I feel cheated/robbed - Sky Broadband!

[Šįk]

So been with sky (unlimited broadband, tv and phone line package) for about 5months now. Went to a friends house tonight who are also with them - same package. He has been with with a few weeks and noticed their connection to be turd. Iv also noticed mine is not the best, I.e when on xbox live all is fine until the miss us goes on iPad, all of a sudden only have one red Barr which equals lagging like a b**ch. Didn't really think much of it tbh, just thought thats how it is until tonight.

He tested his connection last week and was on 0.8 and rang up and complained, next min he is up to 5 since complaining. Now he said they said the broadband stays at 0.8 for the first week until it settles, then automatically goes to between 4.-10, But 'sometimes' it 'may' stay at 0.8.

So I came home tonight and did this test (didn't know about it before hand) and what a surprise - 0.8!! So I cant help but think that most people with sky will always have 0.8 unless they find out otherwise then complain (which I am going to do tomorrow!).

I dont know about you but I feel robbed as this is wrong - iv had 0.8 for the past 5 months and have been paying for what should have been 4-10.

Anyone else has this issue?

 

[TheEvilGiraffe]

0.8 what dude ?

It depends on your location, distance from the phone exchange and other stuff like that.

 

[Šįk]

Mps. I live in a small city (Carlisle) and about 2miles if that away from the exchange, so is my pal who got the same reading.

 

[Dm_26]

I was getting 2mb with Virgin Media until I phoned up to complain and I now get between 15-17mb.

Considering I'm paying for 30mb, I'm still not happy.

 

[The Fatty]

it 'upto', not 'at least'

 

[Gorms]

They rely on people not to notice and just accept the crap signal.

 

[montana]

How do you test your connection speed , what software did you use ?

 

[5678]

Sky cap all customers broadband to a level of what they determine you to "need". The problem is that their measurement period is very small and not always at peak.
Same happened to my parents. Dad always moaning it seemed slow, did some speed tests and they were down under 1Mbps compare to the 5-6Mbps they had previously. Complained and within 48 hours it was back up.

 

[BRUN]

50mb virgin bb FTW

 

[Will.]

I'm on 13 with sky.

 

[sn00p]

ADSL is generally s**t anyway, but when you get sky broadband without being on their LLU service it's absolutely woeful.

 

[NFox]

They rely on people not to notice and just accept the crap signal.

I can confirm this is not true. Sky aim to give customers the most the line can handle in its current condition. They use a dynamic line management tool which is designed to test the line over the first 10 days and then basically will automatically kick in when it sees there is an issue with the connection. Sometimes it doesn't function 100% and can in some cases cause issues with slowing down lines for no real reason. Now despite this being flaw, it runs flawlessly with 95% of its customer base and saves a heap load on resourcing as having people do it manually would just not be realistic.

Sky cap all customers broadband to a level of what they determine you to "need". The problem is that their measurement period is very small and not always at peak.
Same happened to my parents. Dad always moaning it seemed slow, did some speed tests and they were down under 1Mbps compare to the 5-6Mbps they had previously. Complained and within 48 hours it was back up.

Again incorrect, it is monitored by the DLM and if your line is producing CRC errors at say 3Mb, it will lower the speed down to reduce this and give you a more stable line. Again in terms of resourcing, customers are more likely to call up if they have no internet/intermittent sync than if they have slow internet. Again it is about saving money. Believe it or not Sky until recently have actually been providing broadband at a loss, they make the money when it comes to the TV packages etc.

For the price Sky charge for their broadband you really can not go wrong for a consumer broadband, so long as you are on their network and not their connect package (avoid)! If you do have any problems just give them a call. Its a bit painstaking talking with the tier 1 agents but humor them and go through what they ask and then you will get through to their tier 2 dept who's job is to get the best out of your line. If you co-operate with them and test accordingly by the end of it you will have the best your line can achieve. If they are unable to get you anymore speed etc than you have then its pretty much a 95% chance it is going to be the same no matter what the provider (consumer adsl).

If anyone does have any questions relating to this feel free to PM me and I will do my best to help.

 

[welshname]

How do you test your connection speed , what software did you use ?

WWW.SPEEDTEST.NET

 

[Šįk]

You guys with 10+ mps, I assume your in the big city's? Im considering taking my business else were tbh who is generally the best? Virgin?

