Should I risk moving to sky BB-to save over £12p/m?

Beki88

Hiya I am a bit of a broadband noob so please bear with me.

I am currently with plusnet and I am pretty happy, they just informed me they are moving my speed up as my area can now get up to 20mb.
Current speed is about 6.5 (at best which is most of time, 5ish at worst), estimate for moving will be 14.5. However I am paying 19.99 per month for this.

I started a sky tv contract in feb and was offered free BB as part of my half price tv deal, but was in plusnet contract till this month so didnt take advantage.


I now notice sky will do my broadband for only 7.50 a month which is great compared to the 19.99 I am paying, but I am so weary as I hear a lot of bad about sky and wonder if I will be sacrificing the quality I get now! I can't be doing with slow internet or lots of drop outs...been there with talktalk paid to get out of contract early...
I saw Skys 30 day guarantee but I'm still not sure that is enough time to discover what its like.

Can anyone help?
Any info needed I will be happy to provide, as long as its asked of me in plain english and not tech speak Thanks in advance and sorry for the waffle.

Mark_In_Hampshire

I can't speak from personal experience, but would say that most of what I've read suggests Sky broadband customers are happy.

All you'd need to do is to verify what's on offer. Sky have two products and the one you get depends on what's available at your exchange.

One is called Sky Connect and is poor.

The other is Sky LLU and is well regarded.

If you go to http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker then put your phone number in, then click LLU xDSL on the left, do you see Sky/Easynet listed as available? If not, it's likely to be the Connect package which is highly unlikely to improve on what you have now and may just possibly underperform by comparison.

Hammyman

Beki88 wrote: »

Hiya I am a bit of a broadband noob so please bear with me.

I am currently with plusnet and I am pretty happy, they just informed me they are moving my speed up as my area can now get up to 20mb.
Current speed is about 6.5 (at best which is most of time, 5ish at worst), estimate for moving will be 14.5. However I am paying 19.99 per month for this.

I started a sky tv contract in feb and was offered free BB as part of my half price tv deal, but was in plusnet contract till this month so didnt take advantage.


I now notice sky will do my broadband for only 7.50 a month which is great compared to the 19.99 I am paying, but I am so weary as I hear a lot of bad about sky and wonder if I will be sacrificing the quality I get now! I can't be doing with slow internet or lots of drop outs...been there with talktalk paid to get out of contract early...
I saw Skys 30 day guarantee but I'm still not sure that is enough time to discover what its like.

Can anyone help?
Any info needed I will be happy to provide, as long as its asked of me in plain english and not tech speak Thanks in advance and sorry for the waffle.

Hi. I was in the same boat as you. Thats the same boat as IN THE NEXT SEAT. I was on Plusnet for more than 3 years getting about the same speed as you and have switched to the same Sky deal you are looking at just three weeks ago. It went completely seamlessly with both Plusnet and Sky. Broadband dropped for 5 minutes on the changeover date. Speeds have been just fine and consistently good even in peak times although they started off at 4MBit on initial connectino and rose over the next few days while the line speed was established.

One thing I will say though is the Sky supplied router is pants but then again I do have an all singing all dancing doo-hickey. There is a website where you can generate the login details from the details on your Sky router to use on your own and I suggest you do that. Its all explained here:
https://www.cm9.net/skypass/

I have not regretted it for one minute. I am now on 50% more speed for 50% of the price and with completely unlimited downloads. As someone who has been online since the mid 1980's, I recognise when I'm with a crap ISP. One reason I think there's the massive improvement is they're doing Anytime+ video on demand (which is video streamed over internet to your TV via Sky HD box) they have had to massively improve their network to cope. To be able to use Anytime+, it means you'd have to be guaranteed at least 2Mbit in the peakest of peak times for it not to affect the video streaming. The benefit for Sky broadband users is their network has gobs of capacity so no slow times at peak times.

Beki88

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

I can't speak from personal experience, but would say that most of what I've read suggests Sky broadband customers are happy.

All you'd need to do is to verify what's on offer. Sky have two products and the one you get depends on what's available at your exchange.

One is called Sky Connect and is poor.

The other is Sky LLU and is well regarded.

If you go to http://www.samknows.com/broadband/broadband_checker then put your phone number in, then click LLU xDSL on the left, do you see Sky/Easynet listed as available? If not, it's likely to be the Connect package which is highly unlikely to improve on what you have now and may just possibly underperform by comparison.

Sky Broadband / Easynet is available in your area. So thats a good sign

Hammy what are your speeds at now and how long did it take for them to get there? What's the lowest you get, other than when it was stabilising?

My fiance games via xbox live and that has to be one of the most important things, as right now he gets ripped for his slower speeds and more often then not moderate or strict nat (means nothing to me I'm just told it haha). Doesnt help our friend gets 21meg so obviously ours is terrible compared to that :eek:

Thanks for the help

Mark_In_Hampshire

To get 21meg - the length of the line connecting your friend to the exchange is probably only about 700m long. It drops very sharply over distance. If you're say half a mile further out, you won't be seeing 21meg no matter who you go with.

