Thinking of joining sky broadband

I'm currently with O2 and I'm thinking of joining sky with the unlimited broadband package with upto 20MB download speed. I currently get around 18-19 MB download speed with O2, when I phone sky they said I'm estimated at 8-10MB.

Will I still be getting the same speeds as O2 or will changing to sky really reduce my download speeds to 8-10MB?

Is SKY unlimited broadband truely unlimited or is there a hidden download limit

How reliable is SKY's broadband service

How good is their customer service and support

And finnaly, does sky have traffic management / traffic shapping and will there be any problems with torrent downloads

Thanks

You should get basically the same speeds as with O2, except in two respects.

First I think the default noise margin is 7 or 8dB, not O2's 6dB which at one point you had reduced to 3dB. I doubt if Sky would do that for you.

Second I would be almost sure you couldn't have Annex M on Sky. The result would be a rise in downstream, almost certainly cancelled out by the higher noise margin, and a fall in downstream to 1.3Mbps maximum.

Also!

If you are thinking of saving money by going Sky Unlimited plus Phone Line Rental, that is Full LLU and a total pain to leave.

Sky Unlimited plus Sky Calls is safe.

don't sky having problems across the whole UK

Depends on the area.....but then again o2 are also having issues in certain areas wth slow downs

I thought the default was 7db as well but I'm currently on 5.9db occasionally fluctuating to 6db

Sky unlimited is also a total pain to join when they don't send you a router!

talked to level 2 and they said they getting reports of problems all over the place

I'm in the same position as the author of this topic. That is to say, I'm with O2, but only getting about 6300kbps downstream with 48.5db loss. My noise margin is set to about 3-4db, I think.

Therefore, Sky's ability to actually deliver up to 20 Mbits over their network isn't really a concern for me. I'm more interested in whether I could use my own router. I have a DGND3300v2 that I like and don't want to consign to the drawer of electronic junk in my spare room!

I hear all sorts of nasty stories about Sky's abysmal routers and support for anything other than same being non-existent. Can someone clarify the position relating to settings and account login details etcetera? I suppose I'd like to also here that Sky don't shape peer to peer traffic, as I like to peruse the torrent offering on Pirate Bay every once in a while

In reply to a post by ukpm:

Therefore, Sky's ability to actually deliver up to 20 Mbits over their network isn't really a concern for me. I'm more interested in whether I could use my own router. I have a DGND3300v2 that I like and don't want to consign to the drawer of electronic junk in my spare room!

I hear all sorts of nasty stories about Sky's abysmal routers and support for anything other than same being non-existent. Can someone clarify the position relating to settings and account login details etcetera?

Not actually moved to Sky myself yet, but figured I�d reply to this as nobody else had. Based on what I�ve read it looks like Sky insist on you using their router, and their T&Cs state you must. They will not supply you with the user id and password details to configure your own, however if you do a bit of googling you should find ways to extract this information from your router without too much trouble. I guess as long as you plug their router in before asking for any support you should be okay.

Like most routers nowadays the 3300 I have can clone a MAC address, which is usually sufficient to fool most ISP gateways into allowing a connection - with the proper sign in credentials, of course.

You can then, as you say, just plug in the Sky router if you need telephone support etc.

There was some piece of EU legislation coming through about ISP-supplied and ISP-locked modems and routers. Basically they won't be allowed, as land fills are being clogged with all this unwanted tech. You can just imagine how many there are, with people changing ISP every year. I have about four BT routers of one flavour or another, two from Orange, two from O2/Be and a few randomly bought models used to replace or annex the awful sh*t the ISP gave me in the first place!

What a waste.

For what it's worth there is no need for mac spoofing. Simply extract the details ( username and password ) from your supplied router and use them with any router you choose, it works fine

Edited by Finguz (Tue 01-Feb-11 15:29:55)

I f you do go to sky, and go on for the (SMPF adsl only),so keeping your line with bt, you may gain a bit of sync speed by using a router with a connexant chip, such as a netgear dg834g v5 or a billion 7204 series router these are a very good match for the old easynet Dslams, as the new svbn (sky ) or what ever they are called have a different chipset

May not outlaw the practice, but may require the provider to take the kit back.

Or it may mean a move to dumb bridging modems and buying ethernet routers of your choosing. Thus reducing security for those that connect PC direct to bridge modem.

Openreach with the VDSL2 modem have taken this route, and is very common in US.

I note that there are two or three different routers that Sky supply, or at least have supplied in the past. My Mum had the free Sky broadband (BT not LLU) installed a few years ago and was given a DG834GT, which is actually quite a good router when you leave the firmware alone!

