Are sky lying to consumers?

I transferred over to Sky from another ISP on the understanding that SKy didn't throttle people's internet connections during peek hours, as stated in their latest add campaign.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwYwqeLVBoI

I have noticed during peek hours that when playing on line games my connection speed drops by around about 1/2 to 2/3. My connection speed on PC stays the same.

I am taking readings on both my pc and PS3 (which uses P2P) everyday during off and on peak times. So far everyday those readings have shown that P2P services are being throttled by sky during peak hours.

Sunday off peak
Pc (via speedtest.net) = 6.5mbps
PS3 (via the consoles network options) = 6.4 mbps

Sunday Peak Hours
Pc (via speedtest.net) = 6.1mbps
PS3 (via the consoles network options) = 3.1 mbps

Monday off peak
Pc (via speedtest.net) = 6.4mbps
PS3 (via the consoles network options) = 6.3 mbps

Monday Peak Hours
Pc (via speedtest.net) = 6.2mbps
PS3 (via the consoles network options) = 3.2 mbps

Tuesday off peak
Pc (via speedtest.net) = 6.6mbps
PS3 (via the consoles network options) = 6.5 mbps

Tuesday Peak Hours
Pc (via speedtest.net) = 6.1mbps
PS3 (via the consoles network options) = 2.8 mbps

Wednesday off peak
Pc (via speedtest.net) = 6.7mbps
PS3 (via the consoles network options) = 6.4 mbps

Wednesday Peak Hours
Pc (via speedtest.net) = 6.2mbps
PS3 (via the consoles network options) = 2.0 mbps

I'll continue to take these readings and I'm going to look into filling a complaint with the relevant body, Sky shouldn't be allowed to lie to its customers like this.

Are there any other sky users on this board who have noticed similar issues?

Don't you think that it's a bit quick to jump to conclusions?

1) Post your router connection stats so people can see what your line is syncing at.

2) Are you on Sky Everyday or Unlimited (LLU connection) OR Sky Connect? Connect is run through BT Wholesale (which is subject to traffic management) and is NOT the same as being on Sky's own network.

3) Have you checked to see if there are any problems with PSN? Your PC speeds are similar across the board and only your PS3 seems to be dropping speed.

4) How are you connecting to the router for both PC & PS3? Wired/Wireless?

Have you checked the service status page there are issues in a lot of areas at the moment http://www.sky.com/helpcentre/servicestatus/

hi just out of interest have you just gone over to sky in the last 10 days or so because when you first go over they run a line connection test for the first 10 days or so. This is so that they can give you the best speed on your line and do not turn your router off when this is going on and the speed will go up and down until the test is completed you can find out if they are doing this test by login on to my sky and then clicking on the broadband tab at the top hope this is of help to you.

The connection speed is at the router and will be independent of the computers

How are your devices connected to router? Wired/Wireless?

Looks like PC is Ethernet connected and gets full speed all the time and PS2 is connected by wireless and gets low speed at peak times. Could well be that at peak times all your neighbours come online with their wireless networks and you are all contending for the wireless spectrum. If so, have you tried changing wireless channel?

What package are you on> LLU ADSL2+ or IPStream ADSL Max?

I have networking monitoring tools and have no problems at all.

I get a good steady 14 - 16meg from my line and have never seen and traffic management or throttling

However

If i connect my box via wireless and at the same time have my laptops wireless active performance can sometimes drop, when I connect it via wired connection problem solved.

The only other problem I sometimes hit is when router having to do a lot of routing and also using Upnp can sometimes get a tiny bit of lag (assume when it opening connection ect) I find i get round that a) if i running on wired (as it not so noticeable) or when I have set static rules rather than leading it to upnp to set it up.

Edited by deleted (Thu 20-Jan-11 03:04:20)

A heck of a lot of area's and it's been going on for 2 months now.

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

Outage start time: 20 Jan 2011 - 13:35

Not a good sign and the fact that they keep on changing the "Outage start" time/date on it gives me the impression that they are avoiding adding capacity. The CS guys haven't got a clue about it and ask you to go through dozens of checks despite there being a 17 page thread (250+ replies) on the problem on their own support board.

Also, PS3 network gets very busy during peak time, they dont have the backhaul to cover especially when all the kids are on black ops.

I would say its more a PSN slowdown rather then SKY.

Edited by deleted (Thu 20-Jan-11 22:28:52)

Hi thanks for the replies, it seems a little strange that this happens at the same time every night and has done for two weeks now.

I'm on SKY unlimited which shouldn't be throttled Sky have even told me this.

My PS3 is wired not wireless as is my PC.

