Sky+ HD Box causing slow broadband speeds

Hi All,

Last night I was attending one of my customers who complained about slow broadband speeds.

Their broadband router had negotiated 228kbps download speed.
Yes I did say 228kbps.

It turned out that their brand new shiny Sky+ HD box, which had been installed in october last year, was cauing the slow down.

The SKY Installer had NOT fitted a micro filter between the boxes dial up modem connection and the telephone socket.

On removing the offending connection the new negotiated download speed was 1328kbps. A lot better, but not very near the 4.0mbps they were quoted when joinging sky broadband.

Their exchange is not a Sky LLU, so theirs is a BT Connection.
Having got the download speed up I then checked their IP Profile using the BT speed checker. This showed it was stuck at 250kbps.

The Sky BB agent is repoting this to BT today (10th), so hopefully there should be some movement soon.

Not really Sky box causing the issue but "lack of filter".

October?

They haven't noticed anything for 8 months?

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Not really Sky box causing the issue but "lack of filter".

The problem was caused by the bloke installing the box incorrecly.

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

October?

They haven't noticed anything for 8 months?

Yes, the customer just assumed the internet was normally this slow.
It was me that said the speed was unacceptable.

Not down to the installer to supply and fit a filter unless he was installing the broadband as well. If the Sky box worked then it was installed correctly.

In reply to a post by broadband66:

Not down to the installer to supply and fit a filter unless he was installing the broadband as well. If the Sky box worked then it was installed correctly.

I agree that from a short sighted view of things the installer did his job and the new Sky+ HD box worked.

But it is the responsibility of Sky to properly train their installers on the implications of connecting any Sky Box's dial up modem to the telephone line without fitting a filter.

The installer was replacing a SD Sky+ Box with a Sky+ HD Box. I know that their old SD box was not interfearing with their broadband and as far as I know it was properly connected via a filter, so my question is where did that filter go. In his tool box???

Was said filter moved to multi room where SKY+ box was moved to, if indeed multi room was taken? Its a bit harsh to criticise Sky Engineer for this...

In reply to a post by mikecrawford80:

Was said filter moved to multi room where SKY+ box was moved to, if indeed multi room was taken? Its a bit harsh to criticise Sky Engineer for this...

No I examined the wiring of the "old" Sky+ box and there was not even a cable coming out of the dial up modem socket on this.

Sky MUST train their installers properly...

I would have thought that should be standard practice for anybody connecting any equipment to a phone line WHETHER OR NOT the phone line has been enabled for ADSL or not a the point of fitting. When we moved into our previous house and took the alarm box apart, that had certainly been connected with a microfilter in place.