Sky Broadband, your thoughts?

[Steven W]

i was thinking of changing my broadband to Sky as I have the Sky Digital package with them and for an extra £10 i can get the Sky Max service.

Does anyone have experience of Sky Broadband? Good or bad?

[Blitzen]

I have SKY MAX and price vs service there isn't a better one in the country.

Old address:
1.3KM from the exchange: 12-14mb down - 625k/b up

New Address:
3KM from the exchange: 7-9mb down - 625k/b up

This is constant with no drop outs (after router exchange) and is 24/7 at these speeds.

Alsoits unlimited, (although there is an FUP but it must be massive). I have used this service since April and my PC regularly d/l's between 50-70gb per month. No change in service.

The tech support isnt amazing but at least they are all British now (well Scots or Irish ).
They do realise quickly when they cant help though and the next Tier of support is very very good and actually alter your line for you remotely whilst you are on the line with them (and they call you back so costs nothing).

For a tenner a month that is fantastic.

[pp05]

Originally Posted by Steven W

i was thinking of changing my broadband to Sky as I have the Sky Digital package with them and for an extra £10 i can get the Sky Max service.

Does anyone have experience of Sky Broadband? Good or bad?

I did order sky bb offer as it sounded too good but after waiting 6 weeks to get connected i decided enough was enough and cancelled. The problem they tell me was on their end. Support wasn't all that helpful - not a lot they could do tbh.

If you're connected then i expect it will be decent service. I was just unlucky.

[burble]

From talking to a few people it seems to be a case of when it works it's great but you're stuffed if you have problems.

A friend of a friend was stuck waiting eight weeks for the connection to go live before he got fed up and cancelled. Another friend has had so many problems with disconnections and low throughput that she's using a 3G data card at the moment.

That said, I know about 3 people using it who have had absolutely no problems.

[Steven W]

Apparently, they will give me some sort of code which ensures that my connection should only be down for a couple of hours.

Sounds a bit too good to be true.

[5cupa]

Originally Posted by burble

talking to a few people it seems to be a case of when it works it's great but you're stuffed if you have problems.

exactly and you do get some weird speeds at different times of the day. O2 now do a similar deal.

[burble]

Originally Posted by Steven W

Apparently, they will give me some sort of code which ensures that my connection should only be down for a couple of hours.

Sounds a bit too good to be true.

They as in Sky? No, you'd need to get your MAC code from your current ISP and give that the Sky. On a certain date (no guarantee of time) your current connection will stop and you'll connect up the Sky router and be back up and running.

In theory.

[moogle]

Originally Posted by Steven W

Apparently, they will give me some sort of code which ensures that my connection should only be down for a couple of hours.

Sounds a bit too good to be true.

just like be, they said they provide a dial up code while your internet is being enabled/installed whichever. i think thats what they mean.

[Nick]

You call up your existing ISP and ask them for a MAC code, NOT the same as a home network MAC address.

You then give this code to your new ISP, they do their thing and tell you when the change over will be.

Usually it's instantaneous, your net just dies as your old ISP discos the service, and all you do is restart the router with any settings supplied by your new ISP.

However, I'd be very cautious about going with ISP that has a rep for poor customer service, especially seeing as you need the 'net for work.

[Blitzen]

Usually it's instantaneous, your net just dies as your old ISP discos the service, and all you do is restart the router with any settings supplied by your new ISP.

Yep..thats the way SKY do it. Took about 30 seconds from one going off to the SKY being connected.

[p5-]

They're pretty good.

We're synced at full speed 16mb down 768k up. Speedtests show 14-15mb down and ~680k up. Obviously most people don't get the highest sync, we're just very fortunate to be so close to the exchange and have a relatively good line.

Do bare in mind that the sky branded netgear dg834gt is a bit shaky to say the least. A lot of people have various issues with it, from having to restart it constantly to wireless issues.

We ourselves have a wireless issue where if my housemate downloads at a relatively slow speed (~0.5mbit), my connection slows to a halt and I can barely browse websites. A separate wireless access point connected to the sky router helps a little.

Although you can technically use another router, it's against the sky t&cs. However many people do it and there have been reports of people telling the customer support that they've changed the router and everything is fixed, and they don't seem to have an issue with it (if it fixes their problems, why would they i guess). If you do want to use another router, you have to first acquire your username and password which is stored in the router firmware itself.

There is lots more on this and everything else at Sky User

Overall I think it's definitely worth £10 a month. As previously mentioned, currently a good situation regarding usage and FUP. If you are a diehard gamer, they have something implemented which issomewhere in between fast path and interleaved which does result in slightly higher pings. But you can ask sky to lower a setting called max delay, which gives you 20ms less typically, possibly at the cost of some bandwidth.

[DR]

Get them as a second line mmmm more speed!

[Steven W]

I've decided against moving. I'm really happy with the customer service at my current provider, I've been with them 3 years and I always speak to the same person anytime I have a problem and there's no automated service.

I've had a little bit of experience phoning Sky when the digital service has gone down and it hasn't been that great, so I don't think I can take the risk with them.

Thanks for all your advice.

[Blitzen]

Originally Posted by Steven W

I've decided against moving. I'm really happy with the customer service at my current provider, I've been with them 3 years and I always speak to the same person anytime I have a problem and there's no automated service.

I've had a little bit of experience phoning Sky when the digital service has gone down and it hasn't been that great, so I don't think I can take the risk with them.

Thanks for all your advice.

To be fair, their CS is actually quite good now.