Sorting out our phone and broadband?

johannis

Sorry if this is a bit basic for these forums, but I am struggling to see the wood from the trees after a few days of trawling the Internet for an answer. (I am not sure I am asking the right question)
We have had work done to our house and we need to replace a couple of damaged phone sockets.
Before the work was done were getting ok speeds but nothing like the speeds that sky promise. ( I believe we should be getting 20mb but rarely got close to 10!). I had spent fairly fruitless long phone calls with Sky engineers trying to iron out the issue with little success. The speed is ok for now, but I'd like to get more of our content through streaming and Internet and there seems little point in doing so until we have a decent connection.
My question really is who is best to advise and fix our issues, BT who I presume is responsible for the line coming to the house, Sky who provide the broadband or do I get an independent engineer to sort it out or would it be cheaper in the long run and switch to something like infinity?
Thanks

AndyPK

Who did the work at your house.

Do you have the router plugged in at the master socket ?

I think 10 Mbps is ok for streaming.

Neil_Jones

10Mbps is fine for normal non-HD programme streaming, but may struggle on HD streaming, especially if you're doing other things at the same time on the internet.

JJ_Egan

As above how are you connected .
BT OR have to be contacted from SKY .

How are you measuring this speed is it over WiFi . What speed etc is showing in the router .

johannis

Morning all thanks for the replies.
So, we have had a number of different tradesmen working on stuff in the house and while i suspect it was the damp course people who affected our connection it was something we were going to have to sort out anyway.

The router is not in the master socket, the master socket is old and not particularly conveniently placed.

In terms of speed, i've tried the online sites and sky have measured it at their end. 10mb is about the best we get but its lower that surrounding properties are getting (or so sky tell me). it was also tested in the master socket and while better not much above 10mb

Sky is our broadband provider i've always assumed that BT provide the line but we currently pay BT nothing.

I think the bottom line is that if we want to make the most of the way TV etc is going we need a quicker and more consistent internet connection. i'm just not sure who is best to contact to sort this out for me.

suki1964

You cannot contact open reach direct, your isp has to do that for you

You pay sky line rental, they pay BT /OR

It's sky you need to chase

Because they say the problem is not their end, then you will end up paying for the OR call out, and that's not cheap


A lot of factors can mess with the speed over wifi. My friend lives next door to a box, her wifi BB is dire, and I mean you can't even watch a YouTube video. Soon as she connects via Ethernet , she's on speeds of 20+

johannis

Part of the problem i have is that i'm not even sure that what i think is the master socket actually is the master socket?
there is a box, roughly in the area the line enters the house, but that doesn't have a socket, the nearest socket to it may be the master socket but its difficult to trace the wiring back because of flooring and panelling.
Our house was previously owned by a bit of a DIY bodge it merchant so i'm always discovering oddities.

I think in the end we'll need to get someone in to sort the whole thing out. I appreciate that as our provider Sky should be my first call but i'm not necessarily beholden to them and i will be significantly reducing my tv package soon and not really bothered about where the broadband come from as long as its reliable.
Is it worth threatening them about leaving to get them to come and sort as you might with getting them to reduce your TV costs or is this a completely different thing?

thanks

Bigphil1474

Has the BB been off a while during the works? Might just need a couple of weeks to settle down. Can't see how changing ISP will change anything - it's all down the same line. 10mps is pretty good tbh if it's non-fibre BB - I used to only get about 8 on a good day. Now switched to fibre and get about 20 ish. Still managed to stream movies and play on PS4 with before I switched.

AndyPK

master sockets look like this. (unless it was installed a long time ago)

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-BT-Master-Socket-New-OpenReach-Brand-NTE5-NTE5a-Faceplate-BNIB-BackBox-/182286899625?hash=item2a712559a9:g:RbkAAOSwL7VWpk8x

johannis

Thanks again, we don't have anything like that master socket, we have an anonymous looking box more or less where the phone line comes in and then an extension running off it (which I know won't help)
The broadband wasn't off for any significant length of time and it's working ok at the moment, I think basically what I'm asking is I'm going to spend a bit of money resoring the sockets to a more convenient place do I spend more to ensure as good a service as I can afford?

AndyPK

The best solution is to start using your 10Mbps connection and see if its good enough for what you want.

Sadly other way forwards are likely to waste money and could well achieve little.

I wouldn't waste money on fibre if you get 10mbps.

What you really want is a DIYer to sort it !

And get them to fit one of these, and a power socket next to it for the router.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Genuine-BT-Master-Socket-DSL-ADSL-Phone-Filter-Faceplate-Box-4-Openreach-Nte5a-/261398618797?hash=item3cdc9262ad:g:rvYAAOSwoydWp63k

The router will only work plugged into this then, (at line entry)