Sky vs. Be

I've taken the plunge and ordered Sky Unlimited along with their TV, phone and line rental. At the moment I enjoy a faultless service from Be but wanted to roll all my providers into one and enjoy a little saving plus a bit more choice on the TV side of things.

Anyhoo, I've had a solid 10meg download from Be the entire time I've been with them. I know this is overly simplistic but will I get the same from Sky? Surely they're both LLU so nothing should change? Right?

Sky work to a to a 7db SNRM minimum and use DLM , so i would expect to lose a little of your download and upload from when you where at BE if your lines a good line , or lose allot if your lines not a good one .
.
Also Sky use a very heavy level of interleaving that may help or not but it does increase latency allot .
You could get this interleaving reduced by going on there gaming profile , so its not a huge issue , just something you should keep in mind .

Also Sky have a training period where they start your line at a 4mb sync then increase it till DLM or the 7db SNRM fix your speed , think this is over 10 days , i could be wrong about the length of time sky take to train your line though .

It all depends on how important the sky telly is to ya really,. cause there isn't alot of difference between the the 2, apart from the one size fits all as far as sky are concerned , hell if i could afford to i would sign up to a Easynet connect product will beat the pants of both of em, fast path,custom profiling,lower contention and prioritised traffic flow with the compatible router of course and you get some results not rivaled by others, like others the only thing that lets it down is poor implementation the iwf block list they all choose cheapo mode unfortunately for the poor subscriber

So deciphering the technical points in your replies, I shouldn't notice much difference? And 'gaming mode' can be enabled just like on Be. The line seems to be pretty good ie I've never had disconnections or speed fluctuations. Sky's speed estimate doesn't seem far off what I get now but who believes estimates? And yes they do quote 10 days for the line to settle but that's no problem.

Just a thought but would posting my existing Be line stats give an idea of what could happen with Sky?

Oh one more thing. As I understand it Sky supply a Netgear DG834G (they still make those!). Could someone point me in the direction of some advice about using my own DGN3500? I had a look round but didn't seem to find much info.

In reply to a post by rich1068:

So deciphering the technical points in your replies, I shouldn't notice much difference? And 'gaming mode' can be enabled just like on Be. The line seems to be pretty good ie I've never had disconnections or speed fluctuations. Sky's speed estimate doesn't seem far off what I get now but who believes estimates? And yes they do quote 10 days for the line to settle but that's no problem.

Just a thought but would posting my existing Be line stats give an idea of what could happen with Sky?

Oh one more thing. As I understand it Sky supply a Netgear DG834G (they still make those!). Could someone point me in the direction of some advice about using my own DGN3500? I had a look round but didn't seem to find much info.

Sky supply other routers as well, so not sure which one you will get.

To use your own router you will nee to extract the username/password hidden in the router.

Ifyou pop over to the forums on skyuser.co.uk:
http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/extracting-sky-router... you can see if they have found a way to extract the details from the router sent to you

Spooky. Just found that but thanks for the link. I'll see how I go with whatever Sky send me but I've been happy with the DGN3500 and I've a feeling wireless range could be an issue with the Sky router. Gigabit LAN speeds are also a bonus.

Speaking of which, my Cat5e has been playing up. Maybe the Sky engineer will help me replace it for a cup of tea and the correct financial renumeration

Well sky gaming mode is not the same thing as what be there offer, with be you could switch from interleave to fastpath or near as via the control panel if on unlimited or pro, and a call to support if you wanted pure fastpath, also by default the latency wasn't too bad on the default profile on be*
Where as on sky there is no option for the user to switch /change anything via a control pannel, sky don't provide one, and by default the latency is higher than be, they profess to do a gaming mode, all they basically will do is lower the delay ,and will no enable fastpath

Edited by tommy45 (Mon 20-Jun-11 13:54:48)

In reply to a post by rich1068:

Spooky. Just found that but thanks for the link. I'll see how I go with whatever Sky send me but I've been happy with the DGN3500 and I've a feeling wireless range could be an issue with the Sky router. Gigabit LAN speeds are also a bonus.

Speaking of which, my Cat5e has been playing up. Maybe the Sky engineer will help me replace it for a cup of tea and the correct financial renumeration

It will not be a SKY engineer, it would be a Openreach engineer.

Also are you sure that you have an engineer install, unusual this day and age for adsl.

And as i have already said ,there will be no problem using your own router. The problem comes in finding out your username/password that is embedded in the SKY supplied router.

Also using your own router on SKY woulod be breaking their T&C,but as you will also read on the forums, I like many others had or are using their own routers fore years and nobody has been cut off.
Obviousley, if you have a support request. mentioning that you were using a NON sky router would end the support call pronto.

Why is it tea and bickies nearly always work

Sorry, I was referring to when the Sky chap comes to fit the dish etc. I'm due to get the TV side of things this Friday and the broadband and line rental changeover the following Friday.

Yes, I read about the T&Cs. Like most I suppose I'll take my chance. Obviously I'll wait until the line has settled and see if I need to make the switch.

