How can Sky provide such a bad service? Transferred from O2

I had O2 Broadband. It never dropped once in nearly 2 years, it was always my max speed, even at peak times (20Mbit), it never lagged or had any issues. They just took my direct debit each month, and in exchange I received reliable internet. Everyone's happy. But apparently O2 weren't happy, and they sold their broadband to Sky.

Is what they offered just impossible and unmaintainable? I get the impression the home broadband market is primarily price-oriented, and the companies just try to outdo each other on price, and they all provide a bad service as a result. I saw the other day Plusnet are offering broadband for £1.99 per month now - it's getting ridiculous. Bandwidth requirements have gone up, but prices are still dropping. The exchanges are oversubscribed, but consumers seem to still buy primarily on price and nothing else, so that's what the providers cater to. I also miss the times when you didn't have to also switch your phone line over to your broadband provider. It seems that's one of the ways they recoup their money now.

Anyway, I digress. This has been my Sky Broadband experience:

- Get an email telling me that I'll be told when I will be switched over in advance (along with how much I'll be paying etc.) so that I have time to switch. It said that I would not need to get Sky TV or Sky Talk and they'll try to offer me a package at the same price or less. It also said I'll receive a welcome pack. Over 1 year later, having received nothing at all in the post and no emails, I get switched over.
- Get charged £30 (previously was paying around £12). The only way I know is by text, which tells me I can check my bill on some URL.
- That URL requires me to log in, but I don't have an account and have had no instructions whatsoever.
- To use their contact form I also need an account.
- To phone them I have to pay because I don't have Sky Talk.
- I manage to get hold of an email address and write a complaint to ask them what's going on.
- Receive a reply explaining that I am paying a supplement for not having Sky TV and a supplement for not having Sky Talk. This is outrageous. I don't understand how this got past Ofcom. I have to pay for not having something? How is that a thing? I guess they really REALLY want people to get Sky TV, since you will pay either way. The thing is, I don't have a TV. It feels really unfair.
- I was charged for the next month as well because they're changing the billing date (without telling me, what if they caused me to go overdrawn?). But I discovered that my broadband is half price for a year, which means my monthly amount actually works out to be around £12. If it hadn't been, I would have left them on the spot.
- I still haven't received anything by post or anything with an account number on it, and the reply to my complaint didn't explain how I can view my bill or get an account, so I've still been unable to do that.

But regardless of the terrible switchover process and lack of communication, the worst thing is that my service has become much worse.

There have been a few drops, but I'm really frustrated that my speed has become much slower and highly variable. At 3am I might still be able to get my old 20Mbit, but most of the time I get around 10Mbit now. The upload has gone from over 1Mbit to mostly about 300Kbit/s. At peak times my download speed slows right down to below 1Mbit/sec and I am unable to stream things like iPlayer. It buffers every 10 seconds, which basically makes it unwatchable.

I guess I am sharing with all the Sky people now and it's massively oversubscribed. But if I can't stream iPlayer then I am not receiving the service that I pay for. Right now, I would even be willing to pay extra just to go back to what I had before: broadband that always works and is never slow. It's kind of sad that I've been reduced to wanting to pay more just to get what I had before. But when I look around, I see everyone offering super cheap broadband and I think it'll just be more of the same.

My contract for where I live doesn't end for another year, and at that point I think I'll move to a fibre area. Does fibre suffer less from congestion?

Very similar forced migration here from BE

No texts or emails apart from an email with my IP address details and a couple of letters

One of the letters appears to have had the critical information about charges for now having Sky TV or Sky Talk missing. Similar for many others

I knew the migration had happened only after I lost connection on BE

Luckily I remembered I'd had another letter. Opened it and it had my migration date

Re: connection, stats etc

Sky use DLM (Dynamic Line Management) to train your line to the optimal speed. This can last up to 20 days but usually lasts no more than 10 days. It's best to restart or power cycle the router when DLM is running
DLM may cause your connection to have restarts or reyncs usually during the night,

In my case, my stats were pretty much the same 5 mins after I was connected to 22 days later. No resyncs, restarts or anything notable to indicate any DLM was running

I had however noticed a much higher upstream SNR at 9b that the 6db I had on BE. This resulted in a lower upstream speed around 800kbps compared to 1300kbps on BE

