Worried about switching to Sky

Hello Forums,
new member here, so please be gentle

I am currently with Idnet who have been superb, but with 2 sons in the house and myself, all avid gamers and downloaders, the price and limitations of Idnet packages are increasingly becoming an issue.
I am thinking of migrating to Sky, mainly because of the attractive price for an unlimited package, and also because on my exchange (Whitby) Sky is one of the only companies providing LLU.
To cut a long story short (too late?) I am worried about leaving Idnet's superb service and being tied into a 12 month contract with a provider I know little about other than having fairly mixed reviews and ratings across the internet.

I know that everyone has different results, but what is the overall general feeling about Sky and its speeds and service?

A little about my current speeds with Idnet

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 12411 kbps 443 kbps
Line Attenuation 34.5 db 13.0 db
Noise Margin 6.9 db 25.0 db

Usually extremely stable, but can have fluctuations in download speeds by up to -3000 kbps, requiring a reset to get back up to around the 13500 kbps mark. Does all this look like I am getting the most from my line? My router is a DGN2000.
Would it be reasonable to expect similar speeds with Sky? Last but not least, what is their supplied router like? I need wireless in my house, so wired is not an option.

Many thanks for your help, I want to be as sure as I can that Im not stuck with an underperforming supplier that will interfere with all the things we do on the net.

Kind regards

You should find you get similar speeds with sky, maybe a fraction slower as your noise margin is currently 6.9 and sky aim for about 7. In practice the difference won't be noticeable.

The router is perfectly acceptable, offering wireless N at 150Mbps.

I think most people when they criticise the service do so for the support which I've found to be okay. They have UK/Ireland based call centres and if you get through to them they are helpful.

People forget that we used to pay £20+ for broadband and now are paying less than £10 for a truely unlimited service.

In reply to a post by Kr1s69:

People forget that we used to pay £20+ for broadband and now are paying less than £10 for a truely unlimited service.

I can remember paying £34.99 for a 1 Mbps broadband service from AOL !

I was in exactly the same position as you with IDnet but the download allowance, with three sons one of whom is a University graduate with high technical expectations, was becoming difficult. I took the plunge and the speed has improved (I wasn't on an IDnet fibre or ADSL2+ as it was only the basic up to 8meg avaialable) and now with Sky I get a solid 18 meg connection without the worry of download limits. It's been very good.

The only downside has been the need for a fairly tortuous Dynamic DNS setup as oldest son does his own web stuff and DNS hosting and Sky don't do static IP's. It's doable though and has worked fine.

On my own experience therefore, I'd go for it if it's an LLU option. Stay clear of Connect though!

If you do go for it have a look if you can get cashback.

I don't know if you have Sky TV yet but there seem to be offers for new and existing customers. This would be in addition to any 1/2 price offer from the sky website.

http://www.topcashback.co.uk/search/merchants/?s=sky

Hi I was with idnet for around 2 years or so and found them very good, price I used to pay was 34 pounds ish, now pay sky 12.50 on llu with a 24 meg connection, very happy

Ken.

In reply to a post by CurlyWhirly:

In reply to a post by Kr1s69:

People forget that we used to pay £20+ for broadband and now are paying less than £10 for a truely unlimited service.

I can remember paying £34.99 for a 1 Mbps broadband service from AOL !

Cheap, £52 for 512Kbps from Zen in my case, now £26 (so half the price) for 80Mbps (160 times the speed)

In reply to a post by Squirrel:

Cheap, £52 for 512Kbps from Zen in my case

Crikey that's expensive

In reply to a post by CurlyWhirly:

In reply to a post by Kr1s69:

People forget that we used to pay £20+ for broadband and now are paying less than £10 for a truely unlimited service.

I can remember paying £34.99 for a 1 Mbps broadband service from AOL !

£40 for half a megabit from BT, so prices have dropped and speeds have gone up. the problem is customer service have gone down and many people are stuck with data limits. i am not saying sky customer service is bad, never dealt with them for broadband, did for sky TV once and never wanted to again.

As for switching to Sky broadband, i know a few people who have done so and been fine, in fact I was surprised about the quality of broadband one person had since they live so far away from the exchange.

In reply to a post by Squirrel:

Cheap, £52 for 512Kbps from Zen in my case, now £26 (so half the price) for 80Mbps (160 times the speed)

£40 for supposed to be 512kbps/128kbps, but actually 384kbps / 90kbps upload over "NTL cablemodem" but you also had to have phone and TV services; so it was really £80/month. September 1999

Now £24/month for 14mbps/1mbps with BE ADSL2+ and still no FTTC box in my road

Edited by jchamier (Wed 02-May-12 21:30:44)