Has anyone switched from BT broadband to Sky broadband recently?

[shaithis]

No, I hated BT. Happiest day was telling them to shove it and revelling in the fact I was out of contract and there was sweet FA they could do about me going. They tried to stop me, bless them for all of 5 minutes. Too much throttling during peak hours and jittery service far slower than what I was paying for (or that their speedtest claimed I was getting). I swear they had a detector that spotted the speedtest and unthrottled the line temporarily - though I could never prove that.

Packet shaping and QoS will do that and it's pretty undetectable from a users perspective. I also refuse to use BT these days because I just do not want to deal with talking to them, I find it to be an uphill struggle AT BEST. I've recently been made to talk to them as they have messed up the port labelling for mine and my neighbours connections and each time I get a new neighbour I keep getting messages telling me my service is about to be migrated to BT!

I'm not so lucky to have Virgin cable around here. BT's speed is about 5.5Mbps down, 1Mbps up. There appears to be a fibre option, but its estimated to offer half the speed of the ADSL here. Fingers crossed Sky is not too insufferable, I was going to go PlusNet, had them before, as also offered much cheaper deal than staying with BT.

I actually hate Virgin even more.....and I have NEVER been a customer! People come to me with their I.T. problems and I am quite sick of finding my evening has been wasted due to Virgins postcode lottery system.

IMO, Hands-down, the best ISP used to be BE but then BT purchased them

The new top ISP (IMO) is Zen but as with so many things in life, you get what you pay for!

[ik9000]

Just a thought, but what is your 4G signal like out there?

[Peter Parker]

Wow, looks like a massive thumbs down for Sky broadband. But since its the same line as used by my current BT broadband (ADSL telephone line), shouldn't it be the same thing? Is BT Broadband good then?

I hate to leap to the defence of Sky, but ... I used to work at Sky Network Services back in 2007-9 and know a bit about providing ADSL. My team wrote the code that sent SNMP commands to configure all the DSLAM/ISAM ports and kept an inventory of the few million network ports in the exchanges and the tie-pair wiring through to BT Openreach

First up, please remember the plural of anecdote is not data. Fortunately (if you have a working internet connection) you can search for lots of stats that other people have collected:

http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...-uk-picks.html

Most of the biggest and cheapest providers suffer from complaints but Sky Broadband, much like Virgin below, receives proportionally quite a bit less than their rivals (here); mostly thanks to their reasonable customer support.

And see Figure 4 in http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php...r-q2-2015.html

Now, that's not to say that individuals don't have a valid complaint, but the causes vary widely. Some of the examples I've encountered :

• Genuine provider fault - e.g. bad ADSL modem, fault exchange equipment port etc.
• Aluminium cable in your area (I think Milton Keynes)
• Worse, somebody stole the copper cable!
• Openreach connected your tie-pair in the exchange frame to the wrong line
• Squirrels nibbling the line from your house to the green cabinet in the screet - why? I don't know but they did!
• You live 15km from the nearest exchange and still want 20Mbps - sorry that's unlikely.
• Water logged ground causing induction problems (according to Openreach )
• Dodgy home wiring and phone extension sockets - one of the most common causes
• Misconfigured DSLAM port (yeah I might have caused problems but I'm sure I fixed way more)

Without knowing individual circumstances, it's hard to say if your case is significantly worse than would be expected in your area. The best I can suggest for anyone considering a switch or with a complaint is to try and find sample data for your location at http://www.uswitch.com/broadband/speedtest/streetstats/.

Regarding Sky's equipment in the exchanges... it used to be Alcatel-Lucent DSLAMs of various sorts, and was being upgraded to MSAN/ISAMs for combined voice/data services (aka MPF) when I worked there. This page has some example pics. These weren't particularly bad or good equipment as far as I understand nor significantly unusual compared to the other providers. I went into the Bishopsgate (CLBIS) exchange a couple of times to show new developers what their code was doing in the real world. We'd walk past (locked) cages of the other companies equipment so could often see what they had. I still can't get my mind around the main distribution frame and am to this day genuinely amazed that anyone gets any signal at all!

[Splash]

Packet shaping and QoS will do that and it's pretty undetectable from a users perspective.

The thing is that all (unless anyone knows of a provider that is doing otherwise, in which case please let me know) domestic broadband connections are sold as a contented service in order to keep prices down. In this kind of situation you *need* packet shaping and QoS in order to make sure that one noisy neighbour doesn't murder the connection for everyone else. Everyone seems to go on about them being the devil, but nobody wants to pay £500/month for a leased line - I've absolutely no qualms with QoS and packet shaping when done properly, and I'm a heavy user.

