Considering joining Sky

I am seriously considering joining Sky (for various reasons) but some of the info I have received so far is far from helping me decide
I'm currently with BE Unlimited and my average connection speed is 12.7Mbps with line attenuation at 32db and SNR 6db.
Sky have quoted a connection speed of 7Mbps -14.3Mbps - a very wide variation.

In trying to establish that, hopefully, I would get the same (or near enough) the same from Sky that I have with BE and not drop considerably.
One slightly worrying/confusing reply from the Skyuser forum stated:
"It also depends on where Sky's kit is, in relation to your previous supplier's kit in the telephone exchange to where the trunk cables enter the building.

Another thing which can affect the connection speed is Fibre. Many members have commented on the drop in speed when it is installed in their exchange.
Since the cables supply the broadband to everyone, whether they are Sky customers or not, I would imagine that this is going to affect all ISPs."

Fibre has been enable at my exchange since June and haven't noticed a drop in speed.

Any comments/insight/experience would be welcome

In reply to a post by fernandez:

One slightly worrying/confusing reply from the Skyuser forum stated:
"It also depends on where Sky's kit is, in relation to your previous supplier's kit in the telephone exchange to where the trunk cables enter the building.

Another thing which can affect the connection speed is Fibre. Many members have commented on the drop in speed when it is installed in their exchange.
Since the cables supply the broadband to everyone, whether they are Sky customers or not, I would imagine that this is going to affect all ISPs."

That's obviously complete rubbish. The distance of the cables around the exchange won't matter as they're either copper carrying gigabit ethernet or ten-gigabit ethernet or most likely fibre connections with gigabit or ten-gigabit ethernet links.

There are two types of ISP in the UK, those that use BTwholesale's network to get the data from your home to their network - this includes PlusNet, BTretail (Infinity & Broadband), ADSL24, and many many others.

The others are the "LLU" providers such as O2/BE, TalkTalk and Sky. These ISPs install their own equipment in the exchange and crucially install their own network from this equipment back to their core network. (This link is known as back haul). They may rent this capacity from BT but at a dedicated speed - and the ISP will manage the use of this link - its not shared.

When an "LLU" ISP wants to offer Fibre, they have to upgrade their equipment at the exchange to accept the fibre feed from Openreach. This is known a GEA (generic ethernet access) and so far Sky and TalkTalk have done this - sadly O2/BE have not had the money to.

So Sky fibre users will be sharing capacity from the exchange back to the Sky core network with Sky ADSL users. TalkTalk fibre users will be sharing with TalkTalk ADSL users. BTwholesale based Fibre ISPs are sharing capacity with BTwholesale based ADSL ISPs. Its upto the backhaul network teams to keep the networks larger than the capacity being used.

We've seen all ISPs have "congestion" issues; and they are often in the news on the main site front page, but they are often resolved within a few months. (it takes 30/60/90 days to install more trunk capacity).

Thanks. I thought it was rubbish too but I should have added that that gem of information was from a Moderator.

So, let's put it another way does anyone think that I can reasonably expect similar speeds to what I'm getting now.

In reply to a post by fernandez:

Thanks. I thought it was rubbish too but I should have added that that gem of information was from a Moderator.

I guess you can see why TBB is more popular

So, let's put it another way does anyone think that I can reasonably expect similar speeds to what I'm getting now.

Would you go for Sky ADSL or Sky Fibre?

With ADSL, the Sky systems are a LOT more concerned with stability than BE, and many people have found themselves with slightly slower connections from Sky but they are rock solid.

Fibre would be whatever speed the Openreach database says - you can see this on the BTwholesale line checker.

Don't forget the terms say you have to use the Sky router (but there are beta firmwares for Draytek and Billion products to use with Sky Fibre).

(Disclaimer: I tried to move from BE to Sky Fibre, but Sky messed up the order, so I moved to BT Infinity instead!).

In reply to a post by fernandez:

I am seriously considering joining Sky (for various reasons) but some of the info I have received so far is far from helping me decide
I'm currently with BE Unlimited and my average connection speed is 12.7Mbps with line attenuation at 32db and SNR 6db.
Sky have quoted a connection speed of 7Mbps -14.3Mbps - a very wide variation.

In trying to establish that, hopefully, I would get the same (or near enough) the same from Sky that I have with BE and not drop considerably.
One slightly worrying/confusing reply from the Skyuser forum stated:
"It also depends on where Sky's kit is, in relation to your previous supplier's kit in the telephone exchange to where the trunk cables enter the building.

Another thing which can affect the connection speed is Fibre. Many members have commented on the drop in speed when it is installed in their exchange.
Since the cables supply the broadband to everyone, whether they are Sky customers or not, I would imagine that this is going to affect all ISPs."

Fibre has been enable at my exchange since June and haven't noticed a drop in speed.

Any comments/insight/experience would be welcome

If you currently are only getting 12.7mbps on a 6db SNR profile then you would be extremely unlikely to get 14.3mbps as for a start sky's default SNR is 7db and this would mean a lower sync speed both upstream and downstream, then you have sky's own version of DLM deciding what the max sync should be, and no option of fast path or a lower snr profile with a ds attenuation of 32db you could see a sync of 17mbps with fastpath and a 3db margin
FTTC rollout would only affect the D 'side pair ( from your street cab pcp to your home) crosstalk within the BT line plant (cable bundle)under the street or pole to pole , which does and can happen with ADSL bb,

I moved from Be to Sky 10 months ago. I used to get a mildly unstable 9.5-10Mb with Be (I usually got resyncs at least once a day) at 3dB.

With Sky, I get a pretty much stable 8Mb (still drops about once a week) at 7dB.

As others have said, Sky aim for stability wherever possible hence the 7dB target they set. Therefore you should expect a slightly lower speed than you currently get.

Thanks for all the useful input

Whilst it isn't a direct comparison I've been around to a couple of (friends of friends) homes to check their Sky connection on the same exchange as me in fact closer to the exchange,( though that may not mean much)

Example 1, connected by ethernet to the router which was plugged with a short lead directly into the test socket, had a speed of 9.1Mbps.
Example 2, connected wirelessly and a long phone lead to the router in the same room as the laptop, could only manage 7.2Mbps.
At roughly the same time I was getting 13.6Mbps - connected as in the first example.

On balance, because of the biggish difference in speed and that I've not experienced instability in the 5 years I've been with BE and their support has been excellent on the rare occasions I needed to contact them, I'll stick with what I have.

Thanks again

Edited by deleted (Fri 19-Oct-12 11:21:37)

No need to quote the whole post as you've replied to the post.

Better the devil you know!

I moved from SKY to BE and got a significant boost in speed as SKY refused to (claimed they couldnt) let the line just run at the sync rate so transfer rate up wasted a potential 400Kb/s and over 1 Mb/s down.

Vowed never to go back and havent so far! (never say never!)

I would agree with some of the other comments. Take your current download speed and drop 2M from it and thats what you will get with SKY. That is what happened to me.