I need to be convinced

I'm considering moving to Sky Broadband because I want my phone, tv and broadband with one supplier.
I'm with Zen Internet at the moment and really can't fault them, they've been brilliant, but as you can see My Exchange is not exactly brimming with choice. What are the pros and cons with Sky? Would you recommend them to your family and friends? Are they REALLY unlimited and not throttled or traffic shaped? I really need convincing that I would be doing the right thing.

Yes to unlimited and no throttling, just natural congestion to worry about with other users.

The main downside is the full LLU aspect meaning you may have more fun moving to a another provider who is not full LLU at a later date

I had Sky ADSL and then fibre. I would strongly recommend fibre if you can get it - it's out of this world.

On standard ADSL I was pulling around 200 - 300gb monthly as a household. I synced at 15Mbps and torrents were 1.6Mb/s, general downloads were around the same speed. I had a slowdown for a month or two due to congestion at the exchange but this cleared itself up. Given I've been with Sky for around 8 years now I can't complain.

I then got fibre optic 80Mbps and I shared this with my house and the neighbours (6 of them). So there were 11 of us using it. I could always stream things fine and speeds were still pretty good. Even with 11 people using it I still was getting 60Mbps on downloads and torrents.

I also have BT infinity provided via work for free and honestly the Sky connection is just better. On BT when I'm watching youtube, if I skip part of the video there's a pause for a good 5 seconds, sometimes the video stops working all together and needs a refresh. Also on facebook often pictures don't load at all. This never has happened to me on Sky. Bear in mind my whole house uses the Sky connection - I am the only user of the BT connection, yet the sky one just works better for me.

The Sky hub also gives me better range than the BT HomeHub.
P.s I left my Sky hub connected for 4000 hours and it didn't fault me once. Not one drop out, not one problem. It's a truly set it and forget it router. Doesn't mess you about.

Just make the jump!

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 16-Jul-13 20:37:05)

Guys, thanks for the quick replies they have been helpful. I've just scanned for available wifi in my neighbourhood only 1 Sky connection came up all others were BT, Talktalk and my Zen. I've just got one more question, because my exchange is so small (approx 3000 houses) would that mean the congestion would be fairly light?

Probably, but then you might be blessed with people who are consuming all they can on the few sky connections that exist.

Its the same with any provider, current and past performance may suggest a good bet, but is no guarantee of future performance

In reply to a post by Trev:

Guys, thanks for the quick replies they have been helpful. I've just scanned for available wifi in my neighbourhood only 1 Sky connection came up all others were BT, Talktalk and my Zen. I've just got one more question, because my exchange is so small (approx 3000 houses) would that mean the congestion would be fairly light?

The Sky network is quite heavily invested in. In areas where there is congestion Sky have pretty much always upgraded the exchange backhaul so that there is no longer congestion

Even in major cities it's fine, Sky just invest in more backhaul.

I highly doubt you will see any slowdowns on Sky. If you do, it'll take a couple of months to get resolved but it will be resolved (always has in the past). Sky usually invest before the slowdowns are noticeable though. There's been the odd exception but ultimately it got resolved.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Tue 16-Jul-13 21:24:34)

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

There's been the odd exception but ultimately it got resolved.

Like January to May 2012, and January to April 2013? (I forget exactly how long, but months in each case).

If you're unlucky enough to be in a congested area, then it's hell and remains so for month after month. This experience also provides me the experience to say that Sky 1st line support is bad, really really bad. I can't speak for BT but Zen is 1e100 times better than Sky.

I have both Sky and BT Infinity unlimited fibre from the same cabinet. Currently speeds are similar on both but pings on BT are 6ms while Sky are 30ms - was 20ms, then 1.5 months in I rebooted the router (not modem!) and it increased.

That said, I had a Zen connection on the same exchange some years ago and congestion was awful. At a university town, and literally the day students arrived it'd drop to 300kbits/s from 8Mbit/s, 9am to 2am. That lasted for over a year. It affected everyone non-LLU no matter the provider, so was BT's problem, which is why I went with Sky LLU.

And having said that, I've had ADSL at another address for 10 years (last 8 years with Zen, current sync 17Mbit) which has never, ever shown any congestion issues. Full speed, asymptotically flat out all day every day with fast ping (<20ms, which seems good for ADSL).

I'm not sure what my point is. But Sky wind me up something rotten.

My exchange was affected by congestion. Lets be clear it was only a small amount of exchanges affected to start with & it only became so known as sky held their hands up, listed the affected exchanges and informed people of resolve times.

It lasted start of feb 2012 - mid march 2012 for me.
At the time I wasn't happy as my sync was 15Mbps but my real world speed was 1 - 5 Mbps
Thing is they resolved the congestion completely, gave me 6 months half price TV, line rental for £1 and offered free movies.