 

[SC03OTT]

50mb virgin bb FTW

There are rumours floating about that Virgin will be doubling everybody's speeds sometime next year (those on 100Mb having their price dropped to that of 50Mb), and a new 200Mb top tier being created. Like I said, just a rumour. I've not seen any concrete evidence as of yet.

 

[Addicted]

Have a look into BT Infinity if you can get it, we still can't get cable but a few months ago finally got some decent broadband (paying for 16mbit before and getting 3mbit).
Now we've got BT Infinity it's a solid 40Mbit and we've had literally no problems with it.
I know it's more expensive, and it's not rolled out everywhere but if you use the internet a fair bit then i couldn't recommend it enough! (or at least Fiber with some company)

 

[richy22]

You guys with 10+ mps, I assume your in the big city's? Im considering taking my business else were tbh who is generally the best? Virgin?

"if" there is a problem with your line that is causing your slow speed then it won't make any difference which provider you go with. Your speed will still be s**t.

That's a big IF.

Ps Nfox likes to use his random percentages doesn't he.

 

[Šįk]

Well the house is a new build, new build estate this last year!? Not sure if that clears any ifs up?

What sort of prices are bt n virgin?

 

[richy22]

BT are expensive and just as s**t. Only thing good about them is IF there is a line problem you can get it sorted quicker then with one of the LLU providers.

Also just because its a new build estate doesnt mean you will have a decent speed. Faar too many factors involved.

 

[PinkoCommie]

There are rumours floating about that Virgin will be doubling everybody's speeds sometime next year (those on 100Mb having their price dropped to that of 50Mb), and a new 200Mb top tier being created. Like I said, just a rumour. I've not seen any concrete evidence as of yet.

They've been trialing 200Mb for the last few years. A mate of mine was one it about 2 years back for about a year, he was paying for the (at the time) 5mb but had a 200Mb connection. The modem was a bit of a monster though, basically 4 shotgunned 50Mb ones in a big box

 

[Dunc.]

BT infinity really is very good. My speed has gone up 10x since swapping from normal BT.

 

[Šįk]

Just checked and we arnt able to get BT infinity . But it did say our speed range is 4.5mb? So does that mean no matter what I get, chances are it's not going to me more than 5mb? I.e if I went with virgin media's 30mb package.

 

[Danny133]

Virgin 100MB FTMFW!

 

[NFox]

"if" there is a problem with your line that is causing your slow speed then it won't make any difference which provider you go with. Your speed will still be s**t.

That's a big IF.

Ps Nfox likes to use his random percentages doesn't he.

Yeah apologies for the random percentages, just trying to give a basic understanding. I should note that all percentages are not accurate but I hope it helped anyone unsure understand

BT are expensive and just as s**t. Only thing good about them is IF there is a line problem you can get it sorted quicker then with one of the LLU providers.

Also just because its a new build estate doesnt mean you will have a decent speed. Faar too many factors involved.

This is very true, another thing to note is a lot of new build properties have a lot of issues when it comes to speed/connectivity due to bad workmanship and attempts of saving money here there and everywhere. In particularly with internal wiring!

 

[Steven103]

Just checked and we arnt able to get BT infinity . But it did say our speed range is 4.5mb? So does that mean no matter what I get, chances are it's not going to me more than 5mb? I.e if I went with virgin media's 30mb package.

Assuming I'm interpretting what you're saying correctly, then yes.

"Line speed" is independant of the package you have. If your line speed (combination of everything between your modem and the telephone exchange) is 5 Mb/s then you won't ever get much more than that. Bear in mind line speed is an estimate and the accuracy of the estimate can vary hugely between companies. I think it was Sky or TalkTalk who estimated more than twice what BT estimated me.


If you can get fibre optic, e.g. BT inifinity or the proper virgin broadband (not the packages that use the BT hpone line) then go for it. Fibre optic has a much higher line speed than a BT phone line and, more to the point, the line speed is capable of delivering the speed you pay for.

Also Mbps is DIFFERENT to MBps so when doing speed tests etc make sure you're comparing like with like. Everything (including broadband adverts) should be in Mbps but I've seen some speed tests that give you a result in MBps, presumably to make you click on those "speed up your PC" scams/adverts/adware.

 

[DB.]

50mb virgin bb FTW

Same here lol

 

[Gavin.]