My downstream SNR on SKy is 6db as it was on BE
On BE, I had around 9600kbps and on Sky around 9200kbps

I've since discovered the equipment in the exchange I'm connected to is as compatible with the router I have from BE which I it was said would work fine with Sky. It connects fine, but I have a slower connection now

I was offered a Skyhub, but declined as I would have then been locked into a 12 month contract with Sky instead of having no contract presently

The Pro support on the forums or via chat is OK

I'm looking elsewhere but if I do stay with Sky it will be for about 6 mins as that is when my 2nd phone line contract runs out and I can cancel altogether

presume you meant don't switch off the modem a lot during the main DLM phase.

While the major part happens in the first few weeks, have seen the Sky system tweak over a longer period, and the usual SNR margin rules do not always apply, as they have been seen to use power back off if a line is capped, so SNR Margin may not be an absolute guide.

With Be you had a provider who had tweaked the DSLAM to within an inch of its life and tried to run a low latency network too. Sky is much more suited to stability rather than raw speed, i.e. reducing support calls

In terms of stability lots of Sky users will probably attest to the view the Sky Hub devices are slow on the wireless side but very stable devices for the ADSL side of things.

For those with big swings between peak and off peak, varies greatly from area to area and always double check for a big sports event that people might be streaming.

In reply to a post by nredwood:

The Pro support on the forums or via chat is OK

I generally agree with regards to the erratic correspondence after having had a similar experience. I have been with Sky for almost exactly 2 weeks today and found my connection swaying wildly over the course of first 7-10 days. Although, the speeds have stabilised somewhat close to the previous connection with BE. However, there are resets/reconnects happening on a daily basis and the connection stats change on every occasion; albeit close to the previous speeds and noise margin.

In my limited experience, one of the worst so far has been of their forums and the supposed help they provide in form of a 'community' with so many different products. Even where the sections are categorised; the 'co-ordinators' still use a scatter-gun approach to resolve problems, with most of them providing no solution or litter it with patronising remarks, added with a zeal to close these queries/threads almost instantly. IMO, this attitude is not just bad manners or ineptitude but masks the disdain they hold for some of their newer 'migrated' customers.

I still have a few issues remaining that need to be resolved and will most probably use this rolling-contract-free period to evaluate what Sky have to offer and how their service differs from what I was receiving @BE and how quickly I can resolve some of these problems.

A similar experience here. In addition, the Sky engineers managed to disconnect my phone line at the exchange while putting me onto their network, so I had to call in BT to sort it out.

Downstream connection speed is adequate at 18 meg, but I could consistently get over 21 meg with O2 as I have a good line and am fairly close to the exchange. I can't even use my Broadcom-based router to tweak the noise margin at my end, as the profile set by Sky overrides my router settings. Their policy is to impose a minimum noise margin of 6dB, whereas O2 was prepared to move it down to 3dB in suitable circumstances.

The people on the Sky support line try their best to be helpful, but I can't seem to get them to understand that I don't just want an adequate speed, I want the highest speed the line will sustain without dropping.

Alternatives are thin on the ground; essentially it's down to BT, TalkTalk or Virgin. I'd like a fibre connection, but although my exchange is enabled for it, my street isn't, and BT can't tell me when it will be, or indeed if it ever will be. Virgin is ready to provide a cable service, but my house is off the street so installation would mean digging up my garden and driveway. Ah well!

I finally received my first bill from Sky today (the £30 one from months ago). It had been sent to my parents' address! I don't understand how they have managed this. I have not lived with my parents for over 7 years. I have never given O2 my parents address OR Sky. My parents do have Sky and we share a surname, so perhaps it's some kind of mix up on their behalf? I wonder what other correspondence I've missed due to it being sent to the wrong address. It's no wonder I've had no idea what's been going on.

I'm lucky that my parents still live there as they've been trying to move for the last 2 years. But at least now I have a letter from Sky with my customer account number on it, so I can register for MySky.

I'm pleased to say my connection has settled down a bit now. Whilst it is still a couple of MBit slower than it used to be, it's not as slow as it was during the switchover. I still occasionally have to buffer when streaming Netflix (particularly at peak times).