Tier one support are bad but whilst I suffered congestion I was assigned to Chris at CST in sky. I had his email and he sent me emails almost daily updating me on what was happening. He also got the executive office to call me back...

Like any company they sometimes get it wrong but in the vast majority of my time with sky they have got it right.

You risk congestion on any ISP. A lot of the others do not upgrade the backhaul when congestion hits whereas sky have the dollar bill to quickly afford the upgrades & always sort it in the affected areas.

I can't moan on the whole with sky customer services. They're usually scottish or Irish and I've discussed my favourite alcoholic drink with them before.

I've never had an ISP with such little downtime as sky either.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 18-Jul-13 13:53:42)

Your sky lines just getting more crosstalk than the BT one

Hence the pings are higher on sky

It you put BT infinity on the sky line
& sky fibre on the curreny BT line

I would bet my life the sky line would then have the good pings and not the BT one

You could always go with Talk talk or a Talk talk wholesale re seller.

Thank you for all the comments. I decided to join Sky Broadband and Anytime Talk and have just put my order in.
I'm really going to miss Zen they have been fantastic, but I needed to consolidate all my services in to one package and reduce my monthly bill.

Once you are online with Sky please please update us. I am sure it's going to work well for you but it's always good to hear.

As a side note. Sky run DLM which is different to other ISPs. It doesn't set a noise margin target but a sync target.

Sky DLM is very strict. It aims to get you on a speed which means the line will not drop. Most ISPs will allow a sync where a line drops once every day or so. Sky aim for total reliability, they do not want a single drop out ever. It's not uncommon to see a Sky line with a connection time of 100+ days without a drop out.

This also means that customers using poor quality phone extensions in their house, or not in the master socket, who have experienced constant drop outs on o2, BE, BT etc... These customers will see a slower sync on sky but crucially their line will not be dropping out. The customer things 'it must have been BT.' It wasn't, it's their bad setup but Sky can somewhat cover this up more than others.

What this means is that you really really need to get the DLM right. It runs for the first 10 days and sets a speed. It may set your line to say 10Mbps. In this case you almost always sync at this speed.

If your setup is right, e.g. in master etc you will see similar speeds to on other ISPs. If it's wrong, you're gonna be slower.

Whilst DLM runs do not unplug the router at all. Just leave it well alone. This way you will get the best speeds.

DLM usually starts you off at 4Mbps, it then monitors the line for a while before increasing the sync (usually around 1 - 3am). At the end of the 10 days it will fix a speed which you can see in mysky. Usually this speed isn't the best speed in the world but it's extremely stable. If your line is near perfect you will see a 3db SNR and a great sync (most people don't get this 3db SNR, they see a slightly slower speed, with a 6/7db SNR).

Over the coming months DLM will keep a close eye on the line. If it's extremely stable DLM will kick in again and you are likely to see even better speeds. For this to occur you need to be keeping the router on 24/7 really.

Best of luck and just remember to keep it connected as every time you switch off it sees as a drop out and sees it as instability.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 18-Jul-13 16:39:46)

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

I would bet my life the sky line would then have the good pings and not the BT one

Well, I hate to tell you but they have been swapped. I'll allow you to rescind your bet

The Sky line has actually been at least two wire pairs now and two ports at the cabinet and exchange. More has gone wrong with my Sky broadband than I have time or memory to reiterate here.

The sky line was swapped, it was still not put down the exact line that the BT line is using. The two are not comparable therefore.
If it had been both lines would be very similar

On fibre line managements the same on all most ISPs.
Also it's important to note that a line fault generally is not isp specific. It sounds as though sky have been trying to atleast rectify the issue.

99% of times a line fault with sky would be a line fault even if you switched to BT or talktalk on that line.

I think you are an isolated case where your sky connection happens to be coming down a bad line. Granted perhaps sky should have resolved this better.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

...... It's not uncommon to see a Sky line with a connection time of 100+ days without a drop out.

Best of luck and just remember to keep it connected as every time you switch off it sees as a drop out and sees it as instability.

It all sounds very good, similar approach that BT have, just a different way round, so as long as the line is stable the best thing for both systems is to have a a small UPS.

Minor mains cuts always trashed my profile when I was on BT, went with O2 in 2007, resync always around 55-5900 no worries, so have decided to wait and see what happens at transfer time to SKY. Longest uptime with O2 -63 days-, with BT 42 days. Always power cuts.

SKY though does appear to have some DLM issues, been following SKY's own forum, to get feel for how they do things, some users have never got above 4meg, even short line as their line is stable the DLM never kicks in, sounds similar to BT's "stuck profiles". Quite a few ex O2ers as well,

It's possibly due to error build up.
I've never seen it get stuck at 4 meg. It can often take 5 or 6 days before the sync gets increased.
I think those stuck at 4 meg have probably been disconnecting the router / changing router settings causing a reboot and resync during those few days.

