Sky capped me!! :(

jwturpin

Hello all

Last Monday my internet speed dropped from an average of 4Mbps to 0.15MBps. It syaed this way till Thursday when I registered a complaint. It was duly escalated by their tech team and I was told to expect a call within 48hrs.

48hrs came and past, no call, so I called them to be told it was actually 72hrs.

72 hours came and past and 3 days later I called them back (last night).

The guy explained that my account had been capped and it wouldn't reset for 7 days!

I explained that the T&C from sky say they will contact you the first time you exceed your limit, effectively slap your hand, then the second time they can either charge you or increase your package. They did neither, now I'm left with virtually useless connection speeds, limited to browsing only.

I can't upgrade my package as the local exchange is fully BT and Sky rent. According to the tech man, BT have capped it, not Sky, but my contract is with Sky, not BT and I want my slap on the hand and full speed back. I (nicely) threatended to walk and swap to BT's TV/phone/BB package and they still maintained it wan't their doing, and that I couldn't move as I was still in contract. I explained they have broken their T&C by not contacting me so I could! He accepted this.

I feel like a naughty child who's being punished. I thought BB was considered to be a utility, like gas or phone, and you can't just restrict someones service if they don't pay a bill, just like your BB shouldn't be throttled for 7 days without a warning at least!

Can they do this to me?

Thanks for any advice

jon

latecomer

I dont see how it would be BT that restrict your line - Sky are the ones providing the service.

vote with your feet.

kwikbreaks

It sounds like BTw dynamic line management to me. If you get a forced resync to a lower speed the BTw system pegs your maximum download in line with that low speed. If you subsequently recover a faster sync the restricted download speed isn't reset immediately and can take up to 5 days. The good news in your case assuming your router has resynced to a faster speed is that big drops take less time to recover.

Nothing to do with Sky all to do with the way the BTw system works.

http://speedtester.bt.com/ should tell you your IP profile which is the maximum you'll be able to download at.

In the meantime check your router stats to see what it is synced at now.

penrhyn

OP is on the Sky Connect package, it has a 40Gb cap.
Its a rebranded BT product and is generally regarded as awful, and subject to peak time throttling.
If there are no LLU operators at your exchange you are a bit stuck.

Mark_In_Hampshire

jwturpin wrote: »

Hello all

Last Monday my internet speed dropped from an average of 4Mbps to 0.15MBps. It syaed this way till Thursday when I registered a complaint. It was duly escalated by their tech team and I was told to expect a call within 48hrs.

48hrs came and past, no call, so I called them to be told it was actually 72hrs.

72 hours came and past and 3 days later I called them back (last night).

The guy explained that my account had been capped and it wouldn't reset for 7 days!

I explained that the T&C from sky say they will contact you the first time you exceed your limit, effectively slap your hand, then the second time they can either charge you or increase your package. They did neither, now I'm left with virtually useless connection speeds, limited to browsing only.

I can't upgrade my package as the local exchange is fully BT and Sky rent. According to the tech man, BT have capped it, not Sky, but my contract is with Sky, not BT and I want my slap on the hand and full speed back. I (nicely) threatended to walk and swap to BT's TV/phone/BB package and they still maintained it wan't their doing, and that I couldn't move as I was still in contract. I explained they have broken their T&C by not contacting me so I could! He accepted this.

I feel like a naughty child who's being punished. I thought BB was considered to be a utility, like gas or phone, and you can't just restrict someones service if they don't pay a bill, just like your BB shouldn't be throttled for 7 days without a warning at least!

Can they do this to me?

Thanks for any advice

jon

Yes, basically. If that's what their Terms say and if it is indeed "capping" rather than, as kwikbreaks says, a line fault which has caused a drop in the line profile (which might look like BT is throttling it which is sort of technically correct but is also the correct behaviour of that product)

The catch with a lot of providers is that there is a limit to how much you can use, but it is not advertised that way. It's advertised as Unlimited (subject to Fair Use Policy) and the Fair Use Policy can be undeclared (you don't know what the limit is) and changed by the provider at will.

So you can still breach the limit, even though you were never told what it was. Thank the useless regulator for that.

It's being addressed now, in 12 months, no broadband will say "Unlimited", rather actual usage limits are likely to be shown e.g. 50Gb/mo at which point the service will probably just stop working until next month unless you pay more.

That said: you're quite correct. If we're going strictly by what the Terms say in respect of the "cap" then we should also go by their side of the bargain - which was to let you know. Especially important if it's one of those wooly FUP things which doesn't tell you what the limit is as if you don't know, you can't "behave".

When broadband is properly priced - no "unlimited" nonsense - then there's no need for this silliness. It exists because people want limitless use for a price far less than it costs to provide so rather than put people off with declared usage limitations, the regulator has enabled ISPs to simply cheat.