The building where I live are getting hyperoptic.com 1Gbit fibre to the building, so fingers crossed that it's sooner rather than later. Then I will be able to ditch Sky and enjoy truly super fast broadband.

Edited by deleted (Sat 12-Jul-14 15:34:29)

Sky this, Sky that........Isn't the real question "Why did O2/Be sell out"?

My suggestion would be that they had an unsustainable business plan and got out before customer service deteriorated.

I suspect what you are seeing now is "the real world".

Edited by deleted (Sat 12-Jul-14 15:49:15)

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

Sky this, Sky that........Isn't the real question "Why did O2/Be sell out"?

Telefonica tried to get the numbers but it didn't happen. If Sky had only managed 600,000 customers and O2 managed 3 million, we'd have seen the deal go the other way.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

Telefonica tried to get the numbers but it didn't happen. If Sky had only managed 600,000 customers and O2 managed 3 million, we'd have seen the deal go the other way.

Totally agree, but why bash Sky?

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

Totally agree, but why bash Sky?

I don't. It's just how business works.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

Totally agree, but why bash Sky?

I don't. It's just how business works.

I know you don't, but " It's just how business works." - tell that to the Sky bashers who have no business sense.

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

I know you don't, but " It's just how business works." - tell that to the Sky bashers who have no business sense.

I think the bashers are lucky they weren't bought by TalkTalk

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I think the bashers are lucky they weren't bought by TalkTalk

Nice.....

I'm very happy with the switch. Yes I'm now paying more but then again I've changed to FTTC (Sky Fibre Pro). O2 wasn't doing FTTC, and It wasn't available to me then anyway.

So I switched to Sky early taking the offer of free TV for and free BB for a year. I gave up the free broadband when I switched to FTTC. Now after a year of free TV I have kept the TV package but at half price (£16pm) and the broadband with a £10pm discount (@ £20pm).

I'm very happy knowing that Sky's FTTC doesn't use BT Wholesale and therefore is never slow and always reliable.

Good for you. I think you will find that Sky deliver "exactly what it says on the tin".

Edited by deleted (Sat 12-Jul-14 21:10:18)

I think if Sky had provided a stable service like the O2/Be people had previously then there wouldnt be all this 'sky bashing'. Also Sky's admin is a complete contrast to how Be's worked. Be give the personal touch, with Sky is just business.

In reply to a post by 5km:

I'm very happy knowing that Sky's FTTC doesn't use BT Wholesale and therefore is never slow and always reliable.

No, it uses BT OR which is probably wholesaled by BTw.

I'll put it another way so you can understand. For LLU enabled exchanges Sky don't have BT Centrals and don't use the BTw 20/21cn network, they have their own capacity to each exchange. They are therefore unaffected by slow downs and congestion on the BTw 20/21cn networks.

Although if you happen to be connected to a non-LLU exchange then Sky is [censored].

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

No, it uses BT OR which is probably wholesaled by BTw.

Whilst Sky has to use OR's FTTC infrastructure there is no connection to BTwholesale as OR to Sky is connected via GEA links at the FTTC handover exchange. Sky's LLU equipment is therefore connected directly to the OR FTTC path to the end user, so there is no BTw, no WBC, no MSILs or similar.

(TalkTalk and Sky are the only ISPs using GEA - the closest to LLU with FTTC).

I probably asked this before and forgot the answer. Do Sky offer fibre in exchanges where they have no LLU presence, and if yes, what sort of backhaul do they utilise?

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

I probably asked this before and forgot the answer. Do Sky offer fibre in exchanges where they have no LLU presence, and if yes, what sort of backhaul do they utilise?

Not sure we know yet as the fibre's don't always go back to the same exchange as the copper.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

Not sure we know yet as the fibre's don't always go back to the same exchange as the copper.

Ah, yeah. It's relevant at the moment because relatives are getting fibre soon in Market 1 exchanges, and I wouldn't want to advise a Sky product that is choked by working over expensive and limited BT links (e.g. Sky Connect).

Sky only provide Fibre (FTTC) to cabinets where they have a GEA cable link to the NGA node for that cabinet.

As cabinets on small exchanges appear to be getting connected to larger exchanges this simplifies things for Sky as they won't need to take GEA cable links in every exchange.