If DLM sees too many resyncs even on a line that can easily handle 20Mbps it won't increase from 4. I have found DLM to be extremely sensitive. Just one or two resyncs in a day can stop it increasing your speeds.

You never know the full story. I doubt you'll experience any major issues.
When I say uptime I am referring to actual time being synced. Not router uptime.
The router can be on for 100 days but may have dropped sync 20 minutes ago.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Fri 19-Jul-13 13:26:03)

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Just one or two resyncs in a day can stop it increasing your speeds.

When I say uptime I am referring to actual time being synced. Not router uptime.
The router can be on for 100 days but may have dropped sync 20 minutes ago.

Thats why I'll get a UPS, the power only goes for about a 1/2 sec but does it about 20 times in 1/2hour. Then can be OK for weeks and then couple of times week.

Actual sync time 63 days, no LOS, LOF, LOP, LOLink. back to work for now. Cheers

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

The sky line was swapped, it was still not put down the exact line that the BT line is using. The two are not comparable therefore.

Thanks for that information.

I realise I'm not giving you all the details to prove it QED but please just take it as read that I probably know my setup and/or the BTo guys (3-of) who spent nearly three days here do.

I'm not knocking Sky, for the price, but you do get what you pay for.

I do understand you.

Fact is a sky fibre line and a BT fibre line would behave almost identically if they had the same line under the same conditions. Obviously the networks are slightly different but DLM interleaving etc would perform the same way.

Evidently the lines are different, it's not comparable. It's not the isp it's the line. If you were on any ISP with the problematic sky line the same issues would occur.
It's probably not satisfactory that sky haven't resolved them entirely which another ISP may have done better.
Sky do not limit every customer or cause problems to every customer because they are cheap.

FTTC is installed and managed at the fibre cabinet by openreach. All ISPs get the same treatment here. The only line management is at the cabinet and again all ISPs are treated equally here.
Line management is responsible for interleaving etc which in then affects pings.
Clearly it set a higher interleaving depth than the BT line. The only reason for this is that the Sky lines got bigger error build up, perhaps slightly longer, worse grade cable, possibly much more crosstalk than the BT line. This is all physically the line not the isp. Yes they tried different ports etc but its still not a like for like.

I appreciate your bad experiences with sky I really do. They should have resolved this better. Nonetheless you were just unlucky with the bad line

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

Line management is responsible for interleaving etc which in then affects pings.
Clearly it set a higher interleaving depth than the BT line. The only reason for this is that the Sky lines got bigger error build up, perhaps slightly longer, worse grade cable, possibly much more crosstalk than the BT line.

I thought this was interesting as one of my friends has a BT line and the other a Sky line both with very similar attenuation.

The Sky DLM has a sync of 9Mb and has set a 3db SNR and applied significant interleaving to eliminate errors on the line whereas the BT DLM has opted for an 8Mb sync and a 6db SNR and removed interleaving but incurs quite a few CRC errors. Both lines perform well and I doubt either friend would move from their respective ISPs.

Thanks
Tim

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

It's possibly due to error build up.

You never know the full story. I doubt you'll experience any major issues.

Yes I forgot about the errors, posted on PN forum here, re my errors but opinion was should be OK I'll post current below. I hope if and when the O2 transfer goes over all is OK. I have phone with BT so at least that won't move. Note it is ADSL1 on O2 LLU ADSL2+ equipment (long story). Line @ 4.1Km

Uptime: 3 days, 3:04:08
DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A
Channel mode: Interleave
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,159 / 6,264
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 969 / 5,711
Data Transferred (Sent/Received) [kB/kB]: 0.00 / 0.00
Output Power (Up/Down) [dBm]: 12.0 / 19.0
Line Attenuation (Up/Down) [dB]: 31.5 / 55.0
SN Margin (Up/Down) [dB]: 6.0 / 5.0
Vendor ID (Local/Remote): TMMB / BDCM
Loss of Framing (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Signal (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Power (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 8 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 1,421 / 48,420,028
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 1,421 / 1,353
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 493 / 1,065
test socket in week for 1hr
Uptime: 0 days, 1:00:02
DSL Type: G.992.1 annex A
Channel mode: Interleave
Maximum Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 1,163 / 6,300
Bandwidth (Up/Down) [kbps/kbps]: 969 / 5,782
Loss of Link (Remote): 0
Error Seconds (Local/Remote): 0 / 0
FEC Errors (Up/Down): 18 / 9,846
CRC Errors (Up/Down): 21 / 8
HEC Errors (Up/Down): 7 / 8

I'm referring to fibre to the cabinet connections not adsl

On non fibre optic line management is extremely variable between ISPs
On fibre it's not

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

I'm referring to fibre to the cabinet connections not adsl

Oops, thanks.