Broadband is a very, very long way from being considered essential or a utility - indeed, if it were, it wouldn't be so dire as it is now compared with other countries.

kwikbreaks

It may well be BS but Sky said the problem was due to BT reducing the speed.

jwturpin

Thanks for your replies!

I am on the basic package from Sky with a 10Gb limit, and I never ever exceed it, at least I haven't since i signed on the dotted line 10 months ago. Last week was the first time ever and I went over by 2 Gb apparently. (due to housemate being off sick and downloading some films to watch)

Thing is, there was no warning at all, just an immediate cap, in fact it hapenned mid download at about 5:15pm.

I said to the tech guy on the phone last night to go ahead and upgrade me, but he said that wasn't possible because of my exchange.

Sky's T&C's state quite clearly that they will email me to let me know in the first instance, then the following month they will take action. As my contract is with Sky, not BT, yet Sky are blaming BT for the capping, as far as I am concerned, I am entitled to end the contract early as they have broken their own terms.
(They wouldn't hesitate to end the contract on their part if I broke the terms, however trivial!)

Anyway, is there a thread about getting BT's phone/BB deals cheap on here as I can't find it, but I know it exists. I plan on leaving Sky's phone/BB keeping their TV, and shifting across to BT. My rationale being that if they own all the circuits in the exchange, then I can take out a package with a higher cap!??!

Any thoughts?

jwturpin

kwikbreaks wrote: »

It sounds like BTw dynamic line management to me. If you get a forced resync to a lower speed the BTw system pegs your maximum download in line with that low speed. If you subsequently recover a faster sync the restricted download speed isn't reset immediately and can take up to 5 days. The good news in your case assuming your router has resynced to a faster speed is that big drops take less time to recover.

Nothing to do with Sky all to do with the way the BTw system works.

http://speedtester.bt.com/ should tell you your IP profile which is the maximum you'll be able to download at.

In the meantime check your router stats to see what it is synced at now.

Kwikbreaks, I thought that, because briefly as my feed came back on briefly on tuesday, and it was rating at 5Mbps, faster than the usual 1-2 MBps. but then I d/loaded a file, and it went off again.

My router shows a throughput of 5.9Mbps, even with the cap applied

penrhyn

Sky do not do a package with a 10Gb cap.

You can have Connect on a non LLU exchange with a 40Gb cap @ £17/month

Everyday Lite on LLU with a 2Gb cap for free, or unlimited for £7.50, £2.50 extra if you don't take talk.

kwikbreaks

There are two parts to what speed you get on your BT based connection - the sync rate and the IP profile. The BT link I posted shows both I think although I've been free of IPstream for several years now so it's ages since I used it. Then of course you may get ISP speed capping which I thought wasn't the case as I'd expect them to come clean about that and not blame BT.

Sky Connect has an abysmal reputation and after being capped and lied to I don't blame you for leaving but BT don't have a good reputation either.

As a low user the world is your oyster as plenty of ISPs offer low usage packages. Take a look at Plusnet (you won't get their cheapest deals on your exchange though). IdNet and NewNet both have good reputations too. You'll get other suggestions too I'm sure.

===

Just realised it was only Sky said you can't get LLU - check with http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php if O2/Be are available LLU if so then either would be good. Most other LLU such as Orange, TalkTalk and the like do not have good reputations.

garythegopher

Hi I am new to posting on forums but I felt the need to comment on the issue of Sky connect's 40GB monthly limit. Like many people I live in a rural area and do not have access to LLU unlimited services from sky, I am a reasonably heavy broadband user so when I considered moving from BT unlimited to Sky with a 40gb a month cap I looked at my overall usage a month and 40gb seemed enough.
All seemed o.k. since September last year no problems however as of around the 23rd of Feb our broadband sudenly went from 800k to 15k after 5pm. I rang sky and was told my account had been capped as I had exceeded my 40gb per month limit and was told that it would be lifted in three days which I accepted, with no accurate way of checking my usage. After a few days the speed returned to normal until it happen again last Friday when we tried to watch a film on xbox live. Last night I rang Sky and spoke to someone who was most helpful who explained that although the package is advertised with a 40gb per month limit it appears that there is also a 1.3gb per day limit. If on monday I use 1.4gb .1gb is taken from my next days allowance if I then use more then 1.2 that day the extra is taken from Wednesdays allowance once a threshold is met you get throttled (in peak times) to the point that all you can do is web browse and even that is slow this lasts for three days or until you accru enough credit to go below the threshold there may also be a 10gb per week limit which results in the whole of the following week being capped.
I think the 40gb per month claim is a con I may have a couple of days a month where I need to download software for work which could be 2gb at a time but then the rest of the month I might use a lot less and never get near to the 40gb per month limit. The other issue is why has it happened all of a sudden 6 months no problem then twice in the space of a month. I will have to go back to BT but I am stuck until my contract runs out in 5 months.