Sky Broadband! (merged)

redfuturepgw72

Ive been waiting 10 days so far to recieve my sky BB box but don't hold out much hope. They are having trouble getting the line activated from BT. I would be interested to hear what speeds are achieved. Ive signed up for the 8mb med package but Im on the verge of cancelling in favour of the free orange service. Any info would be welcome.

phil

Stumpy

Well I'm on the connect service and currently getting a fairly consistent 1.4 Mb. Previously, with plusnet, I was getting 2Mb, but it tended to "wander" a bit. Saying that, I suspect if I "fiddled" a bit with my extensions, etc, I could get it faster - the router is on the end of rather a long extension cable - I've seen a few reports of people improving speeds by changing their BT faceplates too - but I'm not especially technically minded and, although the reports say I'm on a slower connection to before, it seems "nippier". Plus my upload speed is faster, which helps when uploading my website!

I've been looking through the skyuser forums (www.skyuser.co.uk) and most people seem to have all sorts of problems actually getting connected, but when they do get over the initial problems the actual speeds were quite good.

Lemmy_Caution

Ah! This not my problem, but a relation of mine has signed to sky broadband. They have the service, but sky has not sent them a username, they can not log-in, so they can not download any security software, and so effectively the service is all but unusable. The sky help people do not begin to understand the problem, do not see it as a problem, or don't really care.
This relation of mine has spent a good deal of the last two weeks talking to sky help people. Sky say an engineer will be sent around in two weeks time. An engineer is not needed - what they need is a username. Oh well; more potential sky customers look elsewhere.

Stumpy

Lemmy - if they have all the hardware and the connection, they should have received a letter giving their username. In my case, the username was similar to the one I had used to log into the Sky website previously (they had simply stuck a "2" on the end) - so they could always try that. I have to say I had fun and games trying to sort mine out - there was some confusion as to whether it was lowercase, uppercase or a mixture - but it was all uppercase. The other thing that confused me - the password they've used to log me in - IS NOT the same as the one I need to give when I ring the help line, it's the same as the one I used to log into the sky.com website (which has to be between 7 and 25 characters, with no spaces and have a mix of letters and numbers).

Hope that helps.

Edit - I would also say, if they have received the hardware, then they should also have received a disc with the free security software on it, which is okay - although I would suggest not using the "privacy service" - at least not to begin with - confuses the hell out of your browser, etc and, whilst you're in the process of simply getting connected, you want as few complications as possible.

dmito01

My Sky BB started in August (was one of the first users) and mysteriously stopped working 3 weeks ago. I've been on the phone with them daily and wrote letters to the CEO and Marketing Director and have not even got a simple letter from them saying why I've had no bb. I'm tired of their horrid customer service and would warn anyone who is thinking of taking the plunge!

I'd rather have paid £15/month to not have had my broadband disappear and have to now use dial-up (any pay for it!!!). Anyone have any advice on getting a MAC code out of sky as they are not giving me mine. OR does anyone have advice on how to get sky to restore my bb??? :mad:

eamonn321

dmito01 wrote:

My Sky BB started in August (was one of the first users) and mysteriously stopped working 3 weeks ago. I've been on the phone with them daily and wrote letters to the CEO and Marketing Director and have not even got a simple letter from them saying why I've had no bb. I'm tired of their horrid customer service and would warn anyone who is thinking of taking the plunge!

I'd rather have paid £15/month to not have had my broadband disappear and have to now use dial-up (any pay for it!!!). Anyone have any advice on getting a MAC code out of sky as they are not giving me mine. OR does anyone have advice on how to get sky to restore my bb??? :mad:

Sometimes it takes 20 minutes to get connected. You just have keep retrying constantly. Pressing the reset button on the back of the Netgear box might help. It's cr*p really.

dmito01

It's not a problem with the router. I turn it off every night and turn it on the morning to see i my broadband is back on! Sky says it's a problem on their end! Is there a way to escalate the issue from Tier 3 to like Tier 4?

Stumpy

I noticed on the Skyuser site that people who use the "wireless" option were having problems with the router - there is a solution on there if that could be what's causing it. Also, there "unofficially" are one or two people who are actual Sky engineers on that site who seem to be helping out ...

The few problems I've had with the router - one was apparently a "stale session" and seemed to clear after the router had been switched off for an hourish (although I'm not completely convinced on that one) - the other is just occasionally it "says" it is connected, but can't get online - I unplug the power cable for a few seconds and it then sorts itself out.

Although not recommended, also over at that forum I think was a way to connect using your own router ... might be worth a try?

dsmann

my sky BB is now working, i was originally told it would be activated by 20/11 just plugged my new router in today and its up and running am so happy good speeds and smooth transfer.

financiallyaware

My first post so please be gentle....

A Sky good news story!!!

I applied for sky broadband back in August, and was told there would be a delay, which there was, until about 2 weeks ago then I got my activation code. I rung orange, my existing broadband provider, who could do nothing to compete incidently on cost, and got my MAC code.

Then phoned Sky, paid my £40 by credit card for the router, and they told me it would be the 15th November as a changeover day. The router and all instructions/filters etc came the following day by courier.

The 15th then arrived, my internet was down, so I set up the new router, installed the CD as per the instructions and 10 mins later I was up and running, wirelessly and faster than my 8mb with Orange ( that bit I cannot understand!!!!)

Sky were absolutely rubbish when trying to get up and running originally, and to be honest had no clue what was actually happening, but since it is working it is 100% perfect, no dropping of lines, always on, software and hardware perfect. I cannot fault them now.

I have not found any websites it does'nt work on and I even got the email to work through Outlook express. Was £17.99pm, now free. Long may it continue!!