Switching from BT to Sky?

Have just ordered Sky BB today, having been with BT for the past 5 years. I use internet mainly for email, browsing, and online shopping - no big downloads. Truth be told, I am quite happy with my BT service, and they offered to slash my monthly bill to £7.49 a month. But since the base package is free with Sky Talk, I figured there's no point in paying for something when I could be getting it for nothing.

When I called SKY to arrange the transfer, the salesman tried to persuade me to go with Sky Max, but I know my line only supports up to 2MB (1664 kbps download, 329 kbps upload - we are 6 miles from the exchange). He then told me the line would nevertheless be significantly faster with Sky Max than with the base package which I wanted. I stuck to my guns, but I was wondering whether there's any truth in what he said? What I don't want is for my Sky connection to be slower than my existing BT connection - is there a risk of that happening since I've only requested the most basic option?

I'm getting cold feet now, and am wondering whether I should cancel the contract and go with BT's offer?

Any advice gratefully received.
Barry.

If you can find and post your line stats we should be able to give you a good idea of what your line can actually do.

See here if you need help finding them.

Thanks, the stats I'm getting from the router homepage are 2368/448 kbps. I've tried to get the additional info using the DMT tool but it says that it can't identify my modem (have downloaded v8.07 which should be compatible with BT Voyager 2110).

Any more ideas? Thanks.

How to get additional info from Here

Cheers!

Got them:

Line Rate 2368 Kbps 448 Kbps
Noise Margin 5.9 dB 15.0 dB
Line Attenuation 63.0 dB 31.5 dB
Output Power 17.4 dBm 11.9 dBm

Hmmmm!

Your actual connection speed is 2368kbps, which due to the way BT-based broadband works gives you a profile of 2Mbps which is what determines your maximum speed.

I would be very surprised if you get much more than 2400kbps connection on Sky, but the BT profile system doesn't apply. However, part of the loss of speed caused by the profile is caused by TCP/IP overheads of 10%-12% that Sky will have acting directly on the connection speed, so it will be like having a slightly higher profile.

There is a possibility that the default settings on Sky could reduce that though. I hope not, but I will ask a someone who will know.

There are two important things you have missed.

The Sky Base connection speed will be at 2Mbps. Once you take the TCP/IP overheads out you may be slower than BT. Also it only has a 2GB per month allowance. Even with your low usage that could be a bit tight. Have you any idea how much you use per month?

I think Sky Mid may be more suitable for the extra £5, allowing your line to go as fast as it can and plenty of allowance, but you were right to reject Sky Max.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 09-Jun-09 19:00:41)

Are you aware of this News Article?

It's also worth clicking through to the Digital Spy article.

I'm not clear when all this starts, but it looks like you may be heading for full unbundling where Sky take your phone off BT, like TalkTalk do.

Which isn't something I would like to do. It may interfere with phone fault fixing, and could complicate a move to any other ISP as you would need to get the phone line sorted.

Thanks for that, it's really useful.

I switched from BT to Sky Talk separately a month ago, always intending to get the reduced broadband now (when my contract with BT expires). I don't know my usage stats, but I do open quite a few email attachments and occasionally download music tracks. Perhaps the midi option would be better - if you get any further info on the overheads, do let me know.

The other option I am considering is just sitting tight with BT (they've offered me 12 months at £7.49 on Option 1 to try to convince me to stay). Better the devil you know and all that, plus I would avoid the £30 activation fee with midi.

Originally posted in reply to the wrong thread, so apologies

Got your PM, Bob so thought I would post back here with what little I know

Sky LLU packages are as far as I'm aware capped, yet I couldn't confirm this for sure. I don't know if this is done by raising the upstream noise margin or by some other method. I had a very quick look on www.skyuser.co.uk, but not currently in the mood or right frame of mind to do any extensive digging.

As regards throughput, I'm really not sure. Sky use PPPoA I believe, so don't know how much any ATM overheads . Sky MAX and Sky LLU issues are somewhat mixed up on the Skyuser forums

May be worth the OP posting on www.skyuser.co.uk/forums as the peer support is pretty good. They also have some good tutorials which I've linked to on a number of occasions for other issues

NB Having now found the correct thread, I've no idea about Sky IPStream products, but it may be worth having a look at Easynet info also. Personally I wouldn't go anywhere near Sky

Thanks very much, will ask around on Skyuser.