Can I assume there are 'credential discovery tools' available for whatever router they send out? I don't think I could bear to use some Sagem piece of garbage.

Yes, the Dlink 2640 is the newest addition and the 'tool' for it became available just before xmas. The other routers were cracked a while ago

I actually like the idea of having everything from one provider. I'm just not sure I want that provider to be Sky. Phone line rental and unlimited broadband for £11.00/month is a good price, just maybe not a good deal.
I'm definitely more likely to go for it now I know I can stick with my DGND3300 - it's been an excellent router which never needs restarted. Just checked the uptime, it's at 2133 hours which is nearly 90 days

My Sky Dlink 2640 is catching up...1855:33:59!

Edited by Finguz (Thu 03-Feb-11 17:07:18)

Hi. I'm also interested in possibly joining Sky Broadband at some point soon, and I'd like to know the answers to these questions. Unfortunately, it seems all the (current) replies have not actually answered the questions in the post; it seems the posts are all about Routers, which I don't believe was even mentioned once in the first post.

I'd like to know the answers to the questions in the post, being:
- Is it truly unlimited? FUP?
- How reliable...?
- How good is customer service and support?
- Do they traffic shape at all? Are torrents ok?

And one of my own questions, relating to the last: Do they do any of this three-strikes policy rubbish? I do not wish to be with Sky if there is absolutely ANY question that certain downloads would have action taken against. I'm currently with Be and have NEVER had a problem with torrents. This is perhaps the most important question for me, so I would greatly appreciate a detailed response on this (if one feels I need to make a new thread, I happily shall.)

Thank you!

Edited by deleted (Sun 13-Feb-11 20:08:41)

Its what I want to know too but everyone seems to go off on a tangent.

- Is it truly unlimited? FUP?
- How reliable...?
- How good is customer service and support?
- Do they traffic shape at all? Are torrents ok?

Yes it's unlimited!

Very reliable, with my uptime approaching 3 months using the supplied router!

Customer service is ok.

No shaping that I have seen and torrents will be fine, but usenet is better

No three strikes that I have heard about.

Edited by Finguz (Sun 13-Feb-11 20:53:08)

In reply to a post by Domsy:

Hi. I'm also interested in possibly joining Sky Broadband at some point soon, and I'd like to know the answers to these questions. Unfortunately, it seems all the (current) replies have not actually answered the questions in the post; it seems the posts are all about Routers, which I don't believe was even mentioned once in the first post.

I'd like to know the answers to the questions in the post, being:
- Is it truly unlimited? FUP?
- How reliable...?
- How good is customer service and support?
]- Do they traffic shape at all? Are torrents ok?

And one of my own questions, relating to the last: Do they do any of this three-strikes policy rubbish? I do not wish to be with Sky if there is absolutely ANY question that certain downloads would have action taken against. I'm currently with Be and have NEVER had a problem with torrents. This is perhaps the most important question for me, so I would greatly appreciate a detailed response on this (if one feels I need to make a new thread, I happily shall.)
Thank you!

- Is it truly unlimited? FUP?

That's what they advertise it as, and i haven't found any reports to suggest otherwise,evey isp has a FUP, but some don't ever enforce it so i would say yes on that one

- How reliable...?

Again apart from some areas, no issues with congestion,as for network faults these should they occur are generally fixed asap,

- How good is customer service and support?

Based on some mixed view points of some sky customers they say both good & bad, but they are compared to some isp's doing it on a shoestring, so they typically are overseas call centres (tier1 tech support) and read from scripts, they would appear not to readily provide manual/custom profiles, (snr,sra, pure fast path) though there are reports of this,happening but how reliable the info is, i dunno

]- Do they traffic shape at all? Are torrents ok?

iIhave not found any info to suggest that they currently throttle p2p torrent's ect or shape other traffic, so is in my opinion unshaped at the moment, & within their T&C's do stipulate that users must use the sky supplied junk router, hence why the comment about routers, which is best , that depends on whether sky bb &phone (full llu) or Adsl only smpf(phoneline with bt) for the later they usually will use the older easynet dslams and conexant chipped routers obtain higher sync rates than the supplied routers, if phone to, reports suggest either broadcom or lucent -alcatel chipped work best

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 13-Feb-11 21:07:20)

I was under the impression that all isp over a certain size would be required to become part of the three strike system , to include BE .

That's if the scheme is ever implemented , but those downloading copyrighted torrents will find what there doing will become harder and harder by government decree .

You can run and you can hide , but to not do either will mean you will be caught .