Issue with new sky broadband!

l.m.t

Hi, iv just taken out sky unlimited broadband and line rental at the end of February, yesterday was our activation date and everything went live etc all fine.

Now when i originally checked the address they estimated a speed of 10mb - 20mb so i was hoping for atleast 7-8+mb plus for what i do (lots of downloading etc). Now since its been active iv been running some speed tests and every time its bang on 3.5d/l and 0.5u/l.. Doesnt vary at all up or down stays exactly the same. Just curious as to whether to expect this to increase at all over the next few days?

Thanks

carly

According to Sky ( and most other ISPs) during the first 10 days your line will be being assessed and tested to see what speeds it can consistently manage ( this will be on the sky web pages somewhere and probably on your account page details too). During this period your speeds should vary and at the end of this period the best stable speed will be chosen and adhered to.
However this never really happened with me and i received a pretty low average speed from day one. At the end of 3 weeks I rang Sky and asked them to manually set the line speed ( you need to get past the first tier of customer support on the phone and get put through to the second tier of customer service. They then upped my speed to 6Mb where it has remained fixed and stable for 18 months. so sorry, you'll probably have to wait a few weeks to see your promised expeceted speeds.

steve1980

Give it 10 days for the line to "settle". If it's doesn't give a decent result, then give Sky a call and they sort it out for you. Mine went from 5 - 6 mb upto a static 16mb.

macman

How are you connecting-wireless or ethernet? Are you hooked up to the master socket or to an extension socket?
Repeat your speed test from the test socket behind the NTE5 master socket split faceplate, that will eliminate any problems with your internal wiring.
Any problems with your internal wiring, wireless set up or own equipment are not down to Sky.
However as advised above I would give it a few days to settle down.

penrhyn

OP There are broadband support pages on the Sky website.
Specifically:

To test the performance of your line, we will start your Sky Broadband at a low speed on the first day. Over the first ten days we will try to increase your speeds and will then set your line to provide the best speeds supported with a reliable connection. During these first ten days you may notice some variations in speed and your connection may be intermittent at times; this is normal.

https://www.skyuser.co.uk is a useful resource.

l.m.t

thanks for all your replies guys, guess il just wait the 10 days and see if there is any difference before getting in contact with sky

macman wrote: »

How are you connecting-wireless or ethernet? Are you hooked up to the master socket or to an extension socket?
Repeat your speed test from the test socket behind the NTE5 master socket split faceplate, that will eliminate any problems with your internal wiring.
Any problems with your internal wiring, wireless set up or own equipment are not down to Sky.
However as advised above I would give it a few days to settle down.

Iv tried connecting and speed testing both wireless and via ethernet, both give identical speeds (3.5d/l, 0.5u/l). Its connected via the master socket.. Albeit an old looking master socket that was already in the property when i moved in (Doesnt have a test socket behind faceplate.. Am i able to replace the socket for a new style NTE5 one, would this help at all?) - The master socket is located directly by the front door so internal wiring has little difference to travel.

macman

No you can't replace the NTE5, it's BT's property. However it's perfectly legal to put an NTE5 in just downstream of the old master if you wish.

kwikbreaks

Does the old socket have any hard wired extensions running off it?

Is your router connected directly into the master socket (or at least a filter lugged into the master socket) or on an extension? Plug in extensions can be bad news for ADSL.

If you only have the one socket and no extensions then there is little point making changes but if you do have extensions then fitting a filtered faceplate close to your old master and running all the extensions off that is a good move. ADSLNation sell good kit for doing this sort of thing.

l.m.t

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Does the old socket have any hard wired extensions running off it?

Is your router connected directly into the master socket (or at least a filter lugged into the master socket) or on an extension? Plug in extensions can be bad news for ADSL.

If you only have the one socket and no extensions then there is little point making changes but if you do have extensions then fitting a filtered faceplate close to your old master and running all the extensions off that is a good move. ADSLNation sell good kit for doing this sort of thing.

Nope - No extensions running off of the socket. Router connected directly to the master socket via the ADSL filter supplied with the router. I may need to get an extention run in at some point to the lounge so will bear that ASDLNation in mind, but for the time being am just going to try and get the bb working at optimal speed. So my current socket although being old should make little difference to speeds etc if running no extensions etc?

kwikbreaks

The socket will be fine. What causes problems with ADSL is the ring wire in extensions. With the NTE5 all extensions can be run from the faceplate and the simplest cure for the ringwire issue is to simply disconnect it at that faceplate (terminal #3). This causes no problems as filters contain their own ring capacitors and many new phones don't need it anyway.

With old sockets like yours extensions could be run from the back but you aren't supposed to touch that wiring (BT contract certainly and maybe even a legal requirement). If you need a more complex extension setup then the answer is to fit a newer style socket next to the master as macman suggested (or get an Openreach branded NTE5 from a well known auction site and DIY but that could be a bit awkward if it failed later and a BT engineer spotted the DIY work which is quite likely).

Plug in extensions have ring wires and need to be filtered from the master socket end to isolate the ring wire. That obviously means you wouldn't be able to run the ADSL router on one as you'd have removed the signal in the filter.

I've never been on Sky so can't advise if or when your speeds will improve. The BT based way is to simply set defaults and let the line management slow it down if it can't cope with the speed so on those systems you won't see it improve over time but it can certainly get worse.

spike7451

OP,

Put your phone number in here;

http://btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/main.html

If the speed it shows matches roughly what you are getting,even after the 10 day DLM period,then the's little else that can be done.