sky or bt

trying to choose between the two as cant afford to go to the smaller providers yet currently with bt with phone line but have broadband with sky connection will be used for downloading torrents etc and online gaming

In reply to a post by project_x_uk:

trying to choose between the two as cant afford to go to the smaller providers yet currently with bt with phone line but have broadband with sky connection will be used for downloading torrents etc and online gaming

It depends if you want to keep your BT line. If you go with Sky you will have to switch your line rental to Sky.

Sky. Totally unlimited, torrents are not shaped. Line rental is cheaper than with BT, nothing to loose really.

As you say torrents... Sky

Ring up and they can give you sky unlimited pro which is 80 down and 20 up. £30 a month though

Line rental is cheaper with BT if you pay in advance
If you are downloading Torrents I would suggest you have a VPN in which case the filtering is irrelevant.
You will also be able to use any router with BT as Sky requires MER which isn't widely supported.
So if you don't want to give your money to Sky there are alternatives.

Edited by smouty (Fri 29-Jun-12 14:37:22)

To add anybody who really is getting into torrents a big way should really consider a seed box or some other device that lets you run torrents without your PC.

I have a D-Link NAS enclosure that happily acts as a seed box 24/7

Sky do line rental saver too! You've forgot about that

BT throttle torrents etc!

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Sky do line rental saver too! You've forgot about that

BT throttle torrents etc!

And Sky is still having massive congestion on quite a few exchanges due to attracting a very large amount of heavy users.

The OP needs to find out what is happening on the local exchange and make a descion.

Also what hasn't been mentioned is Sky's use of a very conservative 7dB noise margin where BT use 6 and DLM can drop it to 3 which can have a significant difference in synch speeds.

That is the problem at the moment between Sky and BT the packages they offer have very different parameters which may not be clear.

Also what hasn't been mentioned is Sky's use of a very conservative 7dB noise margin where BT use 6 and DLM can drop it to 3 which can have a significant difference in synch speeds.

On the other hand, there are many cases where DLM goes wrong leaving people with absurdly low connection speeds. You will see many horror stories here and on the of this happening. The differences between sync speeds for 3 or 7db noise margins are significant and can easily be seen in speed tests, but are probably not much noticed in real life. However, the differences where DLM goes wrong have much larger impact, often leaving people with speeds well below ADSL2 speeds.

Edited by StephenTodd (Fri 29-Jun-12 15:15:25)

I understand but the throughput issues affected ahandful of exchanges.

Sky increased back haul to the affected exchanges. As they did a couple of years ago when throughput issues occurred.

Other ISPs such as Vm run the network into the ground... With sky as soon as an issue with backhaul occurs they act on it & upgrade the backhaul

BT have often had exchanges with over subscription for far longer than sky.

My sky exchange was affected & now I have 80 Mbps fibre which works at full speed 24/7

The throughput issues have been dealt with

In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

Also what hasn't been mentioned is Sky's use of a very conservative 7dB noise margin where BT use 6 and DLM can drop it to 3 which can have a significant difference in synch speeds.

On the other hand, there are many cases where DLM goes wrong leaving people with absurdly low connection speeds. You will see many horror stories here and on the of this happening. The differences between sync speeds for 3 or 7db noise margins are significant and can easily be seen in speed tests, but are probably not much noticed in real life. However, the differences where DLM goes wrong have much larger impact, often leaving people with speeds well below ADSL2 speeds.

With fibre though it's the same DLM regardless of the ISP because it's between the fibre cabinet and Openreach modem rather than the router and the exchange equipment as it is with ADSL.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

Also what hasn't been mentioned is Sky's use of a very conservative 7dB noise margin where BT use 6 and DLM can drop it to 3 which can have a significant difference in synch speeds.

I think you are talking about the ADSLx DLMs they run. As has been stated since, on FTTC the DLM is Openreach and runs in the cabinet.

IIRC ISPs have a choice of three settings for stability, but I believe the standard setting is the fastest. The other two add degrees of greater stability. I.e. lower speed.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Sky do line rental saver too! You've forgot about that

BT throttle torrents etc!

And Sky is still having massive congestion on quite a few exchanges due to attracting a very large amount of heavy users.

The OP needs to find out what is happening on the local exchange and make a descion.

