Thinking of joining sky...

Hello,

I've discovered that sky is enabled on my exchange. If I go for sky money wise i would be saving £4 a month (paying £12.50) compared to current isp (plusnet).
However I currently only get 1 mb with +net with these line states -

Downstream Rate: 1664 kbps
Upstream Rate: 448 kbps
Channel: Interleaved
Current Noise Margin: 9.0 dB (Downstream) 11.0 dB (Upstream)
Current Attenuation: 63.0 dB (Downstream) 31.5 dB (Upstream)
Current Output Power: 16.3 dBm (Downstream) 12.3 dBm (Upstream)

If I go with Sky which obvousily are a LLU service -
will I (a) not get faster then 1mb
(b) will get faster then 1mb, if so by how much?
(c) will get worst then 1mb?

Also do I need to get a mac code or anything from plusnet to move to sky?

Thank you .

Just done exactly what you're considering as our exchange has just been enabled in the last month or so though you didn't mention if you're taking line rental and calls too.
No mac needed and around 14 days to become active.
Already had two emails from Plusnet to say sorry you're leaving etc so seems Sky are on the ball getting things done.
You've got a worse line than myself, if you want to wait 14 days or so I'll post back on what difference going LLU has made to me on 40db attentuation and 12db SNR current 4mb sync.

ok thanks i'll do that, don't forget .

If your just going for the broadband without the calls and line rental you will need a mac code

if I go for it I would go for calls / line rental to. The only thing stopping me is theres a big question mark over what download speed I will get, as the online checker on sky's website says 0.5 mb, but I currently get 1 mb with plusnet.

I can only tell you of my experience but I was getting around 3Mb before Sky and Sky told me that my connection would be a max of 0.5Mb. However, posters on here told me that it goes off line stats and that Sky are using old data so I took the plunge.

My move was today and so far my connection has remained at the 3Mb mark.

There are some problems on Sky Broadband LLU at the moment, might be wise to check the following post from Sky from their official forum

Re: Slow, every night after 7pm.Options


We are aware that in a small number of exchanges some Sky Broadband Unlimited and Everyday Lite customers may be experiencing a reduction in broadband speeds. We are sorry for this disruption to our normal service. In some instances web browsing and downloads are taking longer than usual and customers may also notice this impacting on their Sky Anytime+ service.



This issue is partly due to significant increases in the number of new customers joining Sky Broadband in the areas listed below, combined with unplanned delays in the extra equipment we have ordered to accommodate them.

We will implement the upgrades as quickly as possible and will post updates on the Sky Service Status page and the Sky Help Forum.



The affected areas are:



�Cheshire and North Wales
�Cumbria
�Kidbrooke
�Kent
�Croydon
�Leatherhead
�Crawley
�East Sussex
�Stockton (covering Exchanges in Teesside, Durham and Yorkshire)
�Hertfordshire

thanks for that but my exchange is not on the list lucky . Unless your saying that its only a matter of time before it will hit my exchange?

The list seems too general. Surely congestion is by exchange and not by a whole county.

Its more than a small number of exchanges if all those areas are affected. My exchange Old Colwyn is fine in the day and I can max my 20mb connection out but come 4pm my throughput drops to around 1.5mb and my ping to the bbc increases from around 40ms to around 300ms. This makes my xbox live account unusable every evening, I have friends on the Rhyl exchange who are getting the same thing. Initially Sky claimed just the Northwest of England and North Wales were affected but now it looks more widespread. There is some speculation that the problems are linked to the roll out of anytime plus.

Just something to consider before joining Sky unlimited at the moment bearing in mind the long contract.

How long has Old Colwyn been unbundled by Sky? I'm down the road in Rhos and they have no kit in our exchange, nor has Colwyn Bay Central.

Looks like it needs to be avoided for now anyway, lol.

I have a friend in Old Colwyn on Sky broadband, not sure if he's on the LLU or Connect product (have to check his router to see if it's using ADSL2) and he's been having major problems with latency and throughput since November.

Not sure but I noticed it had been done around the second week of Dec, joined up and it was ok for the first week then it all went to hell in a handbag. To be fair outside of the peak times I get around 17mb throughput on a 20mb sync but once 4pm comes that drops rapidly, my main problem is the increased latency, ping times go mad in the evening +300ms to the BBC. I didnt know Rhos had its own exchange for some reason I always thought Rhos went via Colwyn Bay.

is this affecting sky's old and new network?

The service status on the sky page has gone to all green this morning reporting no issues, yesterday it was acknowledging that there was a fault in certain areas, North Wales being one of them, unfortunately we won't be able to tell this evening.

I only joined in the past week and am receiving great speeds in the day, it does drop off a bit in the evening but not to the same extent that others have been seeing, as I don't use the internet in the evenings I'm not so bothered about it, if it happened in the day then I daresay I'd be screaming from the rooftops.

I used the sky checker to see if my exchange was enabled as samknows doesn't seem to be updating as regularly as it once was so better to check on the sky site

*edit* scrub the fix, looks like it still bad, posts coming up on sky official forums that say it's still as bad, how they are reporting no problems I don't know must be wishful thinking

Edited by deleted (Sun 16-Jan-11 14:16:18)

Just thought of some questions -
If I'm in sky enabled area will I go on to there LLU with out fail or is there a chance they will put me on Sky connect ?
What customer service like for anything i might need them for e.g problems with the service or the ordering process ?
Do the complete order online or will I have to ring them for part / all of the ordering process? Will they need to ring me?

cheers

Connected today with less than 5mins downtime all round.
Connection speed still the same though attenuation has gone up 3, will see how it settles during the 10days DLM.

ok thanks be interesting to know what happens to your connection speed etc over the next 10 days .

Should be good for 8megs