Whats the crack with BT Infinity? I keep getting letters through saying I can get it but I live in an old mill conversion. Does the fibre optic line need to come into my apartment or does the exchange just need to be enabled?
The website doesn't like my postcode or phone number so i cannot check.

 

[PinkoCommie]

Whats the crack with BT Infinity? I keep getting letters through saying I can get it but I live in an old mill conversion. Does the fibre optic line need to come into my apartment or does the exchange just need to be enabled?
The website doesn't like my postcode or phone number so i cannot check.

It's fibre to the cabinet. It involves new cabinets being installed that have the ADSL DSLAM in them, so your ADSL run over the copper wires is at most a couple of hundred meters to the cab at the end of the street, and with ADSL it's all about the distance to the DSLAM, the further away you are, the slower your connection.

So the exchange needs to be enabled for fibre, and they need to have installed a new cabinet with a DSLAM in where your copper wires terminate.

 

[Gavin.]

It's fibre to the cabinet. It involves new cabinets being installed that have the ADSL DSLAM in them, so your ADSL run over the copper wires is at most a couple of hundred meters to the cab at the end of the street, and with ADSL it's all about the distance to the DSLAM, the further away you are, the slower your connection.

So the exchange needs to be enabled for fibre, and they need to have installed a new cabinet with a DSLAM in where your copper wires terminate.

I managed to get the website to check my address last night at it says i can get 37 down, 10 up. So if I signed up is it just a case of switching it over or would i need a new line etc?

 

[PinkoCommie]

I managed to get the website to check my address last night at it says i can get 37 down, 10 up. So if I signed up is it just a case of switching it over or would i need a new line etc?

It all runs off of your existing line. I suspect that you would lose your current ADSL for a few days though while they switch you as there will probably have to be some physical cabling work done to patch you across to the new cabinet.

I would take those bandwidth numbers with a grain of salt though. That's a theoretical maximum based on the location of your cabinet and how far away it is from your postcode. you'll only get those sort of numbers really if the new cab is pretty much directly out the front of your house, the further away you are, the less you'll get. Also, these are line speed numbers, not true throughput. There's something called a contention ratio to deal with. Dunno what it is on Infinity, but most ISP's use anywhere from a 20:1 to a 100:1 contention ratio, meaning that for every 40 meg uplink they have, they will have between 20 and 100 actual 40 meg subscribers on that uplink. So even if you can actually get your ADSL modem to sync to 37Mb, you might only get a fraction off that for actual throughput due to the 20 or more other people also trying to download stuff.

 

[Rich-D]

You guys with 10+ mps, I assume your in the big city's? Im considering taking my business else were tbh who is generally the best? Virgin?

nope, I live in a small town called Nelson in Lancashire and get 15mb over ADSL (BT Line) using O2 Broadband

 

[MikeC]

I'm with Sky Broadband. Advertised speeds up to 20Meg download speed. I think I get between 1 and 2! And the WiFi signal is shocking with their Sagem router. Unless you're within a few feet, forget it. How can I complain though? It's free!

 

[tonygt]

I get 33mg d/l and 8mg up from BT. I don't pay for it either as I'm staff lol

 

[Nick172Cup]

I get 33mg d/l and 8mg up from BT. I don't pay for it either as I'm staff lol

Still waiting for mine to be completed! I do the fibre side of the NGA but waiting on everything else!

 

[tonygt]

Still waiting for mine to be completed! I do the fibre side of the NGA but waiting on everything else!

There a pain in the A$$ to get anything done, just have to wait and wait and wait lol. No wonder normal customers get the hump!

 

[MikeC]

This is as good as my "up to 20Mb/s" ever gets.....

 

[jenic]

BT infinity has been great for us. Up to 40/10 Mbps, getting 37/8 Mbps reliably, sometimes a tad more.

Supposed to be doubling the speeds to up to 80/10 next year, so hopefully be getting 70+Mbps d/l.

I live about 5/6 miles to the main exchange, so before FTTC (infinity) I was lucky to get 1Mbps

 

[Inequality Street]

In my area we get 0.5 MB. Stop moaning.

 

[Adam]

VM 100Mb... Awesome for Newsgroups

 

[Rich-D]

View attachment 68375

This is as good as my "up to 20Mb/s" ever gets.....

Upsetting

This is what I get on my "up to 20Mb/s" package from O2