Also what hasn't been mentioned is Sky's use of a very conservative 7dB noise margin where BT use 6 and DLM can drop it to 3 which can have a significant difference in synch speeds.

That is the problem at the moment between Sky and BT the packages they offer have very different parameters which may not be clear.

LMAO. Sky are very new to the fibre thing, so it might be the case that they are having issues their, but are you seriously going to compare regular adsl BT retail (via bt wholesale) offering over Sky's LLU offering?

Really? Truly? Hand on heart?

Speed, reliability and customer service are light years ahead with sky.

Honestly, it's a good job I am not standing up, i would fall down laughing.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

I understand but the throughput issues affected ahandful of exchanges.

Sky increased back haul to the affected exchanges. As they did a couple of years ago when throughput issues occurred.

Other ISPs such as Vm run the network into the ground... With sky as soon as an issue with backhaul occurs they act on it & upgrade the backhaul

BT have often had exchanges with over subscription for far longer than sky.

My sky exchange was affected & now I have 80 Mbps fibre which works at full speed 24/7

The throughput issues have been dealt with

I can sit at a computer and tell if the customer, who has sky BB is on the resold BT wholesale product or Sky's own LLU service. The difference is night and day.

When Sky LLU say you are on 7mb, unless there is a specific fault, you do a test, and your broadband speed will come back pretty close to the nail of that 7mb.

Sky connect works just like the rest of BT, it's a complete utter lottery. The number on the sync can bare no relationship to the speed.

My experiences:
Sky, excellent speeds all the time, reasonably good customer service
TalkTalk, excellent speeds most of the time, peak times can sometimes show up congestion, customer service is so atrocious however that if you have a fault the only way of getting resolved is to migrate out.
BT, generally poor speeds as a rule, its very common to have high sync rates and very poor throughput. Customer service not great but a long way from talktalk.

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In reply to a post by gazter:

I can sit at a computer and tell if the customer, who has sky BB is on the resold BT wholesale product or Sky's own LLU service. The difference is night and day.

When Sky LLU say you are on 7mb, unless there is a specific fault, you do a test, and your broadband speed will come back pretty close to the nail of that 7mb.

Sky connect works just like the rest of BT, it's a complete utter lottery. The number on the sync can bare no relationship to the speed.

That's because the BT Wholesale >> Sky throughput capacity at WBC nodes is rented by Sky at a figure chosen by Sky, and is hugely expensive. They choose to provide a very low figure per customer, as do TalkTalk and O2 for their non-LLU products.

It is nothing whatsoever to do with the inherent performance of BT Wholesale connections. AAISP, Zen, IDNet, Newnet, Claranet, F2S and many others, even Entanet and Daisy resellers, far out-perform Sky/TT/O2 non-LLU.

None of this is at all relevant to the OP's question, choosing between BT and Sky for FTTC. On FTTC the handover is in the exchange using dedicated links, and it is highly unlikely there is any lack of capacity in those links or in the backhaul. You are barking up a very substantial tree, and in terms of ADSLx you are absolutely correct about Sky Connect, but FTTC is a different tree.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

It is nothing whatsoever to do with the inherent performance of BT Wholesale connections. AAISP, Zen, IDNet, Newnet, Claranet, F2S and many others, even Entanet and Daisy resellers, far out-perform Sky/TT/O2 non-LLU.

And fwiw my customers have BT Business ADSL, and they can saturate their links - a 5mbps sync gets 4.8mbps downloads 24x7 no problem.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

In reply to a post by gazter:

I can sit at a computer and tell if the customer, who has sky BB is on the resold BT wholesale product or Sky's own LLU service. The difference is night and day.

When Sky LLU say you are on 7mb, unless there is a specific fault, you do a test, and your broadband speed will come back pretty close to the nail of that 7mb.

Sky connect works just like the rest of BT, it's a complete utter lottery. The number on the sync can bare no relationship to the speed.

That's because the BT Wholesale >> Sky throughput capacity at WBC nodes is rented by Sky at a figure chosen by Sky, and is hugely expensive. They choose to provide a very low figure per customer, as do TalkTalk and O2 for their non-LLU products.

It is nothing whatsoever to do with the inherent performance of BT Wholesale connections. AAISP, Zen, IDNet, Newnet, Claranet, F2S and many others, even Entanet and Daisy resellers, far out-perform Sky/TT/O2 non-LLU.

