Thinking of moving to Sky

Hi guys and gals,

Sorry if this is not in the right place - I've not used the forums in a long time.

I was thinking of moving from Plusnet to Sky as I am really getting sick of the "unlimited" broadband from Plusnet which actually has a datacap limit on it. Is this also the case with Sky or is it truly uncapped?

I'm a heavy user at the moment as I use Dropbox and FTP quite a bit with work on weekends and evening. This can see me sometimes use up to 1gb - 2gb a day in file transfers outside of my usual usage.

I game quite a bit too, so latency is very important to me, as well as the ability to download the latest updates and new games through the Steam service (amongst others).

I am already a Sky+ customer and the girlfriend has discovered Sky+ Anytime on the laptop so needless to say I need more data allowance and quick!

So, in summary, my main questions are:
- Is Sky Broadband Unlimited really unlimited?
- Is Sky Broadband Unlimited traffic shaped (i.e. it doesn't block obscure ports such as 3784 (Ventrillo Voice Comms)
- Is Sky Broadband Unlimited good for gamers?

My exchange is http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange/NEDUDL if you need it.

Thanks in advance for the help.

In reply to a post by goosh2005:

So, in summary, my main questions are:
1. Is Sky Broadband Unlimited really unlimited?

2. Is Sky Broadband Unlimited traffic shaped (i.e. it doesn't block obscure ports such as 3784 (Ventrillo Voice Comms)

3. Is Sky Broadband Unlimited good for gamers?

1. Yes unlimited

2. No traffic shaping

3. I don't know as I'm not an online gamer but I have read that you can ask Sky to alter your line profile for allegedly better latency.

I'm sure i read somewhere ,probably one here ,that sky offer no changes to the bt profiles on FTTC products, So if the DLM applied interleaving on the connection it may not be so good for gaming, As far i know there is no niche offering for FTTC as yet , that may be down to Openreach or the isp themselves just being lazy and not offering such things like DLM override, switch manually between fast or interleaved surely the customer should be given a say?

Edited by tommy45 (Wed 18-Jul-12 21:54:46)

FTTC isn't available to the OP though, so it will be standard ADSL2+.

Therefore CurlyWhirly's comment about Sky being able to tweak your line for gaming is correct.

You need to request the "gamer profile" when talking to support.

Don't know why i raised FTTC, well it will maybe be of use for someone else in the near future,
But they still do have their own DLM and a higher default target SNR than some other isp's and they will not lower it As for interleaving they will not switch you to fastpath, but as said already they are reported to have lowered the delay and interleave depth ,for some customers, but others have reported that they have refused to do this too, so make of that what you will
But in general their peering to overseas countries seems to be better than some

when I was on sky adsl it was 2nd to none masicum speed was 19.4 and i was getting 18.5 to 18.9

through put was 11 -15 meg and my ping was 9ms to 14. part of me regret getting fibre

In reply to a post by goosh2005:

sick of the "unlimited" broadband from Plusnet

Just curious as to whether you were meaning some legacy account, as to the best of my knowledge, the "up to 8 Mbps" (and later) products all had limits, eg 80 GB for "Premium" (?) then 60 GB for "Extra", while "Value" with 10 GB compares favourably against some other ISPs offering only 2 GB/month.

I too was thinking of moving to Sky, but asking for them to install a second line has been like trying to get blood from a stone. Whatever happened to that slogan Believe in Better ... certainly doesn't seem to apply from where I'm sat.

Via chat on web, 2 different people first told me I couldn't get a second line at all. Speaking to someone, they said yes it may be possible but could not get anywhere near the 39 pounds a Sky letter mentions. So it looks like I will be getting a new line with PN in a few months time, assuming FTTC rolls out here, and can then reconsider what to do with line 1... switching it to Sky, perhaps!

In reply to a post by tommy45:

I'm sure i read somewhere ,probably one here ,that sky offer no changes to the bt profiles on FTTC products, So if the DLM applied interleaving on the connection it may not be so good for gaming, As far i know there is no niche offering for FTTC as yet , that may be down to Openreach or the isp themselves just being lazy and not offering such things like DLM override, switch manually between fast or interleaved surely the customer should be given a say?

On FTTC DLM runs continuously and can not be overidden although it will try and keep the line running fastpath. I had a problem with my line that caused DLM to switch on interleaving but within 2-3 weeks of the problem clearing it was back to fastpath.