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