None of this is at all relevant to the OP's question, choosing between BT and Sky for FTTC. On FTTC the handover is in the exchange using dedicated links, and it is highly unlikely there is any lack of capacity in those links or in the backhaul. You are barking up a very substantial tree, and in terms of ADSLx you are absolutely correct about Sky Connect, but FTTC is a different tree.

But Sky's takeup of FTTC customers most be miniscule and certainly not enough to max out any exchange capacity.

all people considering sky should look at this

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Fibre-Unlimited/Half...

i would go with BT.

A few small cases but the vast majority are fine

I for one get the full 80 Mbps no problem on sky

Is there an activation cost with Sky?
I moved from Be to BT and the only additional cost was £7 for delivery of the HH3.

Do your sums but for me BT was cheaper.
They are really pushing the boat out on infinity2 and it is the best deal they have had for years.

But Sky's takeup of FTTC customers most be miniscule and certainly not enough to max out any exchange capacity.

We seem to have got into a disagreement when we are in fact in agreement.

The red herring was the introduction of ADSLx noise margin settings. You then took that and seemed to criticise all BT Wholesale based services based on the woeful Sky Connect and comparing it with Sky LLU.

Back to FTTC .

In terms of backhaul capacity I think the jury will be out for a considerable time. BT Wholesale clearly have a huge backbone capability, though whether it will be enough (as it is now) for the Olympics and 80Mbps connections during them isn't known by me. Then there is the feed from the exchange into that backbone.

Sky will be dependent on their feed from exchanges into their own network. As has been said, they have a good reputation on that. Though if any shortfall shows up during the Olympics I doubt if they can react as quickly as BTW. Having a "miniscule" takeup so far, (no doubt increasing rapidly), is in my opinion more likely to cause exchange problems than a safety margin. BTW install extra backhaul at an exchange before enabling it. Do Sky?

Maybe they do. We already know they don't automatically accept FTTC at all BTW-enabled ones. So far I've thought that would be to do with the type of DSLAM and the installation of ther GEA links, but maybe backhaul capacity is another upgrade they do beforehand.

BT Retail will be dependent on both the BTW backbone and their own MSIL capacity. That will be interesting to see during the Olympics, when compared with Sky, TT and the premium BTW-based ISPs.

In reply to a post by smouty:

Is there an activation cost with Sky?
I moved from Be to BT and the only additional cost was £7 for delivery of the HH3.

Do your sums but for me BT was cheaper.
They are really pushing the boat out on infinity2 and it is the best deal they have had for years.

I'm not sure because I was already had my broadband with Sky and when I upgraded to fibre I only paid £2.18 for the delivery of the router.

well ive decided to go to bt have asked sky for mac code and as soon as i get it i will order infinity as as it works out cheaper

and i get half speed so..

50/50 chance imo.

In reply to a post by project_x_uk:

well ive decided to go to bt have asked sky for mac code and as soon as i get it i will order infinity as as it works out cheaper

Enjoy torrents donwloading at 10KB/sec during peak time then

If you buy a VPN to facilitate the torrents, then thats extra cost too.

Who uses torrents anymore?

How is BTs usenet performance? I take it they don't throttle that?

It's only one of the most popular file sharing protocols on the Internet.

In reply to a post by Zadeks:

It's only one of the most popular file sharing protocols on the Internet.

P2P meh.

I stopped using it 6 years ago.

usenet is FAR better. Guaranteed full speed of your connection, no uploading rubbish, no having to wait for someone to seed.

I always max out my line using torrents. 20Mb/s upstream makes seeding a breeze. Initial seed is at least a 1Gb/s connection.

No need to pay a monthly fee. No DMCA content take downs.

In reply to a post by epyon:

and i get half speed so..

50/50 chance imo.

You cant take a sample size of 2 people and say its a 50/50 chance because one has a good experience while the other has a bad experience. You need to look at a much larger sample size. On a larger scale are approx 50% of people on Sky Fibre experiencing this half speed issue? If its only 2% for example then its not the same as 50/50 chance. I honestly dont know what the percentages are...I'm just commenting on your comment.

In reply to a post by DrDeath:

Who uses torrents anymore?

How is BTs usenet performance? I take it they don't throttle that?

They do not throttle usenet at all as far as I can see.