BT or Sky in London? Does living near an exchange help?

I asked my next door neighbours and they're happy with BT and get 40-50mb/s.

However, Sky have a really good Black Friday deal on their Superfast package which is promising 65-75 mb/s for £25. The same speed range will cost me £31.99 on BT's Fibre 2 deal. A similarly priced package on BT is their Fibre 1 package at £26.99, but with only 46-50 mb/s.

The only thing stopping me from choosing Sky is that I'm seeing more complaints around slow speeds and spotty connections on online review sites. I also don't know anyone that's with Sky broadband. Most of my friends are on BT or Virgin (which I can't get in my area). I'm leaning towards BT and paying a bit more, as they seem to have less complaints online.

I live about half a mile away from my local exchange (Openreach), and my local cabinet is only one street away, if that helps! We only have FTTC available on my street, no FTTP. I'm on a very sad ADSL 10 mb/s connection right now with less than 1 mb/s upload speed, which makes me lag terribly on group Zoom calls for work (one of my main reasons for wanting to switch).

Thank you to anyone who can help!

Edited by em_x (Mon 23-Nov-20 16:33:54)

Hi there em_x

You can get an idea of what speeds you could expect via this link it should just work with a landline number depending who you are currently with, or use the address checker.

I am not one to recommend BT as recently I have had a shocking service with them, so I am leaving for someone else. However SKY are generally good if you have a decent connection.

Always worth asking what their "get out" options are if they have any.

The "quality" of the line is mostly down to physics and so BT and Sky will be similar from that respect. Support is also probably not that much different between them - depends on who answers the phone as to how good the support is. If you also have Sky Q then having a Sky router may have some benefits for you but I haven't used Sky for broadband so don't know if it is that much.

In the end the big ISPs don't have that much to differentiate them really - they have some included add ons that might swing it for you - for example I am currently using BT mobile as I can get an EE based mobile service for a low price due to deals from having BT broadband and on Halo 1. Sky do package deals as well so might work better for you depending on whether there is anything else you want.

In the end most people get a decent service with either of them - but some people don't. It will be pot luck as to whether you end up in the latter group with either supplier.

Both BT and Sky have their lovers and haters, they are the two largest providers so while not loved by some they are obviously doing something reasonable well.

In terms of connection speed should be no real difference and if close to the cabinet even if either one did have slow downs at peak time you should see speeds much better than ADSL2+

Choice is really, price and the added extras, if you have Sky TV boxes going the Q router and then Sky Q tv boxes may be a good way to link various rooms

Thank you so much! It's good to know that being close to a cabinet means potentially better speeds regardless of ISP provider.

I've only switched ISPs twice in the last 20 years, so it still feels like quite a new and daunting experience for me. Especially when reading all the online reviews and seeing they're mostly 90% complaints for the two biggest but highly rated ISPs in the country.

It gets even more confusing when they say "I was with Sky, and now my connection is so much better with BT" or "I was with BT, and now my connection is much better with Sky". It makes it really hard to make that final decision.

That makes a lot of sense. Now I'm wondering why Sky is only charging £25 for 65-72mb, while BT is charging £26 for 45-55mb. Do you "get what you pay for" when it comes to broadband contract prices? Does paying more mean getting a better and more reliable connection?

In terms of the add-ons, the Sky package looks the best so far, but I'm just concerned why it's so cheap! Haha.

There are major issues with the firmware on the Sky Hub supplied currently, effectively DHCP does not function as it should. The fix has been pushed back since September, it is very frustrating. If you have a lot of devices, proceed with caution with Sky.

https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/sky/4666027-issues...

My VDSL ranges from 80-67mb/s downstream, with 20-19mb/s upstream, and a downstream handback of 60-64.2mb/s.

My FTTP on demand is 330mb/s downstream, with 30mb/s upstream.

However, both Sky and BT said I can't get more than 74mb/s download speed and 20mb/s upload speed with them when entering my address and landline number on their website.

Does this mean I should get a fair connection on both providers, regardless of who I choose? (Apologies if I'm asking silly questions. I've only ever changed ISPs twice in the last 20 years. 😅)

And thank you for the "get out" option tip as well. Great point to note!

Thanks for this! This is a really good point. I have 5-10 devices usually connected so this might be an issue.

I've also heard that BT's hub might have the better tech as well? Are there any keywords or terms I should be looking for in each ISP's hubs to make a better judgment and decision on their hub quality?

In reply to a post by em_x:

My VDSL ranges from 80-67mb/s downstream, with 20-19mb/s upstream, and a downstream handback of 60-64.2mb/s.

My FTTP on demand is 330mb/s downstream, with 30mb/s upstream.

However, both Sky and BT said I can't get more than 74mb/s download speed and 20mb/s upload speed with them when entering my address and landline number on their website.

Does this mean I should get a fair connection on both providers, regardless of who I choose? (Apologies if I'm asking silly questions. I've only ever changed ISPs twice in the last 20 years. 😅)

And thank you for the "get out" option tip as well. Great point to note!

80/20 is the maxium your line will handle, but in reality you will get closer to 74-76 mb/s probably. In reality also, I doubt your average person would notice.

You should get a similar speed service from most providers, but there are other factors to take into account, which I find very technical. Probably one for one of the more experienced users to explain.