Can you get broadband without a phone line?

Soldierearth54

Hi,

I currently have sky tv, phone and broadband - don't ue my phone and was keen to have it disconnected. Can someone advise me if this will affect my broadband?

Thanks,

Naf

The only ways to have an Internet connection, but not pay for a phone line, is either mobile broadband, or cable.
Your current connection relies on an active phone line.
Talk to sky, if you have a calling plan, you might be able to remove that and pay line rental only.

Soldierearth54

Naf wrote: »

The only ways to have an Internet connection, but not pay for a phone line, is either mobile broadband, or cable.
Your current connection relies on an active phone line.
Talk to sky, if you have a calling plan, you might be able to remove that and pay line rental only.

Thanks - though that.

If I was to switch to a cheaper line rental provider would I still be able to keep my broadband with sky?

Currently £12.25 with sky and know I can get it cheaper elsewhere.

Naf

Yep, provided you aren't in any contract with sky for it, you should be able to move it no problem, but continue receiving internet from sky.

prowla

We previously ran Sky BB over our BT phone line, but we switched to Sky for the phone too as it was cheaper.

jhp

mickp67 wrote: »

Thanks - though that.

If I was to switch to a cheaper line rental provider would I still be able to keep my broadband with sky?

Currently £12.25 with sky and know I can get it cheaper elsewhere.

If your on Sky (LLU) Unbundled Broadband they will cancel your broadband if you change your landline to another supplier.

http://www.sky.com/shop/terms-conditions/broadband/

prowla

Alternatively you can get Virgin fibre broadband without a phone line.
It may be that the new BT fibre broadband that is being rolled out breaks the need for a phone line (and Sky are on that too).

macman

Bear in mind that if you are still in your 1st 12m contract with Sky then you are contractually required to have the digibox connected to the working line (however this is not enforced unless you have Multiroom).
If you do have Multiroom and disconnect the line, then the box will fail the callbacks and you will be billed the full amount for 2 subs.

Buzby

prowla wrote: »

Alternatively you can get Virgin fibre broadband without a phone line.

Virgin provide co-axial (cable) not fibre connections. Of course, the marketing is misleading in the extreme, but as the chain is only as good as its weakest link, it isn't fibre to the customer - and that makes the difference.

Naf

Buzby wrote: »

Virgin provide co-axial (cable) not fibre connections. Of course, the marketing is misleading in the extreme, but as the chain is only as good as its weakest link, it isn't fibre to the customer - and that makes the difference.

It makes A difference, sure. But the point of having fibre optics for the main bulk lines is reduced contention. A fibre optic line can carry many thousands more concurrent connections simultaneously than any cable, without the same speed loss to the individual as a cable system suffers from.
This means that each individual's cable connection is as fast as the cable can be, not only as fast as a portion of the bulk line, because the fibre bulk line can cope with all of the cable connections simultaneously: a cable can't.
Am I making sense at all? Lol

rtho782

Rubbish.

Virgin media is contented at the UBR level and while some areas are fine, others are massively oversubscribed and deliver horrible user experience.

If you wanted to compare it to BT, the telephone line portion is completely uncontented, it is only when it gets to the exchange (and therefore fibre) that contention can kick in, so it is no worse off.

It's entirely possible that someone like me who lives next door (literally) to the telephone exchange would be more accurate describing their line as "Fibre" than a VM customer, as only the last 20metres to my door is copper.

In a DOCSIS network (i.e. VM) you can and usually do have shared coax trunk lines. At the very least you are sharing your coax with your TV. In BT's network there is zero sharing of non-fibre infrastructure.

DOCSIS is simply a different standard to xDSL and has different advantages and disadvantages. It's possible to run VDSL2 up to a theoretical maximum of 200mb/s over a single copper pair, with zero contention, given enough fibre backhaul.

DOCSIS 3.0 is also a max of 200 ish mb/s downstream over 4 channels. You can have more than 4 channels, but you can also have more than 1 copper pair and use VDSL2 Vectoring.

Virgin is not nessecarily any more "fibre" than ADSL or FTTC. Certainly less fibre than FTTP.

Anyway, Virgin are the only supplier that will give you BB without a phone line, but it will cost you extra per month, offsetting most of the saving on the phone line.