So Sky Broadband... some advice?

[dangel]

I'm a heavy interenet user - I can do 200gb in a month on occasion - I currently pay (a lot) for a business package which is completely unlimited (no fup, no cap, nada) and now I have a quandry - Sky have apparently put LLU in my exchange - I could go from 8mbit to 20mbit (the exchange is very close) and pay a lot less. Is their broadband unlimited package good and REALLY unlimited?

Help, advice and experience appreciated (and opinion of course)

[roachcoach]

I cant comment on the unlimited part - I don't remember the last time I properly hammered it but I've had it since I moved into my house a couple of years ago, (maybe 2.5 years now) since virgin didnt service the area - never, never been down that I know of.

I only get about 7mb down though, too far away from the exchange but really, it's enough for me.

Ironically because of the seemingly bombproof reliability, I cant comment on service or anything

[jim]

From experience, yes and yes, but I haven't really hammered the connection, so I can't say for sure.

[pauldarkside]

Is their broadband unlimited package good and REALLY unlimited?

I'm on my 5th consecutive year with Sky Broadband and have never had any reason to complain. No throttling and their unlimited really is unlimited. Pretty awesome for £7.50 per month on top of my TV subscription.

[dangel]

Thanks - this is pretty much what i'm seeing people saying. Blimey! yay!

[Lucio]

The paperwork for Sky has clauses for a "fair use" policy and in my experience I got a phone call after hitting 50gb in a month due to d/loading a few games off steam.

[Agent]

Sky are one of the few 'home user' ISP that I know of that don't throttle and have truly no limit. When I rang up to ask a few questions about their service, I asked about a FUP / Throttle, the guys answer was classic:

You pay us the monthly fee, you get a unlimited connection - that's our version of a fair use policy

I've been with them about 6 months or so now. No major complaints, but their DNS can get a little flakey sometimes. The odd evening it gets a bit slow (actual downloads are fine, but pages take a second or two to come through), but certainly nothing to complain about given how populated my area is. I'm fairly sure it's not directly a Sky issue.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I am with Sky and their speeds are not that great. I am supposed to get a maximum of 4.5MB on our line and initially we got nothing near that. Rang them up last year and managed to get upto 3.9MB eventually. However,over a few months the speeds started dropping and we were under 3MB. Rang them up again and the speeds went upto again. Recently now the line has dropped even more and is now around 2.5MB. Rang them up again and it went upto around 3MB.
I said I would ring back on a certain day if there was no improvement and a day or two after this they dropped the speed down to under 3MB!

Every few months they seem to quietly drop the speed unless I remind them. I can actually see the speeds drop week on week. They always keep making lame excuses and we are paying for Sky Unlimited.

OTH,at least it is easy to get hold of customer services,the ping is not bad(although it can increase in the evenings) and at least the speeds seems to stay consistent throughout the day.

[Agent]

Are you talking about sync speed?
I've also found that they are very aggressive on this - at one point dropping me to ADSL1 over the ADSL2+ I was getting.
The reason I got from the tech guy was that it cuts down a huge number of support calls for them about lines dropping. To be fair, my synced speed is solid, but I have had higher on other ISPs who are less aggressive. I keep meaning to try another router, but there are mixed things about this online. Their T&C say you shouldn't, but there are lots of reports of people using them without any issue / warnings.

edit - worth a read about DLM: http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/sky-dlm/

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I did have a gander at the stuff you talked a while back but still it does not explain how we had the connection running at 3.9MB for quite a while. I personally think that Sky have got more users in our area in the last year and are trying a fast one.

[neonplanet40]

Been with Sky for about 4 years now. Sometimes id hit 500GB. Never heard a word from them

[JohnnyMnemonic]

Was with Sky broadband for a year, a little bit flaky from time to time in terms of lag spikes but didn't really bother me because it was cheap as chips. Download rate was pretty decent. I also downloaded a fair bit and didn't get any warnings. Moved out a while back and rang them to cancel (twice) but the person who moved in - my sister - has been using it ever since, and I know for a fact that she has downloaded > 50gb in a month. They don't seem to have any interest in disconnecting the line.

[OilSheikh]

I download about 40GB a month. Guees , time to move from O2 to SKY when contract expires in April

[barker967]

I used to have major issue with sky. During off peak times speeds were great 7.5mb from an up to 8meg line. Come 5pm however, speed would instantly drop like a stone, would struggle to open web pages some days. I could then go a few weeks without any problems with big speed drops. Very annoying. As i do a lot of downloading an online gaming it was no good.

Switched to plusnet and so far all is stable and my connection doesn`t take a nosedive come 5pm.

[geezerone]

Someone I know uses the unlimited package and when downloading a large file within a couple of hours or so the speed drops a fair bit. Can't remember the figures exactly but was about 1GB or so.

@barker967 - Plusnet do throttle but you know exactly what to expect with them as they publish their services. I wish they were a little less aggressive but it is a dedicated ISP which is one of its strengths imho.

[Ganty]

been on sky for just over a year, only advice i can give is to monitor ya speed/attune.

my brother is on 6mb even tho he can prob get ~16mb. tho he just doesn't care even to phone em to change it, which they would do, ya'd prob also want to get min delays changed if ya do switch(they default to a rather high setting, it increases game ms etc.)

and ye, it's really unlimited