Looking for comments about Sky Broadband

Sharon140

I am currently with Virgin and am out of contract. We have Sky for our TV and as we have the sports package we can get Sky broadband free for 12 months. I know we will have to switch our home phone to them as well but that is ok as the line rental ect is on par with Virgin.

I don't really know anyone with Sky broadband so wondered if anyone on here has it and if it is ok? I have seen many reviews about it being slow but these are old ones. We wont be able to have the fibre as its not in our area. I would be really interested to hear your opinions on Sky Broadband before I make the final decision

penrhyn

The speed of ant ADSL connection is dependent on your distance from the exchange. Check on Samknows is Sky BB is available at yours and you should be able to get a speed estimate off the Sky site.

Sharon140

penrhyn wrote: »

The speed of ant ADSL connection is dependent on your distance from the exchange. Check on Samknows is Sky BB is available at yours and you should be able to get a speed estimate off the Sky site.

I did try but as we dont have a BT line this isnt available, we only have the virgin line at the moment but sky will put in a phone line free of charge if we switch. Thank you so much for the suggestion though

penrhyn

In which case do a map search on Samknows
http://www.samknows.com/exchange_mapping

duchy

If you call Sky they will tell you what your local exchange is capable of and give you a range you can expect.

I have Sky and my OH has Virgin - Not much to choose between them speedwise in my area but I don't like the off-shore call centres for tech that Virgin use. I've had a few instances of communication issues with them due to this.

Sharon140

Well I just called Sky and they said that the speed I can expect is 4mb to 9.2 mb :eek: that seems so slow compared to what I have now with Virgin which is 60mb however they can also install Fibre which has an expected speed of 40mb but this is only free for 6 months instead of 12.

Working it out over the year if we swapped to Sky Fibre we would save £182 but if we swapped to the normal broadband then the savings would be over £400 decisions but could we cope with slow speed. Decisions decisions :undecided

penrhyn

Depends on your use, how many PCs, online game consoles, or internet TV streams are you using at the same time.
Sky predicted my connection at around 6 Mbps, actually I get around 9 Mbps. Does not say that you would get the same.?

Sharon140

penrhyn wrote: »

Depends on your use, how many PCs, online game consoles, or internet TV streams are you using at the same time.
Sky predicted my connection at around 6 Mbps, actually I get around 9 Mbps. Does not say that you would get the same.?

There is only two of us at home me and the hubs, most of our usage is on tablets and occasionally the lap top and also download tv shows and films from on demand no consoles unless my son stays and fetches his xbox with him. They didn't actually come out with a definite speed but anywhere between these two seems slow :rotfl:but as its free for 12 months I am sure we can get used to it

penrhyn

In which case anything about 6Mbps should be fine. Did you try Samknows mapping?

macman

As above. Can you actually tell the difference in practice between say 9Mbps and 60Mbps? It certainly won't seem 6 times faster. For the purposes you list, ADSL would seem perfectly adequate-you can stream your video with anything from about 3Mbps up.
I'd suggest you start on ADSL and see how it goes-you can always upgrade to FTTC at any time if you still want to.

duchy

Sharon140 wrote: »

Well I just called Sky and they said that the speed I can expect is 4mb to 9.2 mb :eek: that seems so slow compared to what I have now with Virgin which is 60mb however they can also install Fibre which has an expected speed of 40mb but this is only free for 6 months instead of 12.

Working it out over the year if we swapped to Sky Fibre we would save £182 but if we swapped to the normal broadband then the savings would be over £400 decisions but could we cope with slow speed. Decisions decisions :undecided

Switch to standard BB -there's no penalty if you later upgrade to fibre .
Try it and see

EDIT Ooops Macman beat me to it again