Quick question before I join Sky

I am with Zen atm who are great, but I need to leave for financial reasons.

Sky looks good on paper, the only major downside I've seen here is their customer support.

Being an avid gamer though I'm more interested in pings. I did read somewhere that Sky insist on having interleaving enabled.... is this true or can u request for it to be turned off as with BT?

There has been reports of one or two people getting interleaving turned off, but by default Sky will not turn it off - you will have to fight for it with just cause I suspect!

HTH - Blue

Doh, thought that might be the case. Thx for reply.

I am on sky max package and ping around 20ms in games. But if you did have a problem with pings sky will change the max delays from 32 to 8 which i have heard reduces pings to near fastpath speeds. so you could expect around 30ms ish pings if you are on interleave.

Regards

Ian

Thx

Hi I am also on Zen at the moment, I figure since Sky+ now doesnt have the �10 sub charge per month i could go for the 16MBit broadband with sky and it works out saving me �24.99 a month (compared to before the 1st July).

Ive a feeling Interleaving is set On with my current 8MB Zen line and my pings seem to be ok according to xbox Live.

Would you guys and gals recommend I switch over?? My exchange was enabled a few months ago now so i would definatly go for the 16mb bad-boy (and also end up with a nice new router hehe).

If it's for gaming, probably not as Sky don't have the best pings - have a look at Sky User for further info.

Blue

I am on MAX and have no trouble with my pings whatsoever.

Yer im weighing up the situation between the price saving for me at the moment and the performance...im assuming the easynet/sky infrastructure is pretty sound considering the performance ive seen on one of my friends connections in leeds (also using the 16mbit connection).

As far as the 'connect' option goes since it relies on the bt network i can only assume it is the same as my current (zen) connection.

Give me some IP's or URL's to ping, and I'll happily post some results. I'm on Sky Max, with interleave switched on. I'm about 20 miles east of Peterborough, if that makes a difference.

LOL i was just about to PM you!!!


try pinging www.bbc.net.uk

and a tracert is always handy to see.

microsoft ones dont seem to work any more i think they are blocking ICMP stuff.

Ive emailed zen CS for my MAC code anyway, have told them i am unable to afford it anymore (which technically is true) so i should get my MAC soon then by the looks of it il probably migrate to sky max.

These are tracerts and pings via Sky Max...........

>tracert www.bbc.net.uk

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.224.85]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 64 ms 99 ms 99 ms 192.168.0.1
2 55 ms 61 ms 70 ms cr0.emmaarc.uk.easynet.net [87.87.251.163]
3 41 ms 41 ms 42 ms ip-87-87-163-65.easynet.co.uk [87.87.163.65]
4 45 ms 45 ms 45 ms ip-89-200-132-122.ov.easynet.net [89.200.132.122
]
5 44 ms 43 ms 44 ms ip-89-200-130-58.ov.easynet.net [89.200.130.58]

6 53 ms 52 ms 53 ms ip-87-86-77-61.easynet.co.uk [87.86.77.61]
7 52 ms 53 ms 53 ms ip-87-86-71-211.easynet.co.uk [87.86.71.211]
8 53 ms 53 ms 53 ms rt-amsix.tcams.bbc.co.uk [195.69.144.169]
9 53 ms 52 ms 54 ms 212.58.239.141
10 53 ms 52 ms 53 ms 212.58.238.37
11 53 ms 52 ms 52 ms www40.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.85]

Trace complete.

>ping www.bbc.net.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.224.85] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.224.85: bytes=32 time=52ms TTL=247
Reply from 212.58.224.85: bytes=32 time=52ms TTL=247
Reply from 212.58.224.85: bytes=32 time=52ms TTL=247
Reply from 212.58.224.85: bytes=32 time=52ms TTL=247

Ping statistics for 212.58.224.85:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 52ms, Maximum = 52ms, Average = 52ms



I'm also in a position to do the same on Zen (I still use Zen in my home office).....


>tracert www.bbc.net.uk

Tracing route to www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.224.125]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 24 ms 99 ms 99 ms 10.0.0.138
2 26 ms 26 ms 26 ms gauss-dsl.zen.net.uk [62.3.82.18]
3 26 ms 25 ms 26 ms lotze-ge-0-0-1-1.hq.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.129]
4 28 ms 27 ms 25 ms deleuze-ge-0-2-0-8.hq.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.94]
5 34 ms 33 ms 33 ms suarez-so-0-0-0-0.te.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.62]
6 39 ms 34 ms 33 ms lorenz-ge-0-0-1-9.te.zen.net.uk [62.3.80.38]
7 34 ms 33 ms 34 ms 82.71.254.134
8 35 ms 33 ms 33 ms 212.58.238.129
9 35 ms 34 ms 34 ms www25.thdo.bbc.co.uk [212.58.224.125]

Trace complete.

>ping www.bbc.net.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.224.125] with 32 bytes of data:

Request timed out.
Reply from 212.58.224.125: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=248
Reply from 212.58.224.125: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=248
Reply from 212.58.224.125: bytes=32 time=34ms TTL=248

Ping statistics for 212.58.224.125:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 33ms, Maximum = 34ms, Average = 33ms

>ping www.bbc.net.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.224.125] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.224.125: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=248
Request timed out.
Reply from 212.58.224.125: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=248
Reply from 212.58.224.125: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=248

Ping statistics for 212.58.224.125:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 32ms, Maximum = 33ms, Average = 32ms

>ping www.bbc.net.uk

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.224.125] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.224.125: bytes=32 time=32ms TTL=248
Reply from 212.58.224.125: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=248
Request timed out.
Reply from 212.58.224.125: bytes=32 time=33ms TTL=248

Ping statistics for 212.58.224.125:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 3, Lost = 1 (25% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 32ms, Maximum = 33ms, Average = 32ms



Interesting packet loss on Zen ! I pinged several times, but it wasn't a fluke.

Im thinking i can deal with an extra 20ms ping for the saving of 14.99 a month.

Im also looking at the deal with the sky router, seems fairly straight forward to put standard netgear firmware onto it......its a right pain in the ass since almost ALL other ISPs will allow you to use your own equipment...migration usually doesnt involve getting new equipment which is the most frustrating thing!!!

My ageing Router and Access point combination is beginning to show faults at the moment so now is the perfect time to go for this, im being a cheap ass but hell why not for a change!!!

At the moment im using a Netgear DG834 (version 1 !!!!!) and a WG602v2 access point, the sky router is pretty much the same thing combined and if i manage to unlock the firmware then hell thats much better, btw the tutorial to do it is here: http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/view-flash.html

The extra 20mS seems to be in getting from my router to the Sky LLU network ! The Sky Netgear router seems to have quite a lot of functionality as it stands - it seems that the only thing you can't do without unlocking and unflashing it is to change the user name and password. It seemed to perform quite well against the Speedtouch, but the only thing I didn't like about it was that it got quite warm, and the router is on a window sill which gets some sun already, so I didn't want it to fry

"As far as the 'connect' option goes since it relies on the bt network i can only assume it is the same as my current (zen) connection. "

You should get the same speed, be advised though, Connect is throttled on P2P. I don't know if Zen do?

As for Base Mid and Max, there are NO reports of throttling.