Sky to Who?

Hi,
My previous thread asking about Vivaciti has descended into a discussion about whether Vivaciti is an ISP or not so thought I would ask a new question in a new thread...

I am now not sure if Vivaciti are the best choice. Xilo has also been raised as an option. I've had a look at AAISP but their Be wholesale product is very expensive.

So, looking for a Be reseller on a 1 month contract (otherwise I would have gone to Be direct). I know both Vivaciti and Xilo do Be wholesale but neither of them has much in the way of details on their websites.

Do either of them charge for connection? I will be migrating from Sky and have my MAC Code ready (I only have BB with Sky so no issues with full unbundling).

Is one of them better for support/connectivity? Is there anyone else I should consider?

Guess I should say I don't have massively high usage (at most about 50GB a month but normally more like 10GB) and my connection used to run at about 11Mb/s on Be. I don't use P2P but I do play Star Wars Old Republic so a low ping is nice. I want the option to drop my SNR to 3dB as the line is capable of this and also to tweak the interleave/fastpath settings (I used to run on minimum depth interleaving).

Not too worried about cost but want value for money so don't want to spend £40 for a connections that I could get for £15.

So, any suggestions on the best ISP for me?

Hi,
Our packages that are provided over BE Wholesale are our Broadband unlimited packages on this page: http://www.vivaciti.net/internet/1/home-internet/6/p...

Ian I have been offered a year free line rental and broadband from sky, would you suggest against going with them, I have got an order pending at present.

Usage is relatively low but ping times are important, my exchange has sky LLU and I am currently with Xilo.

Costing me £12 line rental and £18 broadband so £30 a month, I would save £360 over the year, I just dont want to get into a situation where I'm pulling my hair out due to a [censored] connection for 12months once they port my line over!

Any advice will be considered.

Don't get me wrong, Sky are a fine ISP and my broadband has been good with them. The difference is that on the Be network my broadband is exceptional (mainly because I can take control of noise margin - my line will happily run at 3dB but sky default is 7dB). Sky also "require" (prefer) you to use their router - which isn't necessarily the best device in the world. Sky don't do static IPs - something I miss from Be days. My biggest drop on Sky was my upstream went from about 1.1/1.2Mb/s on Be to about 800Kb/s on Sky - not a massive issue but definitely annoying.

My ping times on sky have been absolutely fine (I have the Samknows testing running and it shows a latency of 26.94ms - 26.97ms (that is the fluctuation over a week!).

The only thing that would actively discourage me from Sky these days is that you have to take landline rental and by doing that they place you on their full LLU (which at the moment makes it more difficult to move away as the process is not quite as defined as it is with MAC moves).

So, technically I have had no problems with Sky Unlimited. I just prefer the Be wholesale network for squeezing every last ounce out of the line.

I appreciate your prompt and full response. Thank you Ian.

I shall give them a go then, I currently have a 60/61db downstream attenuation, I will use the sky router for the first couple of weeks whilst they test stability and automatically lower the noise margin. I have removed ringmain and tweaked as much as I can on my line.

After that period I think I will see what the speed is like, if okay i'll leave it, if not out comes the dg834gt again with dgteam firmware i'll obtain username/pass and try tweaking that. Should hopefully be okay though. I have found modulation better on my longer line set at adsl2 instead of adsl2+ due to the lower frequency and less interference. I know it breaches the T&Cs using your own router, but i think quite a few people do!

Thanks again.

General gist is if you are reporting a fault, just verify it exists when using their hardware. Otherwise they simply blame your modem even if it is patently not that.

Thank you

In reply to a post by ian72:

Hi,
My previous thread asking about Vivaciti has descended into a discussion about whether Vivaciti is an ISP or not so thought I would ask a new question in a new thread...

I am now not sure if Vivaciti are the best choice. Xilo has also been raised as an option. I've had a look at AAISP but their Be wholesale product is very expensive.

So, looking for a Be reseller on a 1 month contract (otherwise I would have gone to Be direct). I know both Vivaciti and Xilo do Be wholesale but neither of them has much in the way of details on their websites.

Do either of them charge for connection? I will be migrating from Sky and have my MAC Code ready (I only have BB with Sky so no issues with full unbundling).

Is one of them better for support/connectivity? Is there anyone else I should consider?

Guess I should say I don't have massively high usage (at most about 50GB a month but normally more like 10GB) and my connection used to run at about 11Mb/s on Be. I don't use P2P but I do play Star Wars Old Republic so a low ping is nice. I want the option to drop my SNR to 3dB as the line is capable of this and also to tweak the interleave/fastpath settings (I used to run on minimum depth interleaving).

Not too worried about cost but want value for money so don't want to spend £40 for a connections that I could get for £15.

So, any suggestions on the best ISP for me?

Xilo do charge for connection £48.00 or is it £40.00, where as currently Vivaciti currently do not, in the way of support and how good the peering /routing is of either i don't know on that, but i would imagine are ok,as i ain't seen too many bad reports about them, but that doesn't always give a true representation

Thanks, decided to go with vivaciti in the end and due to connect on tuesday. I think it should be good but if it's not then only a 1 month contract so not a big issue.

Just migrated my Sky phone line over (line rental free for a year) and left the broadband with Xilo. Use internet too much to be signed up for a year not knowing what the service is going to be like.

Would rather pay for service from Xilo, which I know is spot on plus would prefer to support smaller resellers (although I'm sure they've got lots of customers, but how quickly they respond to my tickets it seems like I'm their number one!) - at least I saved the line rental =)

went from similar ISP to SKY. Had no problems. You also get a 7 day period once connected to reject the service, so you can win anyway..

Only gotcha with leaving within 7 days is getting some other service up and running, there is no simple move back to previous provider option with full LLU.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Only gotcha with leaving within 7 days is getting some other service up and running, there is no simple move back to previous provider option with full LLU.

I am currently on Sky's full LLU service and are you saying that should I ever migrate away to another ISP in the future, it will be a hassle ?

Edited by deleted (Fri 17-Feb-12 21:30:08)

Yes I believe this to be the case.

In reply to a post by NilSatisOptimum:

Yes I believe this to be the case.

Oh

Hence the news that ofcom is in a year or so to introduce a new changing product system.

It is a bit better than it used to be

As an example, my parents who were ex-Tiscali on TalkTalk to PlusNet without much pain and only a couple of days downtime

PlusNet I believe do monthly contracts, so you could then migrate elsewhere if you wanted to fairly quickly

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Hence the news that ofcom is in a year or so to introduce a new changing product system.

So not too bad then.

I can't see the problem but I expect that under the current system, if I were to migrate back to BT Wholesale, there would be a period of downtime as MAC codes are not valid ?

I believe you can request a simultaneous order for broadband and phone which should lead to minimal downtime when moving back to a BT based line.
May depend on whether the gaining ISP is set up to handle that type of request.

In reply to a post by gmoorc:

I believe you can request a simultaneous order for broadband and phone which should lead to minimal downtime when moving back to a BT based line.
May depend on whether the gaining ISP is set up to handle that type of request.

Thanks.

BT; I think Plusnet; vivaciti. Obviously others, but that's three. The first two you may need to educate the people you speak to .

Technically you shouldn't need to take broadband from the new line rental people. You just need a "LORN", (Linked order number) that you then give to your chosen ISP, but that means possibly educating both companies and it going wrong anyway. Apparently it does even with just the one. You can't order PN phone without broadband either.

PlusNet sales are quite versed with the procedure

Zen will do simultaneous provides as well