Slower speed with Sky

I was with O2 broadband from when they started and migrated to Sky early June to take up there offer. I have found that since the original waiting period for the speed to settle down my overall speed is slower than with O2.
My sync speed with O2 was around 8.6Mbps down and 1.325Mbps up now the maximum I get is 7.3Mbps down and only 0.7Mbps up. I am sure someone on here can explain why as Sky seem incapable of answering my questions.

Different providers have different ways of running the lines. Sky tend to run their DLM and then cap the speed to what they believe is the best most stable speed.

O2 tended to run lines faster which for those with stable lines was great.

Without seeing the attenuation, exact connection speeds and noise margin figures from before and after it is hard to say more.

In theory you can call Sky support and get things tweaked, but seeing the router data will show us whether its worth pestering them.

I had the same problem when I switched from O2 to Sky over 18 months ago. I went from 10.5/1.2 to 7/0.6 ish but the line was more stable. Strangely in the past couple of weeks I noticed my transfer rates were improving and the line is now on 9.2/1.0 and it appears to coincide with the line switching from MER to PPPoA.

Sky have deep interleaving turned on as standard. AIUI they won't turn it off.

Me too !! but still on the 10 day test.

The 10 days is just the time frame that Sky usually believe things will have settled down, but as I have found the speeds can go up and down beyond that and am currently at the fastest either of my lines have ever been

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest/results.html...

42dB downstream attenuation, usually and around 8.5 Mbps sync these days and that is with Sky limiting me to ADSL2 rather than ADSL2+

I used to be with Be* (same network as O2) and I could get a reasonably stable (dropped once or twice a week, sometimes had to force a re-sync if it synced at 7Mbs) 10Mbps at 3dB noise margin because I pushed it to the limit. With Sky, I initially ended up on around 6.5Mbps. After some tweaking via Tier 2 support, I now get a rock solid, stable 8.1Mbps at 6-7dB.

Yes, my line can go faster, but it's not completely stable at those speeds so Sky won't push it any harder.

Ultimately, Sky look for stability over speed and that's the way it is.

I got things looked at by using the online contact form, detailed exactly what my previous connection stats were and pointed out the large difference in speeds (from 10 down to 6.5Mbps). This then got passed to Tier 2 support who worked their magic. Given that you haven't seen that huge a drop (compared to what mine was), I doubt you'll get much joy out of them, but all you can do is ask.

As has been mentioned sky go for absolute stability not speed.

Sky tries to get a speed which means your line will never drop out. Most customers have poor internal wiring etc and this way of doing things mean even they have a stable connection.

With your slower speed.
It'll be because the O2 speed was not totally stable.
The line probably had a drop out once a day or so, but that wouldn't be stable enough for sky. Most people don't even notice drop outs.
You'll notice a sky line can have an uptime of half a year quite often without drop outs.

Ultimately most customers want it to work. They're happy to lose some speed if their lines totally stable and perfect. Sky's mass market and that's what it's going for.

If your lines stable enough sky can give a 3db noise margin. Also DLM kind of always runs so if the lines entirely stable in a few months the speeds may get better still.

You mention 0.7 up. That's odd.

DLM nearly always gives higher.

If you ring and ask customer services to tweak the line or do anything on the line speed they give a 0.7 upload. Did you do this?

Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 04-Jul-13 13:28:28)

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Different providers have different ways of running the lines.

How do BT/PlusNet run their lines. On the verge of asking for MAC code from O2 due to various A/C issues and hearing of others with lower speeds- mostly on longer lines like me when moving to SKY. Was with BT way back in '07, got 4700 atten. 55, on 02 LLU now av 57-5800 on ADSL1 992.1. atten 55 and 61-6200 when it ADSL2+ 992.5. atten 58! Line is dead stable on both.

Edited by deleted (Thu 04-Jul-13 17:10:36)

A search would have brought up at least three other threads that would have told you what people here have stated.

Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-Search-

Hi I have spoke to customer services on several occasions and got no joy at all. I pointed out that all the time I was with O2 my SNR was set at 3dB with virtually no problems but they all stated that they couldn't reduce my SNR to 3dB's as the system wouldn't let them !.

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 7328 kbps 796 kbps
Line Attenuation 43.5 dB 24.5 dB
Noise Margin 4.1 dB 13.13 dB

Some of my stats.

Thanks drummerjohn if it takes 15 searches to get an answer I won't bother.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

As has been mentioned sky go for absolute stability not speed.

Sky tries to get a speed which means your line will never drop out.

It'll be because the O2 speed was not totally stable.
Most people don't even notice drop outs.
You'll notice a sky line can have an uptime of half a year quite often without drop outs.

Ultimately most customers want it to work. They're happy to lose some speed if their lines totally stable and perfect.

When you say drop outs do you mean the: Uptime: 63 days, 17:06:31

I'm happy to lose speed for stability as long as its not syncing below 4000 otherwise iplayer etc don't work. Just the whole debacle of SKY CS is what makes me want to leave O2 before the full takeover.

It looks like they have probably already put you on a 3db noise margin as its far below 7db. Unless your line is flappy SNR.

Looking at the stats the noise margin is already pretty low.

It could just be the sky equipment is further away in the exchange or something
Honestly there's not more sky can give you looking at the current stats,

It looks like it was definitely manually set by customer services at some point. This is why the uploads at 0.7Mbps as only the automatic management can set a higher upload unless you're seeing 18Mbps

DLM never stops running so its likely thats kicked in after customer services altered it. It's unlikely to change the upload without being manually forced to run from the start though.

You could risk having DLM run again a fresh
It will increase the upload but I think you'll see lower speeds as its likely to put the SNR to 7

Thanks for the helpful advice, it is working and very stable so I'll put up with it the way it is.

Edited by deleted (Thu 04-Jul-13 21:32:42)

I had the same 0.7 speed up. It never went any higher.

I'm getting about the same on Sky as I did with O2.

The difference with O2 was I had to manually change the SNR Margin to 3db on my router. With Sky I'm getting a similar sync with no change to the SNR Margin (because it can't be changed). The margin with the Sky router is around 6~7db but with a sync only a few kbps short of what I had with O2 (a few hundred kbps short on the upload though).

Connection Speed 15355 kbps 1116 kbps
Line Attenuation 29.5 dB 18.1 dB
Noise Margin 6.5 dB 7.7 dB

Well whenever BT get around to upgrading my local exchange (North Shields) to fibre I might be tempted to pay the extra but there is no sign of that happening anytime soon unless someone on here knows different.

North Tyneside Council declined the offer of funding from central government (BDUK) as they didn't want to provide matching funding.

Therefore if BT have decided it's commercially unviable then it could be a long time

http://www.northtyneside.gov.uk/browse-display.shtml...

According to the guy at Sky this afternoon my local exchange will be taken over by Sky in the next couple of months and Fibre will be available. Having tried asking the same question in the online chat I have after a few attempts of using this system come to the conclusion that it is a complete waste of time, there is definitely a barrier between what I ask and what replies come back.....

All online chat systems are terrible no matter what business. The AOL, Sky, BT, DELL etc. They just end up forwarding you to a phone number as they are clueless.

PM me your post code and I will look up fibre in your area and see if there's any rollout plans that I can see.

As far as I can tell there is no current plans to bring fibre optic to the area.
It's not even in the future plans currently.

That's what I thought, duff info from Sky again....

After going around and around in circles with BT on the phone eventually he stated it would be Spring 2014 for Infinity...

Only Openreach know the plans, and they're not contactable by phone.