I have been with SKY since October.

"Also, PS3 network gets very busy during peak time, they dont have the backhaul to cover especially when all the kids are on black ops."

As for PSN issues that could be the problem however my neighbour who lives one street away has no problems at all during these hours. I've asked a lot of other PS3 gamers and non have the issues I have.

"What package are you on> LLU ADSL2+ or IPStream ADSL Max? " how do I find out which of these i'm on?

on a side note Is it possible to use my own router with SKY? I connect my ipod to sky via wireless but the range with the sky router is pretty poor, my old router was much better.

It would be interesting to see if that changed anything at all for the other problem.

"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

Outage start time: 20 Jan 2011 - 13:35"

I don't live in any of those areas.

Edited by deleted (Fri 21-Jan-11 10:02:10)

It sounds very much like the same issues that the "affected areas" have. Try running some ping tests at various times of the day. I expect that you will find that the values are far lower than they are between 18:00-23:00 (if during these hours the results are ~300ms then sky are struggling in your exchange too)

In reply to a post by pocoyo:

"What package are you on> LLU ADSL2+ or IPStream ADSL Max? " how do I find out which of these i'm on?

on a side note Is it possible to use my own router with SKY? I connect my ipod to sky via wireless but the range with the sky router is pretty poor, my old router was much better.

It would be interesting to see if that changed anything at all for the other problem.

Sky unlimited is LLU

Yes you can use your own router but you need to extract the sky password. I really doubt it's a problem with the router though.

This is the problem unlimited services after a year or two start to fill up, and since income is static for a product the money to buy new capacity is limited, hence the arrival of visible contention.

Contention can affect different protocols in different ways - so some things still run fine when congestion is in the earlier stages

They will be awash with capacity after UKO shuts down.

I doubt it, as UK Online was not that large a provider

UKOnline was never near to 100,000 customers AFAIK and Sky is at the over a million

I'm not saying that exchanges don't fill up, but Sky owns the Easynet backhaul which is awash with capacity.

In reply to a post by BatBoy:

They will be awash with capacity after UKO shuts down.

I thought they were due to close a week ago?

I wonder if this is why SKY keep are delaying adding capacity. I would have thought most UKO customers will be joining SKY anyway as they get 6 months free?

Edited by deleted (Fri 21-Jan-11 15:38:20)

31st Jan now apparently.

Oh dear - they've only just enabled my exchange....have I just leapt onto a sinking ship :?

There is a fix date for Cheshire & North Wales exchanges of 28th Jan, Kidbrook & Kent 11th Feb

http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Technical-Issues/Broadba...

Just checked my ping during peak hours and its 170ms, am I right in guessing that this is pretty bad for gaming?

170ms? Jealous...
Averaging 280ms to first hop during peak times!

my pings are never over 50 even at peak time, 20-25 is my best pings with it going to 40 on a busy server

Am in North Wales, Sky seem to have grossly underestimated the bandwidth required between here and their core routers.
Apparently it'll be fixed this month 28th/29th iirc.

Service is terrible 4-11PM atm, took 80 minutes to download 120MB!

My ping is 40ms off peak. 170 during.

is that to games server or any servers, also how many servers do you ping

wow, so I take it you on LLU

not to roub it in but not problem down here at all great service. Router piece of [censored] but apart from that lol

Yeah, LLU...things are good after midnight, I get lower latency than I do on my AAISP 20CN fastpath link, and obviously a lot more throughput!

Unlimited is obviously popular in your area

good luck with getting it fixed

level 1 tech support the only thing that worries me about sky lol

I use pingtest.net for my ping reading.

Is there any better way to test my ping?

Yes there are more reliable ways to do this, you can do so by using the windows tracert and ping commands, or you can get the info by running one of several networking tools that are free to download and use, (trial only) one of these is pingplotter,

Yes type cmd into the search box, this will bring up the command prompt. type in ping followed by the site you want to ping e.g. ping bbc.co.uk and press enter

thanks for the info, just tried that and it gives me a similar reading to Pingtest.net.

you want to use a range, also trying ping ip address not domain name

8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4, also try 127.0.0.1 should be very fast as the a local address, also ping the inside of you router (normally 192.168.0.1) and the outside.

best way is to get a selecting of UK ip addresses

Thanks i'll try that. I emailed sky and got the following response.

"Thank you for contacting Sky Help Centre.

We are aware of an issue that is affecting multiple exchanges across the country, which is causing high ping times during peak times.
We are investigating the cause of this issue and hope to have a resolution soon. However, we do not yet have an estimate of when this will be.
Your patience in this matter is appreciated."