Sky Broadband

[Messa]

Howdy,

Whats your experiences with Sky Broadband and this '20Mb' service they offer,is it any good?

All comments welcome

Ta

[kmount]

You might be better asking over at Skyuser.co.uk for lots and lots of views.

[IanT]

My friend is with Sky on there 20Mb service.............hes only getting 3mb atm........but he has just moved in and there still doing the line tests or something, hes not that far away from the exchange also i hear.

[fiendishlyclever]

I was 5km from the exchange (according to the line stats, samknows verified this information) and I got about 4 meg. As with all ADSL it's a gamble.... line speed calculators don't seem to give reliable estimates for Sky either.

I've just moved back to Virgin (thanks to a friend who signed me up for Mate's rates) and I have 'proper' 20Meg which works at full speed. I wasn't bothered about it being faster before but once you have fast broadband you never want to go back to a slow connection.

What amazes me is how fast my connection is compared to the fibre connection which links my school to EMBC It certainly feels much more useable and responsive (not to mention 10 times faster!)

[mossj]

I've be en on sky for over a year now. We have there top range Broadband and only get around 3mb on a very good day and it's often much below that. we've complained and complained, but they cannot get us any faster

There wireless router they supply is also shoddy work and is basicly a netgear thats been shrunk (cooling removed). You can't change it for a better one as your line is somehow told to expect that router and only that router (unless you do some stuff thats against the T+C's).

We were with NTL but left when the sky one fiasco kicked off. Been meaning to switch back to Virgin ever since... best advice is go with cable/fibre if you can!

[Messa]

Yeah, currently with VM but been considering moving to Sky for the TV more than anything.

Cheers

[mossj]

I was under the impression that sky and vm are pretty much equal in the tv department when it comes to all the 'decent' channels (dave, sky one, fx), as far as sky tv goes I can't fault them it just works and I've had no issues with it what so ever.

[Messa]

Yeah the channels are near enough the same, but the VM boxes are rubbish, always having problems with the heat of the box no matter how many times I get it swapped.

Cheers

[ZeroHour]

I have the Max account and sync @ 16mb currently (existing customers are being upgraded in the next month to 20mb for free)
Its the best ISP I have ever had, fact! no throttling or any problems at all.
Sync speed has nothing to do with the ISP generally so that really is not a sky issue, its adsl.

[kmount]

I think you'd regret a move from Cable > DSL simply because of the unpredictability outlined above in line quality.

If the box is the problem, ask for a different branded one, I've got a sammy and the v+ box and they are both fine for me.

[Messa]

@KMount yeah, this could be a good call.

@ZeroHour how far are you away from your exchange?

[ZeroHour]

I think you'd regret a move from Cable > DSL simply because of the unpredictability outlined above in line quality.

If the box is the problem, ask for a different branded one, I've got a sammy and the v+ box and they are both fine for me.

TBH VM is one of the worst isp's in the business for throttling, people seem to love the "connect at X speed" but its worthless if you get throttled/restricted all the time. Dos_box knows how bad VM can be especially, god forbid you use your connection at "normal" times of the evening for downloading an iso.
The 50mb service is uncapped right now but we all know its coming soon for a throttle excuse...
Thats why I love sky, even though your sync may not be as high you get 100% of that speed to download rather then connecting at 20mb to only be allowed to use Xgb in peak times and then get throttled to a 256k connection.

I am not sure exactly how far, but yeh quite close so it helps as the line noise etc is low. Use samknows.com to see where yours is.

[Messa]

1.6 Miles away, so im guess i'd be alright?

[kmount]

TBH VM is one of the worst isp's in the business for throttling, people seem to love the "connect at X speed" but its worthless if you get throttled/restricted all the time. Dos_box knows how bad VM can be especially, god forbid you use your connection at "normal" times of the evening for downloading an iso.
The 50mb service is uncapped right now but we all know its coming soon for a throttle excuse...
Thats why I love sky, even though your sync may not be as high you get 100% of that speed to download rather then connecting at 20mb to only be allowed to use Xgb in peak times and then get throttled to a 256k connection.

Appreciate your view but it's horses for courses in my book.

I know that I have 20mbit when I want it and it's not going to fluctuate with the phone line quality in bad weather, nor need I worry about BRAS profiles and other issues with Christmas tree lights, faulty street lamps that I used to need to consider with ADSL.

I pull down a fair amount of stuff with backuppc talking to servers constantly throughout the day and night, and yes, sometimes I get throttled down to 5mbit which is annoying but still better than a lot of people get either on ADSL1 or a contended ADSL2+ circuit/bad line/etc.

I've never seen throttled to 256k before; perhaps that's a fault that needs to be raised as my understanding was always that it would be throttled to 25% of the subscribed rate.

I'm not saying VM are any better than ADSL ISPs as to be honest it all depends upon a) what you pay for, and b) what you expect for your money. Short of living on top of the exchange and connected to Be*/o2 I wouldn't want ADSL if I could have cable.

[kmount]

1.6 Miles away, so im guess i'd be alright?

Distance is a rough tool at best, without SNR / Attenuation figures it's near on impossible to predict the sync you'd get.

Another rough method would be asking next door neighbour for line details if they're fed from the same BT pole.