[Output]

IMO, Hands-down, the best ISP used to be BE but then BT purchased them

Just to make a correction - O2 were the ones who bought Be* and merged it into their Broadband, and Sky later bought O2 Broadband and then merged them into theirs.

[ik9000]

Saw this the other day. Thought it might be of interest.

http://www.alphr.com/technology/1001...s-through-this

[shaithis]

The thing is that all (unless anyone knows of a provider that is doing otherwise, in which case please let me know) domestic broadband connections are sold as a contented service in order to keep prices down. In this kind of situation you *need* packet shaping and QoS in order to make sure that one noisy neighbour doesn't murder the connection for everyone else.

Zen don't packet shape but there is obviously contention, although I have yet to find a time when my connection doesn't max-out.

[Millennium]

Without reading this whole thread, I've recently pressed 'ok' for a switch from Plusnet to Sky.

I had no problems with Plusnet, and they even sent a BT engineer around and didn't charge me (saved me a pretty pound). I've been with them before, but at the same time I've been with Sky for ADSL before and they were just fine.

The reason I switched to Sky then (lolworthy) is I was expecting a fibre install but they actually switched me to ADSL - so basically PEBKAC but with contracts.

I am looking forward to my ADSL switch tomorrow, I can see in this thread that Sky isn't perfectly regarded but if it's 90% as good as it was, I'll be happy. The price they offered equated to around £11 (for the year), for router delivery and line rental + broadband for a 12 month contract. As great as Plusnet were (and they were that good) they were £3.50 or so per month plus line rental saver of like £150 a year. So the possible saving was clear (even counting not contacting on the exact right days or leaving costs).

Plusnet, I love you guys, but I am only coming back if you have a serious offer when I am looking again. When companies like Sky can offer such superlative deals for new signups on line rental and BB, they are always going to get customers. Still, on Plusnet most times I've had the best ping on a server, and I've had no problems getting 20mbit+ connections. Only in the last 2 weeks have I experienced any slowness (which was with iPlayer).

I'm betting that in a year there is another silly cheap broadband offer out there.

And I just hope it's with a half decent ISP!

[mtyson]

Update: My switch from BT to Sky went ahead on Friday afternoon. Like Millennium above, I got an impressive Sky offer costing just about £11 for the whole year for braodband and phone line rental. BT asked what my offer was, and the best they could do was £32pm for broadband and Line rental.

So far the service has been identical to BT's. The up and down speeds are the same more or less - BT was at best 5917 down and 1112 up. (Just checked the Sky router interface and it reports 5780 down and 1019 up with 16 hour uptime.) Sky says it will be testing various speeds over the first 10 days and it looks like the router connection restarted 16 hours ago. So maybe it was higher/lower speed before.

I can't tell any difference between the Sky Box and the BT HomeHub 4 in practical use and speeds around the house using various devices in various locations. Kids/wife hasn't complained - so it must be OK! In 12 months time hopefully someone else will have a similar crazy cheap offer, I've previously been with PlusNet and seen they do huge cashback offers sometimes. Overall am happy to have saved £££s.

[watercooled]

How did you manage to get it for £11/year? Because Openreach's line rental must be paid, either by yourself or by an ISP, so Sky would be losing out massively to sell their product at such a huge net loss. Is it in combination with a TV/phone package or something?

Edit: Or is my tired mind misunderstanding, and you mean £11/month, with that price lasting for a year?

[Millennium]

As I understand it it was £11 for the year though I'm not very well I may have missed it. It was a HUKD deal but searching it now I can't find it. There was some money towards the line rental, 1/2 price line rental, and free ADSL broadband (so not fibre...).

If I find the deal again, even if it is expired, I will try and post it.
Sorry I couldn't be more helpful here...

edit: phone and ADSL only...

edit2: I believe it was Money Saving Experts, actually. Not 100% though.

[pp05]

Options aren't great.

BT > Virgin > TalkTalk > Sky.

Has 4G become reasonable yet? If you're not a heavy downloader wouldn't that offer another avenue away from some of these suppliers.

[watercooled]

I don't hear many complaints about Plusnet.

[mtyson]

How did you manage to get it for £11/year? Because Openreach's line rental must be paid, either by yourself or by an ISP, so Sky would be losing out massively to sell their product at such a huge net loss. Is it in combination with a TV/phone package or something?

Edit: Or is my tired mind misunderstanding, and you mean £11/month, with that price lasting for a year?

Here's a screenrgab of the offer, sadly now expired.

[watercooled]

Ah right that's pretty cool. Might have signed up to that for a backup line if I'd known (assuming there's no catch)!