Sky Fibre Optic Broadband

[Oaktech]

I believe the bt with fon and openzone can be turned off, but you have to use a form on the BT website, or call them and they turn it off.

 

However I'm not so sure that it then renders you unable to use the bt public wifi if you are out and about.

[ZeroHour]

I believe the bt with fon and openzone can be turned off, but you have to use a form on the BT website, or call them and they turn it off.

 

However I'm not so sure that it then renders you unable to use the bt public wifi if you are out and about.

 

There used to be a setting in the homehubs as I had turned it off on my parents old homehub but I suspect BT updated the firmware to prevent that. Not sure if you lose access but it wouldnt suprise me if you did.

 

The problem is I think many of BT's customers dont know about the feature or how to use it or that BT resells their bandwidth. I literally had to use the BT Wifi AP of an unknown neighbour at christmas and paid for a day of access. The interesting thing was I could hear music/sound through the wall but when I started downloading the music/sound was cutting out then a few minutes later the AP's would disappear. I suspect that person was rebooting the router as they couldnt understand why the net was busy/slow but I am speculating. It did happen several times though while downloading updates though and the sound was stuttering/stopping regularly after I started the updates.

[Oaktech]

Oh, don't get me wrong, I think the automatic attachment of another service freeloading off someone's possibly already pitiful connection is a pretty underhand way to do business and BT need to publicise the way it works far better. However, it CAN (and should) just be turned off.

[elsiegee40]

I have a feeling that @elsiegee40 changed to Sky Fibre.

 

@LosOjos Surely if Sky can offer fibre, BT will be able to offer it...

 

I have looked at the Sky Fibre prices and when I go change to Fibre, I won't be having Sky. They want £30 for up to 78mb plus line rental!

We moved to Sky fibre having previously had Sky's standard service. Before that we were with BT and the service was terrible:0.75 Mb and kept dropping out

 

When we moved to Sky they took over the phone line as well. Overnight the line speed improved by 500%. We were very happy. The subsequent move to fibre has been hassle free too,

 

Our next door neighbour is still with BT and has moved to fibre with them. Based on his experience, I am glad we are with Sky

Edited January 15, 2014 by elsiegee40

[LosOjos]

Just an update - Sky FTTC went live yesterday, gone from 3 down 0.6 up to a non-too-shabby 20 down 6 up - I'm happy

[Earthling]

It's interesting you say that as they (BT) claim they don't employ any traffic management at all, in fact they use it as a selling point!

 

 

I had to change to BT after Virgin when I moved last August. It sucks, to be perfectly blunt.

 

No traffic management? What do they call a maximum of three connections on their Usenet servers and a speed limit of 100k per connection.....that might be a total of 100k over three connections. I can't remember, I only used it once.

 

When I signed-up, they promised me 56meg download and even when I phoned them one time to complain that I wasn't getting that, their helpful operator greeted me with my name and told me '...and you're getting 56Meg download broadband'. In actuality, I get about 36Meg. I'm currently phoning them every month with that month's average speed over four different speed testers and demanding to be released from my contract as they're not supplying what they promised. I might as well talk to the wall.

 

My daughter was on Sky and eventually changed to VM after months of new routers, excuses, technical bulls**t that they knew she couldn't contradict and no internet four days out of seven.

 

All in all, I'm convinced that if you can't get Virginmedia, then all you can get is highly-variable ADSL from a bunch of highly-variable providers.

 

If the government was serious about providing high-speed BB across the country, they'd throw money at Virginmedia to do it.

[ZeroHour]

If the government was serious about providing high-speed BB across the country, they'd throw money at FTTP to do it.

 

Fixed that, virgin is good because of the fibre link. If fibre was the standard install and multiple isps could access it then we would all win.

[featured_spectre]

Virgin is poor here. They offer speeds for customers up to 200mb in luton. The 1 person I know who has it, doesn't get more than 30mb at off peak times, and no more than 20mb during peak. Fine its still a good speed, but my sky line (copper) gets me more during peak times than he does at off peak (I hit 38mb-40mb with sky)

[woody]

I used to have a lot of trouble with dropped connections, until I bought a cheap TP-LINK router to replace Sky's own - been fine since! It is slow though.

 

I've been with SKY for a few months on ADSL but I thought they only allow you to use their Hub? I've certainly tried getting my TP-LINK to work and it just won't.

 

The problem I find with the Sky hub is that you can't change the DNS which means I can't use OpenDNS for example. Real pain as it was a convenient way to have web logs as well as decent filtering.

[LosOjos]

I've been with SKY for a few months on ADSL but I thought they only allow you to use their Hub? I've certainly tried getting my TP-LINK to work and it just won't.

 

The problem I find with the Sky hub is that you can't change the DNS which means I can't use OpenDNS for example. Real pain as it was a convenient way to have web logs as well as decent filtering.

 

You're not supposed to and they won't support you (haha, support!) with it but you can use this tool to find out your Sky login details: https://www.cm9.net/skypass/

 

I don't know if that works with their new routers but I imagine it would as they are interchangeable. Basically, the MAC address and default password are actually a kind of key for your login details, and that site will decrypt them for you. Pop those details in to your new modem and away you go

[Devontechie]

You're not supposed to and they won't support you (haha, support!) with it but you can use this tool to find out your Sky login details: https://www.cm9.net/skypass/

 

I don't know if that works with their new routers but I imagine it would as they are interchangeable. Basically, the MAC address and default password are actually a kind of key for your login details, and that site will decrypt them for you. Pop those details in to your new modem and away you go

 

I just asked them for the adsl login details so I could use different router and they just gave them to me!

[Norphy]

Yeah they did recently but I dont trust them to stick to it. I would actually avoid BT based on experiences with other peoples connections tbh although the ability to access ANY bt customers wifi connection when out and about is useful. I just dont want anyone else using MY bandwidth...

 

This is one of the reasons I switched out the homehub to my own router as soon as the BT engineer left after he did his installation work! That and the homehub sucked.

 

I've been on the BT FTTC product for the past year now and so far I've had no complaints. Speeds vary between 40-70mbps depending on the time of day. Sky isn't an option, I do my best not to give any money to Rupert. I could have gone with Virgin but I've been bitten by their traffic shaping before and data caps before and BT said that they didn't have any.

 

No traffic management? What do they call a maximum of three connections on their Usenet servers and a speed limit of 100k per connection.....that might be a total of 100k over three connections. I can't remember, I only used it once.

 

I call that a bandwidth throttle on their usenet servers, not necessarily traffic management on your connection. I use Astraweb for my usenet access and I always max out my connection when I download from it. I have it set to six connections, works fine.

Edited January 31, 2014 by Norphy