Sky say no fibre (FTTC) whereas other ISP's do?

With my County Councillor Hat on, I have just been asked how someone Hawarden Exchange CH5 3JF Cabinet 4, can get an increase in speed. They checked their speed using SpeedTest.net and got 34ms Ping, 4.88 Mbps Down and 0.65 Mbps Up Jitter 11 ms. Their ISP is SKY.

I ran their address through the checker at Andrews & Arnold and got ADSL 3 - 6 Mbps and FTTC around 15 Mbps. So they appear to be on bog standard Sky.

Sky have told them that fibre is not available to them. Openreach say that FTTC is available.
BT say for the actual address Fibre Essential Down 7Mb - 14Mb but don't give a speed other than 50Mb Average!

So the main question is do Sky have a fixed allocation in an Openreach Cabinet - I assume that they share the same cabinet as BT, TalkTalk etc. Otherwise how can they say that fibre is not available to their address, unless of course the cabinet is already full?

The house is also not 100% for Vodafone, o2, 3 or EE Not good. At least BT's Fibre Essential looks better than what they have.

Cheers!

Nope, no fixed allocation within the cabinet.

The Address option of the BT Wholesale checker, entering just the postcode in that, (specifically do not using the actual Postcode option) is usually the best option. In effect all providers' checkers feed off that. Unfortunately it seems to have been offline for a few days .

It gives a dropdown list of all addresses on that postcode to select from and shows whether there is a waiting list on that cabinet against the VDSL2 lines. Meaning it's full. (The cabinet is shown on the line above the table).

Not all providers use the waiting list facility so may just say "Not available".

Edited by RobertoS (Sat 04-Apr-20 21:16:22)

Sky have told them that fibre is not available to them. Openreach say that FTTC is available.

I suspect that rather than FTTC not being available Sky are unwilling to sell them FTTC with such low predicted speeds. For example Sky often refuses to supply higher speed FTTC (80/20 max) for those who are predicted to see speeds in the 50s. All to help Sky keep their average/mean speeds as high as possible.

In reply to a post by MCM:

I suspect that rather than FTTC not being available Sky are unwilling to sell them FTTC with such low predicted speeds. For example Sky often refuses to supply higher speed FTTC (80/20 max) for those who are predicted to see speeds in the 50s. All to help Sky keep their average/mean speeds as high as possible.

That is most likely given the estimated speed on AAISP checker would only be 15 Mbps on FTTC.

Alternatively the non BTw networks (Sky, TalkTalk etc) haven't yet sufficient GEA CableLinks at the handover exchange.

Edited by jchamier (Sat 04-Apr-20 21:29:06)

Thinking back to a while ago, I think you are right. That's how they keep their average speeds up for the adverts and to keep the ASA happy.

Backing up RobertoS we had the same sort of discussion about TalkTalk last year (https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/unhappiness/t/4618...)

Edited by GonePostal (Sat 04-Apr-20 23:38:50)

Sky seem willing to offer me service on a similar speed copper line

Sky

I wonder at what point their cut off is for refusing to sell?

Edited by bedrock (Mon 13-Apr-20 15:46:03)