When Plusnet upgrade you from ADSL1 to ADSL2+ (which is what your original post indicated) they're estimating the speed you'll see. Sky is also ADSL2+. So the change from what you have to the higher speed isn't relatef to the ISP it's related to the connection type.

ISPs using BT Wholesale - like Plusnet - have been at a disadvantage because LLU operators (e.g. Sky) have had ADSL2+ in place for ages, at exchanges where the BT Wholesale offering is only the ADSL1 (up to 8 Meg) service. BT is catching up at your exchange, as it were.

Now, whether Sky ADSL2+ is better than Plusnet ADSL2+ is the question.

Beki88

Mark_In_Hampshire wrote: »

To get 21meg - the length of the line connecting your friend to the exchange is probably only about 700m long. It drops very sharply over distance. If you're say half a mile further out, you won't be seeing 21meg no matter who you go with.

When Plusnet upgrade you from ADSL1 to ADSL2+ (which is what your original post indicated) they're estimating the speed you'll see. Sky is also ADSL2+. So the change from what you have to the higher speed isn't relatef to the ISP it's related to the connection type.

ISPs using BT Wholesale - like Plusnet - have been at a disadvantage because LLU operators (e.g. Sky) have had ADSL2+ in place for ages, at exchanges where the BT Wholesale offering is only the ADSL1 (up to 8 Meg) service. BT is catching up at your exchange, as it were.

Now, whether Sky ADSL2+ is better than Plusnet ADSL2+ is the question.

Our friend lives in Milton Keynes and is with BE unlimited so thats probably why such a difference.

I was fine reading your post except the bit in bold, that just went straight over my head, sorry

Mark_In_Hampshire

It doesn't matter which ISP he or you go with, to have that speed the length of the line has to be incredibly short. That isn't something you can control (unless you go and live right next to the exchange of course) e.g. it leaves the exchange at 24meg and by the time the signal has travelled just 700m to 900m, 3meg of that has been lost already and no ISP can "get it back". It's a factor of putting broadband signals down phone lines. The only ones it doesn't impact are those who don't use phone lines to deliver the service.

ADSL is "up to 8Meg" (maximum actual speed you'd see is about 6.7Mbps). If that's the service, doesn't matter which ISP - it won't be faster than that, and will only be that fast if you have a very short line.

ADSL2+ is "up to 24Mbps"

Sky is already ADSL2+ (so for you, you'd see an improvement if you switched now)

Plusnet is ADSL moving to ADSL2+ hence the speed upgrade.

The 24Mbps is a the maximum theoretical speed. According to Plusnet given the length and quality of your line you might see 14.5Mbps after upgrade.

Question is - after that, which is best - Sky or Plusnet e.g. which one will deliver the most of the maximum 14.5Mbps you can get, most consistently. That's one I can't answer

Beki88

Right I'm with you now. Sorry must seem a bit dim

Our local exchange has only just been upgraded to the faster speeds anyway as we live in a crappy area.
Is there anything that will determine any possible difference between plusnet and sky?
Thanks.

Mark_In_Hampshire

Not at all dim. It is over-complicated. The trouble is that to try to answer your question in any detail requires some technical background, unless someone just writes "Yes" without giving any reasoning. Personally I'd rather see the reasoning explained and make up my own mind than simply go on what some complete stranger said without seeing why.

I could write an entire page to answer your question directly... but I'll just give you the two key factors:

1. Imagine that everyone served by Sky at your exchange could get 14.5Mbps (that will be very far from true, but running with this...) how much of that you'd see would depend on the amount of capacity they have to deliver that to everyone. Since not everyone is using it all the time, the bandwidth available is not Number of connections * 14.5Mbps. It's lower than that. Different ISPs provision different capacities the effects of which are felt at peak times (which is the reason to avoid the Sky Connect service, they buy the bandwidth from BT - and not enough of it). However you can't really determine the experience you'll get until you try.

2. Some ISPs throttle and traffic shape. That's to say they prioritise different types of activity and limit others. This will have zero effect on you if you just send email and browse the web. It may have an effect if you download torrents, for instance.

I have no personal experience of either of these ISPs, but the experience can differ in different areas. Neither ISP has a particular reputation for congestion or slow speeds.

That hasn't answered your question either, has it. Unless you do use torrents. In which case Sky is the better choice. Sky also uses a different "route" (backhaul) behind the scenes which also has a good reputation.

As a bystander I'd say that Sky just beats Plusnet in terms of what I've read. And given you started with the premise that it's cheaper and concerns about Sky's reputation (which I don't see generally), perhaps that clinches it.

steveE2

I can vouch for Sky LLU perfect for gaming,my son uses both Xbox and PS3 and I don't get any complaints from him about it.
The only thing against Plusnet is unless you're on Extra or Pro gaming is managed to 2Mb/s
http://www.plus.net/support/broadband/speed_guide/download_speeds.shtml

The Plusnet fibre product is something I'm looking at for the future unless Sky announce something soon

mo786uk

I am trying to make this decisoon at the moment - will save £15 a month if I mvoe to SKY but I cannot quite trust them!

I will rue that £15 a month if my internet gets screwed up.