Broadband and working from home

Drew210385

I've been working from home for a company for the past 3 years however over the past few weeks have been having problems with my work phone (VoIP) which is plugged into the router.

The problem is to do with transferring calls and a couple other things aren't working correctly and the phone company have advised me that I needed to contact my broadband provider to enable a setting called SIP ALG which will allow my phone to work properly.

I contacted my provider (SKY) who have advised they can't enable this setting, or give me my ADSL login (so I can get another router) as their broadband is for personal use only. Which is quite annoying but fair enough.

I now need to source broadband from a provider which allows work use and personal use at the same time for hopefully the same sort of price.

I work from home (at the kitchen table or coffee table - I don't have an office or a even a desk..) normal office hours Monday to Friday, but apart from that I use the internet for personal use as well as Sky TV and the landline - for which we have a package deal.

I've looked into commercial and business internet packages and I'm a bit overwhelmed. They all seem to be offering new lines and static IP's and all sorts.

Any help in this much appreciated. Sorry for waffling on!

Drew

TadleyBaggie

If you go to http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/ you will find plenty of info on how to extract the name/password from your existing router. Be aware however if your connection uses the MER protocol the 3rd party routers you can use is limited.

ritesh

You can easily get the SKY passwords

http://www.cm9.net/skypass/

Use this for your new router. I do not understand how SKY can hold you ransom to only their routers. Drives me mad!

Anyway I have heard a rumour that if SKY "catch" you using a non-SKY router they can stop your broadband.

Three years on and no problem for me! Scaremongering tactic from SKY I here you say?

Gordon_Hose

When Sky say you need business Broadband for working from home, they're lying.

The only reason you'd need buisness BB is if you were running a business. As you are only working from home you are not running a business.

I work from home and had the same argument with Sky because their routers didn't allow VPN access. In the end they replaced my Sagem router with a Netgear and it worked fine. They then updated the Sagem routers to allow VPN access, which proved they were lying about needing business broadband.

You can extract your username and password, as pointed out. But if you get any issues you need to speak to Sky about, you'll have to plug your Sky router back in otherwise they won't help you.

littleboo

The biggest issue when using a domestic product for home working is the lack of SLA. If the broadband goes faulty, the provider may take days or longer to get it fixed, and the only compensation is the refund of charges for X days loss of service, which is likely to be a few ponds at most.
If loss of broadband means you're unable to work and wont be earning, it's a risk you need to take into account. Of course, you may have a Plan B which is to work from a friends house or use a mobile dongle etc.
I work from home and I have a company provided business broadband, a personal domestic broadband and a dongle if case it all goes bad. The dongle is handy because it gives me a few hours use while the laptop is on battery if there is a power cut.

Gordon_Hose

In the 4 years I've been here WFH on domestic broadband, I've not had one outage.

Buzby

However, if BB is mission-critical, littleboo is spot-on. You need belt and braces, and a mobile dongle keeps you running when the line goes down.

As for 4 years without an outage, sorry that stretches credibility. There will have been outages - perhaps nothing that inconvenienced you, but if it can break down - it will, just when you need it most!

Drew210385

Thanks all.

Yeah I've been with them for about 4 years now without any interruptions or outages as far as I'm aware. Just continuous, consistent broadband, which is awesome. I did have a small issue very recently however but all was fine after they sent me a new router.

Which is where my next problem lies! On the CM9 site my router isn't listed (as it's so new I presume). It is an upgraded version of the Sagem F@ST2504 router which is listed. I'm not sure if I use that then it will still work?

Gordon_Hose

Buzby wrote: »

However, if BB is mission-critical, littleboo is spot-on. You need belt and braces, and a mobile dongle keeps you running when the line goes down.

As for 4 years without an outage, sorry that stretches credibility. There will have been outages - perhaps nothing that inconvenienced you, but if it can break down - it will, just when you need it most!

"Mission critical"? lol, are you an astronaut? :rotfl:

Ok then, just for you. In 4 years of WFH, I've never had an outage that affected my broadband connection while I was using it.

Better, princess?

Buzby

Absolutely - inexactitudes like yours need qualification, as they are relevant to the thread. Sorry if you feel your wide-ranging statements should not be commented upon - but then, I think accuracy is important, even if you don't.

Gordon_Hose

We're talking about working from home, not running a multi-million pound business !!!!!!.

YOU do not NEED business grade broadband if you work from home. Regardless of what any ISP says.