It is however confusing for customers. I.E. you might be able get Sky FTTC but might not be able to get Sky LLU.

I haven't bashed yet but having Sky TV only I feel I am helping to prop up their free deals just to get more customers paying for the line rental side of things.

500 channels of rubbish and only watching a dozen channels or so and it's increasing from September.

In reply to a post by 5km:

It is however confusing for customers. I.E. you might be able get Sky FTTC but might not be able to get Sky LLU.

So it's fair to say that Sky Broadband Connect type debacles will not happen on Sky Fibre?

Edited by Oliver341 (Sun 13-Jul-14 15:39:21)

Correct.

Sky Fibre will only be available if Sky have the GEA cable link to the NGA node for that cabinet. So no rubbish BTw service for FTTC from Sky.

But this can mean that BT Infinity (an all other BTw FTTC ISP's) are available for months before Sky FTTC becomes available on the same cabinet/exchange.

You're living in fantasy land! Sky have a lot of heavily congested headends for FTTC. Believe me there's plenty of people paying for 40Mb and only getting 10Mb throughput.

Sky rent their backhaul (obviously, they're not going to run their own ducts to thousands of exchanges around the UK) and in my experience they'll leave it until the exchange is actually congested and the complaints flood in before they order more backhaul from BT (which can take a few weeks to become active).

Edited by deleted (Sun 13-Jul-14 18:06:26)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

I know you don't, but " It's just how business works." - tell that to the Sky bashers who have no business sense.

I think the bashers are lucky they weren't bought by TalkTalk

Really? Whats wrong with talktalk? I was so impressed with the low latency and line speeds 24/7 on their residential offering that when my exchange was FTTC'd i jumped without hesitation to their business arm...primarily to get advanced calling features on my landline though a static ip helped as well. The cherry on top of that is AAISP-esque quality UK phone support all for £48 pm

Agreed, their backhaul is better than Sky's in general at the moment.

From my experience with Talk Talk. Their residential customer service is appalling and it takes forever to get issues fixed, The icing the cake was they terminated my service without warning, apparently by accident, and then wanted me to sign up to a new 12 month contract to have it all reactivated again.

Sky do run their own backhaul at larger exchanges which is maintained by Alcatel-Lucent. I discovered this because when we had congestion issues at my local exchange there were delays getting the upgrade done because Alcatel had problems allocating engineers to do the work and on one occasion the engineers could gain access to the exchange building.

The whole congestion issue, around 30 pages worth, is on Sky's help forum. Sky were actually quite good a keeping the whole thing updated when resolution dates slipped and quite a few customer got compensation out of it.

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Really? Whats wrong with talktalk? I was so impressed with the low latency and line speeds 24/7 on their residential offering that when my exchange was FTTC'd i jumped without hesitation to their business arm...primarily to get advanced calling features on my landline though a static ip helped as well. The cherry on top of that is AAISP-esque quality UK phone support all for £48 pm

Around my area serious latency increases and slowdowns at peak periods. Nothing else.

In reply to a post by simon194:

Sky do run their own backhaul at larger exchanges which is maintained by Alcatel-Lucent. I discovered this because when we had congestion issues at my local exchange there were delays getting the upgrade done because Alcatel had problems allocating engineers to do the work and on one occasion the engineers could gain access to the exchange building.

The whole congestion issue, around 30 pages worth, is on Sky's help forum. Sky were actually quite good a keeping the whole thing updated when resolution dates slipped and quite a few customer got compensation out of it.

No they don't. You're getting confused between the equipment that they backhaul may terminate in and the actual backhaul cabling. Believe me, the cabling is owned and run by BT. They don't have any ducts or cabling going into BT's exchanges apart from in some big city centre exchanges which may have some EasyNet (a company Sky bought) cabling going into them.

Edited by deleted (Mon 14-Jul-14 10:06:15)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by baby_frogmella:

Really? Whats wrong with talktalk? I was so impressed with the low latency and line speeds 24/7 on their residential offering that when my exchange was FTTC'd i jumped without hesitation to their business arm...primarily to get advanced calling features on my landline though a static ip helped as well. The cherry on top of that is AAISP-esque quality UK phone support all for £48 pm

Around my area serious latency increases and slowdowns at peak periods. Nothing else.

