those where issues of demand and CPE availability should not be preventing access to the same dates. Strictly speaking this may be perfectly acceptable as part of a commercial deal, even if other providers may huff, but we’ve yet to get a clear answer on how they’re able to do this.
The other possibility here is that Sky could be using some of their own engineering resources or doing something unusual with their ordering system and not treating or checking CityFibre’s appointments database in the same way as others. But if the latter were the case then we’d expect the selected appointment date, assuming users only picked the earliest one, to often end up being delayed after completion of the order (we couldn’t test this for obvious reasons).
One key thing to point out here is that the date customers choose should really be expressed as “provisional“. But of all the ISPs we tested, only TalkTalk actually clearly expressed it that way – none of the other order systems we tried referred to the selected dates as provisional or subject to change, even though they’re not strictly set in stone until AFTER the order has been placed.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Do CF have multiple tiers? Are Sky paying more for the priority? If they paying the same I can understand the argument, but if they paying more for the privilege, I think its fair play. A bit like how we dont know what care level ISPs pay for on Openreach.
It should not work like that, this is the same thing open reach did and SKY complained like hell. Hens why open reach was spit off, so situation like this does not happen, everyone should be treated the same. SKY are such hypocrites….haha
The fact that CityFibre could have issued a clear statement about treating their ISP partners equally and chose instead to make a vague point about their appointment targets says everything you need to know I think.
Guilty as charge.
On OR there are occasions where Sky Installers do the FTTP install from CST to ONT. Are Sky using their installers (or other) to install from Toby to ONT?
A SKY engineer did my internals back in March
Nope. It’s all kelly communications for cityfibre. It’s all down to cf wanting sky to use them. A sweetener.
In my part of the UK, the Toby boxes are only used as a pull through from the CBT, and then from the Toby to the CSP. The Fibre cable buried in the garden or drive with 14mm sub duct. This being an underground installation.
@Ed, that sounds painful
Seems quite plausible to me that Sky, as the biggest ISP that CityFibre could hope to onboard, would insist on and be given reserved install capacity. They will bring more customers to CityFibre than most of the smaller ISPs combined.
When SKY installed my Openreach FTTP in March, it was a SKY engineer who did the internal work – if that isn’t also the case here then I’d eat my hat.
A bigger issue seems to be the lack of choice being given to Sky customers. Where both are available, I’m led to believe the computer decides if you will get CF or OR and the customer doesn’t get a choice. Perhaps the shorter time is CF’s attempt to influence the decision.
An OR connection will be more expensive than CF, and as many consumers will look at price before anything else then a bias to CF would seem logical. Many won’t realise that CF also has a symmetric advantage.
It might be a good idea when signing up with an ISP or browsing the comparison sites the ISP would be required to disclose which network you will be provisioned on.
I presume CF is cheaper for sky and maybe a better network. If CF was here and I was going for Sky, they could put me on it by all means.
Almost all ISPs will use the altnet over Openreach
@Ad47uk – Not as painful as you going on about ZZOOMM incessantly!
Is this really news, or is it an advertorial to promote choosing Sky if taking CityFibre?
Equivalency only applies to Openreach.
Why shouldn’t CityFibre offer differing installation dates based on demand or commitment from their retail ISP customers? Seems like a sensible win-win for both to me.
Because knowledge is power, and keeping people informed about such developments in this market is what we’ve always done for 26 years. The article doesn’t express the issue as being either a strict positive or negative, it’s merely reflecting that it seems to exist so that a) consumers know which ISP might be able to give them a quicker provision when checking, and b) other ISPs on CityFibre’s network might benefit from that same awareness for future negotiations / decisions.
But more than that, it’s just plain interesting. We’re used to seeing network agreements where preference is given in other areas (e.g. live service availability or network features), but in this case Sky may (stressing the “may”) be getting an installation provisioning advantage too. If you don’t find that interesting, then you may be on the wrong site, as this is the niche we cover 🙂 .
Can I point out the statutory 14-day cooling-off period that is part of the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. Broadband contracts include a 14 day cooling-off period, starting from the day after you sign up. From your findings, it possibly appears not all ISPs are adhering to this.
Sky has access to its own internal install resource and can prioritize CF installs – simple as.
Sky’s team don’t do the same process as they do with Openreach whereby they do from the CSP to internal.
CityFibre needed the Sky agreement to help them get the funding they needed to stay in business so from pricing to terms gave Sky pretty much everything they could ask for – simple as.
As an aside Sky only handle part of the install on Openreach, no idea whether they’re involved at all in CityFibre installs.
Regardless unless a lot has changed CityFibre contractors will at least be getting the fibre to the property. Sky’s team are unlikely to be digging gardens, going into CityFibre cabinets and blowing fibre down microducts.
Of course given as I said Sky got to bend CityFibre over in negotiations it’s far from impossible.
@pp – No, Sky didn’t get everything they wanted. Far from it. All Cityfibre installs are completed by Cityfibre or their contractors. They don’t allow customers to do the installs and that includes Sky.
What means that it needs to be done on an equal basis?
With a larger commercial commitment not bound by regulation, it would seem quite normal to provide more rapid installations.
Didn’t we learn from your checks that between other ISPs they don’t all get the same dates anyhow?
Sounds like this is some sort of general agreement – why does it matter anyhow? Surely it’s irrelevant as companies can have whatever agreement they like with a supplier in this respect. If Sky has agreed something faster, good on them.
This is an ISP/broadband news site. This is news.
It will tend to make other ISPs steer clear and prefer Openreach or another last mile provider. Customers will always prefer the ISP who can deliver quicker.
In my experience most big firms will look after their best customers, either by prioritising work or through monetary means.
Just helped my mum’s friend get is city fibre install from Sky was ordered on the 27th of July and her install date is the second of August so six days she was Openreach network with Sky Broadband so 6 days to transfer over to another network and pick an installation date she’s in an area that open reach do not do full fiber yet
Sounds like an illiterate area, judging by this comment.
@John Smith: Scary, wouldn’t want to employ this contributor as a Ghost Writer anyway! 🙂
We placed on order for Sky Fibre on the Tuesday and had it installed on the Saturday, 4 day waiting time. However, CF had already installed prior to us moving in, so all external works etc completed.
Very satisfied with connection, speed test coming out at 150 down and 160 up.