Sky v BT v Plusnet

Hi,

Firstly I'm no expert with all this - I would just like to have fibre to enable me to finally watch films through the internet without waiting all day or watch live streaming.

I'm currently with sky broadband (the unlimited package) and it's always been pretty slow. Generally 2 to 3 mbps.

Just called Sky to find out how much it would be to change to Sky Fibre Unlimited and it would be £20 per month but they will do half price for 6 months and waive the £50 installation set up fee. This would be for a 12 month contract.

The guy was very much talking me out of the Fibre Pro package as I live alone and he said that the difference between speeds would be hard for me to tell the difference in. Is that true? He said it was max speed of 40 for the unlimited and for pro 65.

The easy option will be to stay with Sky as no having to ring round requesting MAC codes but I must admit the BT Infinity offering is tempting due to being a bit of a football fan and having no idea how much Sky will charge.

I've also heard and read good things about PlusNet. So in your opinion, which is best and are Infinity or Plus net worth the initial hassle? Also was the guy right about not noticing the difference in speeds between the two max speeds?

Thanks for any advice you can offer. Blue.

Firstly I'm no expert with all this - I would just like to have fibre to enable me to finally watch films through the internet without waiting all day or watch live streaming.

All 3 will do this

I'm currently with sky broadband (the unlimited package) and it's always been pretty slow. Generally 2 to 3 mbps.

This will not be Skys fault. It'll be due to the line so any ISP would have given you similar slow speeds.

Just called Sky to find out how much it would be to change to Sky Fibre Unlimited and it would be £20 per month but they will do half price for 6 months and waive the £50 installation set up fee. This would be for a 12 month contract.

That's fab. Look at it this way you are paying £10 a month for fibre initially.

The guy was very much talking me out of the Fibre Pro package as I live alone and he said that the difference between speeds would be hard for me to tell the difference in. Is that true? He said it was max speed of 40 for the unlimited and for pro 65.

I live in a house of 6. We have Sky fibre and I get BT infinity via work for free...
We had the 40Mbps package with Sky to begin with and then upgraded to the 80Mbps. Even we couldn't tell the difference. I would say 40 is plenty for even 6 people. For 1 person it's a huge overkill and you need no more.

If you are using wireless this will max at around 40 - 50 Mbps with good signal unless you have a high tech setup. So anything more would be pointless.

The easy option will be to stay with Sky as no having to ring round requesting MAC codes but I must admit the BT Infinity offering is tempting due to being a bit of a football fan and having no idea how much Sky will charge.

Bt sport isn't a bad offering but I do find Sky customer service etc far far better. & if something goes wrong sky are much better

I've also heard and read good things about PlusNet. So in your opinion, which is best and are Infinity or Plus net worth the initial hassle? Also was the guy right about not noticing the difference in speeds between the two max speeds?

I think he's right. Unless you are downloading from torrents with massive files say 100Gb ones I would say there's no need for more.

Personally I would go for the sky deal. It's only a tenner for the first 6 months and sky's pretty sweet on fibre

Edited by ukhardy07 (Thu 30-May-13 21:05:47)

Thank you for the really helpful reply. It's clarified a lot for me particularly as to whether it's worth upgrading to the Fibre Pro, saving that £10 will be great and I think I may well stay with them for now. The fly in the ointment is a friend who works for BT who's now bamboozling me positive BT thoughts.

Time to sleep on it but based on the below, definitely more likely to stay with Sky.

Thank you again, really appreciate it.

I've got BT infinity via work with the homehub and all that jazz.
& I've got Sky fibre optic.

I can't tell a difference between the two. If anything Sky is slightly better at streaming. Sometimes BT will buffer on random streams whereas Sky will not. Very rare though.

I really don't see a difference between the two services overall though. They both work just as well. Sky have perhaps nicer staff at times & if something goes wrong they're a bit more organised. E.g. I had an ongoing fault and had an email for the guy at sky, his direct phone number and he updated me daily. Doubt BT would have done this.

I can recommend Sky, there isn't any slow downs. I have the pro package, the reason for me is the upload speed as I have to upload a lot of my work and I store my media on Google Drive, e.g. I uploaded 15 GB yesterday alone. The average wireless speed is around 70 Mbps, but it does sometimes go to 75 Mbps and the upload is a 'meg' or 2 slower on wireless, so usually above 16. Interestingly enough when I ordered fibre the sales women was trying to convince me not to get it, I basically I had to justify my need for the Pro package.

We use all the bandwidth when we download media (Games and Movies). If you just browse the web and stream video using services like Netflix and BBC iPlayer it will be exactly the same.

I have a friend who has BT infinity and his service is inferior to ours because there is a buffering they use Netflix and Lovefilm. He gets the full 80/20 sync like me, and the ping is about 5ms higher and it fluctuates into the thousands, i.e. the BT Retail network has high utilisation, that is because they have a lot more 'Fibre' customers though. Our ping fluctuates around 0.6ms. Just so it's clear I am talking about UK servers with really low response times like the BBC and Level 3.

I use my own router which breaches the ToS, but apparently that will change in the future. The Sky router is not very good if you're technical and want the best wireless speeds, but if you want something that just lets you connect and browse the web then it's fine. I can't comment on the Sky router's wireless because I have hardly used it - I bought a router for the 'Fibre' package as soon as I changed to Sky Fibre.

To put it simply I find the BT Infinity service is very good but the speed and ping varies while Sky Fibre is very, very consistent, I suspect that is because Sky have a much smaller amount of 'fibre' customers.

The only problem that I am finding is that Sky and Plusnet are looking an upfront payment whereas bt are happy to set up everything for free but seems to be the more expensive than the three.

I was going to go with Plusnet only they are looking a setup fee of more than £70 even if I take their line rental aswell. Sky were looking a setup fee of £65. This is because there is no active line at the house atm. If I had of taken either of them providers above I would be looking at them costs up front which I dont have right now because all my funds are focused on getting this place ready to move into.
Shame really as i wanted to give Plusnet a go.

Ring sky I believe they might beat the offer.

I got install etc for free.

Im starting to regret placing the line order with bt now. Grrrrrrr.

Just cancelled the bt order lol.

Will give Sky a call now.

Edited by deleted (Sun 02-Jun-13 13:18:55)

Go via cancellations for sky

If no offers given hang up and ring back

Agents have x amount of offers a day
You may get an agent at first who's used all their offers up so can't give you a good deal
Hanging up and ringing back you might get someone with 10 offers left to give.

Try going via Quidco. I think there is £38 cashback to be had. No charge for joining Quidco now either.