Most likely TT haven't increased their exchange capacity something BT and Sky are also known for. I've recommended Talktalk LLU to all family/friends and each of them is happy. They've got > 4 million customers so they must be doing something right. People WILL leave an ISP in droves if they provide slow speeds no matter how cheap they are.....remember Orange LLU 6-7 years ago?

Edited by deleted (Mon 14-Jul-14 13:00:38)

In reply to a post by Stevenage_Neil:

Sky this, Sky that........Isn't the real question "Why did O2/Be sell out"?

I suspect that Be sold up in order to start up the superfast fibre company Hyperoptic, as it's the same core team that started Be that are involved with this new project.

Edited by deleted (Mon 14-Jul-14 16:39:15)

In reply to a post by Cypher:

I suspect that Be sold up in order to start up the superfast fibre company Hyperoptic, as it's the same core team that started Be that are involved with this new project.

BE sold out a LONG time ago to O2, and those original founders/management created Hyperoptic.

O2 ran the BE brand with the BE staff and contact centre for many years. BE was owned by O2 when I joined in 2008, and still when I left in 2012, and O2 decided to get out of the ISP business and sold to Sky in 2013.

In reply to a post by Icaras:

No they don't. You're getting confused between the equipment that they backhaul may terminate in and the actual backhaul cabling. Believe me, the cabling is owned and run by BT. They don't have any ducts or cabling going into BT's exchanges apart from in some big city centre exchanges which may have some EasyNet (a company Sky bought) cabling going into them.

Its possible Sky might buy backhaul from Vodafone(formerly C&W) or Virgin Media Business however.

Sky signed a deal with VM to provide backhaul to a third of Sky's unbundled exchanges.

In reply to a post by 5km:

Sky signed a deal with VM to provide backhaul to a third of Sky's unbundled exchanges.

Makes sense. I read somewhere that VMBusiness is likely the second biggest backhaul provider to LLU and mobile phone networks in the UK, second only to BT.

In reply to a post by Icaras:

In reply to a post by simon194:

Sky do run their own backhaul at larger exchanges which is maintained by Alcatel-Lucent

No they don't. You're getting confused between the equipment that they backhaul may terminate in and the actual backhaul cabling. Believe me, the cabling is owned and run by BT.

In reference to www.telecoms.com/144681/virgin-media-sells-backhaul-to-sky-in-49m-d...:

UK fixed line operator BSkyB has signed a £49m backhaul network capacity deal with wholesale provider Virgin Media Business. Under the terms of the contract, Virgin Media Business� network will connect around a third of Sky�s unbundled local exchanges with Sky�s own wholly owned nationwide broadband network.

Edited by deleted (Thu 24-Jul-14 21:09:51)

You're living in fantasy land! Sky have a lot of heavily congested headends for FTTC. Believe me there's plenty of people paying for 40Mb and only getting 10Mb throughput.

Lets straighten things out. Areas which have slowdowns WILL have the backhaul upgraded. There may be a very small percentage of users with backhaul issues however this is the case with all ISPs. Sky are very vocal and honest on their forum and they do upgrade the backhaul. Other ISPs generally deny backhaul issues, tell the user to try another router, another wireless channel, tell them the issue is their operating system, or say that their broadbnd isn't compatible with windows XP or something daft.

Sky rent their backhaul (obviously, they're not going to run their own ducts to thousands of exchanges around the UK) and in my experience they'll leave it until the exchange is actually congested and the complaints flood in before they order more backhaul from BT (which can take a few weeks to become active).

Yes and no. Sky did purchase a fair amount of backhaul, especially from easynet. They do rent from VM business and obviously BT as well. So it's a definite mix here. In terms of the network Sky have it is extremely vast. There's a lot of Sky bashing from you here. I don't love Sky but they aren't THAT bad.

BT also use VM Business amongst others for backhaul

In reply to a post by nredwood:

BT also use VM Business amongst others for backhaul

Yeah, not surprised! Telcos help each other, so if VM have lots of fibre into a site, and it would cost BT silly money, they can provide service via VM's fibres. They obviously have a Telco-to-Telco cross charging rate.