Hi Rich, I have just gone over to Sky from O2 (before O2 I was with BE). I had about 12.5Mb download and 1.1 up. Since I have gone over I have about 13.2 down and 1 up. Everything went smoothly (thankfully). I do know that there are people that have problems, but that is the way of life. Thankfully mine went OK. It does take a few days to settle down as described earler. Mine took about 4 days. This is the latest test result.
Results from http://www.speed.io
(Copied on 2011-06-20 15:37:58)
Download: 13286 Kbit/s
Upload : 1024 kbit/s
Connects : 2353 conn/min
Ping: 27 ms
Good luck

Edited by deleted (Wed 22-Jun-11 20:28:21)

Excellent. Nice to know things can go the other way.

Well I've been sent the Sagem (?). Totally unfamiliar with this brand. We'll see how I get on with it.

I'm just leaving Sky. The BB was good, but beware the prices. It went from free, to £5 to £10 to £15 - then should have gone back to £7.50 (if I had tied myself to another 12months contract) but was missold by their staff. It used to be fantastic value, but now not so much.

The big issue with switching to Sky is that if you want to leave, then the problems begin. It will cost you upto £125 to get the line switched away from Sky, and they wont hand over your number, so you lose your telephone number. Something they don't exactly shout about when they sign you up.

In reply to a post by Spacemanc:

The big issue with switching to Sky is that if you want to leave, then the problems begin. It will cost you upto £125 to get the line switched away from Sky, and they wont hand over your number, so you lose your telephone number.

Sounds like they are breaking OFCOM guidelines then.

From: http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/telephone/switching_pro...

If you�re staying at the same address and your number is active, your current provider must allow it to be transferred to a new phone company.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by Spacemanc:

The big issue with switching to Sky is that if you want to leave, then the problems begin. It will cost you upto £125 to get the line switched away from Sky, and they wont hand over your number, so you lose your telephone number.

Sounds like they are breaking OFCOM guidelines then.

From: http://ask.ofcom.org.uk/help/telephone/switching_pro...

If you�re staying at the same address and your number is active, your current provider must allow it to be transferred to a new phone company.

Im not sure if the rules even apply to LLU - even if they do a quick internet search will show you that many people have problems with losing their number when switching from LLU providors - Sky included.

Do you think any of these companies give a **** what Ofcom say? I get the impression that they dont.

In reply to a post by Spacemanc:

Im not sure if the rules even apply to LLU

Can't see why it wouldn't.

even if they do a quick internet search will show you that many people have problems with losing their number when switching from LLU providors - Sky included

Yes, that's a shame.

Do you think any of these companies give a **** what Ofcom say?

Probably not, which is why we need to make complaints to OFCOM more often.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Probably not, which is why we need to make complaints to OFCOM more often.

I agree wholeheartedly - but have you tried complaining about issues such as this to Ofcom? You cant even do it! All complaints are pushed to ADR with the supplier

Or just don't go for LLU for phone service, just broadband.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Or just don't go for LLU for phone service, just broadband.

It does limit ones options a bit though, which hinders competition. But above all else it's just plain deceptive to tell customers wanting to leave that they will lose their telephone number, probably as some devious retention tactic.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Or just don't go for LLU for phone service, just broadband.

Yep - I've learnt the hard way.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

It does limit ones options a bit though, which hinders competition. But above all else it's just plain deceptive to tell customers wanting to leave that they will lose their telephone number, probably as some devious retention tactic.

Competition in telecoms is a bit of a joke - there is competition and I actually believe we get a pretty good deal in the UK despite what the press often reports, but theres also alot of monopolistic behaviour and misselling from all the big providors.

I think that what needs to be done is something similar to railways - a non profit single nationalised network, with providers selling services on it. I suppose Openreach is meant to be something like that, but it clearly isn't. The LLU providers have spent billions, trying to compete with BT - as soon as they become real competition, BT lays fibre and we're back to square one. Are the LLU providers expected to now install 10's of thousands of their own street cabinets to compete? Not going to happen, so countless billions wasted on duplicated tech, which could probably have been spent on providing FTTP for all.

In reply to a post by Spacemanc:

Are the LLU providers expected to now install 10's of thousands of their own street cabinets to compete?

No, we have Virtual Unbundled Local Access (VULA) and Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) instead.

Edited by Oliver341 (Mon 27-Jun-11 11:58:32)

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by Spacemanc:

Are the LLU providers expected to now install 10's of thousands of their own street cabinets to compete?

No, we have Virtual Unbundled Local Access (VULA) and Physical Infrastructure Access (PIA) instead.

From what I can see PIA is just access to the poles and ducts - so it would still involve massive duplicated infrastructure costs - I could only see that being worthwhile for expensive commercial connections.

VULA sounds better, but BT will still own the network which is where the problem is. It should be independent! BT will apparently be allowed to charge costs plus "investment risk" - I can see there being all kind of fun and games when they calculate that.

I thought I'd report back.

The move from my existing providers to Sky has been seamless, the service has been excellent, everything is working as it should and though I think I've still got a day or two of 'training' left the speeds are comparable with Be. Very satisfied.

I've read leaving Sky is a whole new kettle of ballgames but I'll worry about that later.

And I got my £100 M&S vouchers last week too

:edit:

I should add that the Sagem modem/router is performing well too. In fact I see no point in changing to my Netgear. The wireless range is perfectly adequate.

Edited by rich1068 (Mon 11-Jul-11 09:37:38)