Sky Fibre Pro Opinions?

Never used Sky fibre before, what are your opinions of Fibre Pro? What's the customer service like and where is it based? Thanks in advance.

In reply to a post by Spud2003:

Never used Sky fibre before, what are your opinions of Fibre Pro? What's the customer service like and where is it based? Thanks in advance.

I can't comment on their Fibre service but as for their Customer Service (Or lack of it) I would rate them a Zero.
I am moving from Sky to Pulse8 Fibre this coming Monday and I have found Pulse8 to be the complete opposite. They respond to emails in a timely manner and you can actually get straight through to a customer service person on the phone without having to go through the 'press 1 for this' etc.

The ADSL service in all fairness from Sky has been problem free, but the CS lets them down badly in my opinion.

I was with Sky for around 4 years. No major issues, customer service much better than BT and TalkTalk in my experience. It was always Scottish or Irish, I do not believe I ever spoke to a foreign call centre. The biggest gripe is the poor router they provide.

Connection wise, was always very stable and fast without any slowdowns (apart from some congestion which did get resolved).

I had Fibre 38Mbps, not fibre pro.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Wed 27-Jul-16 15:32:27)

Why aren't many people on Sky Fibre Pro? It's still not pushed properly on the website either.

I was always told that it was because they haven't got the captivity in their network to support it properly. I do wonder now if it's because they've got poor routers too?

I had sky fibre pro years ago. It never fell short of 80Mbps, and download speeds around 73Mbps... although over wireless I was lucky to get 35Mbps.

Their router is not dual band so over wireless it's unlikely to reach the full speeds.

They do have a new sky q router which is dual band but I believe it's only provided to sky q TV customers.

Edited by ukhardy07 (Wed 27-Jul-16 16:58:16)

The Sky Q Hub is now also available to non-Sky TV customers who use Sky Broadband. I think it's £20 for new customers (otherwise it's the SR102), £59 as an upgrade for existing customers.

Because Std FTTC at 40/10 is more than needed for most of the Sky client base. I have been on FTTC 40/10 for 3+ years & although I have thought about upgrading several times, the extra £120 a year is just a waste of money as it gives no benefit to me. I use the service every day and it just works. So the way I look at this is if I do not need it, then then 99%+ do not need the FTTC Pro at 80/20.

Agree with this. I had 38Mbps with BT and now upgraded to 55. Absolutely no noticeable difference unless I am downloading something huge (10Gb or larger).

In fact I got upgraded and did not realise for a few weeks!

A few years ago I went from 80 to 40, and now on 55.
Initially switching from 80 to 40 was a concern of mine, but once I did it, I realised it made no difference to me. Still able to stream multiple Netflix HD at once, able to have Youtube running on multiple devices, can have one person gaming and another downloading without any impact.

In fact, I think downgrading actually helped me out. On the fastest package my noise margin was often 5db, with significant interleaving and pings quite high. Since getting 40 and now 55Mbps, my noise margin is around 9db with no interleaving necessary at this sync speed and very low pings. I would say my connection is better at 55Mbps and 40Mbps than on the fastest package speed.

For me, I do not see any point paying the extra and I would always advise a user to get the slower fibre speed & if they feel they need the increase, to then upgrade after. Plus, plenty of users are on wireless and do not own technology capable of pulling the full speed over wireless.

No idea why they don't promote it more, unless it's because they know that it is a bit overpriced compared to their main competitors' "80/20" product (well maybe it isn't so much overpriced now, but it was definitely so in the past). I've had a £10 pm discount on Pro since April 2014, which I renew by negotiation each year (currently on that deal for the third time), making it the same price as the "40/10" product. Otherwise I would drop back to the "40/10" product, which I started on in April 2012 and was quite adequate. I don't think core network capacity is an issue for Sky.

Edited by speedyrite (Thu 28-Jul-16 08:09:50)

I have been with Sky pro since October. Always get full 76mbps, never seen any slowdown or had any issues.

I have the Sky Q router which for me is pretty good but I do use Ethernet in places.

As far as support goes Sky Pro in my opinion is the best or the lot having previously been with Zen. Any issues you can use the online chat and speak direct to a dedicated support team for Pro users.

I've had Sky Fibre Pro for 4 years now and never had any problems with speed apart from a general deterioration of the cabling in the area which has caused a 20 Mbps drop in speed over the past two years.

Support has been very good and they don't really care if you don't use the Sky supplied router, I can't write on here what one guy called the SR102 but now I have Q I use the Q hub now which is definitely better than the 102. Only problem I at the moment is my Q hub didn't power up after a power cut yesterday afternoon so I'm waiting for a new one to turn up.

I'm on the Broadband Pro service (still waiting for local upgrade to fibre) having come over in Sky's purchase of BE a few years ago. The Pro (ADSL & fibre) customer service team is the old BE team based in Bulgaria and are well known for their expertise and technical knowledge.

if sky have issues, it is not with their network capacity, which I happen to think is the best consumer network in the country. Other providers with their own networks such as BT and VM have had significantly more capacity related issues than sky.

The supplied router is a bit trash, but you can use your own if you ok configuring DHCP authentication. Ironically even tho sky dont support using 3rd party routers, using the DHCP protocol I have found far more stable than PPPoE, generally I get no disconnections unless my sync goes down or the router itself has an issue. Whilst on both plusnet and BT I would get occasional disconnections every 2-4 weeks on average.

Sky fibre pro customers can have a static ip with no premium added to the monthly price.

There is two support teams, the standard sky support which always seems UK based, and there is the old BE tech support team (i think belgian) on the forums and dedicated fibre pro number.

I would rate sky tech support on the phone (standard team) above plusnet and BT phone support, but plusnet forum staff are better than sky forum staff.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

There is two support teams, the standard sky support which always seems UK based, and there is the old BE tech support team (i think belgian) on the forums and dedicated fibre pro number.

Sofia, Bulgaria.

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2013/08/sky-to-...

thanks for correcting as I was not sure.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

thanks for correcting as I was not sure.

NP they were excellent when I was a BE customer. Sky couldn't install in my street, so I went to plusnet.

What are typical waiting times to talk to Sky support on phone and chat - my experience of BT, for instance, is that being in a call queue for a minimum of 15 minutes(often worse) was typical.

Edited by Spud2003 (Thu 04-Aug-16 18:40:04)

The last couple of times I've had to call Sky's support I've got through straight away.

I have barely rang them. The service has generally been good enough I have not needed to contact them, when I last contacted them it was in regards to g.inp and all that was done online. The chat had no waiting time.

It's all changing now because, as of 17th August, Sky no longer sells Sky Fibre Pro, it's been replaced with Sky Fibre Max at £25 pm, and along with it has gone static IP addresses and the dedicated support team.

Existing customers will stay on Pro but if you move, as I am in a couple of months, you get put on to Max.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

thanks for correcting as I was not sure.

NP they were excellent when I was a BE customer. Sky couldn't install in my street, so I went to plusnet.

Well my experience of BE their Bulgarian support differed from yours, perhaps because i had already had experienced better support than BE's
So my comparison will be different, they are by no means the worst, but they imo they certainly aren't the best out there

Edited by tommy45 (Sun 21-Aug-16 22:21:33)

Who provided better support to you?

BE support was good for me, far better than BT or its little sister.