Sky not fulfilling speed guarantee ...but why??

JanChris

I used to live elsewhere in the same village and had Sky Superfast Fibre with a constant speed of 45-50mbps.
Had to move away so finished contract.  3 months later moved back into village (only 2 green cabinets in the village) to a different house. New account with Sky Superfast Fibre again 
Getting continuous 19mbps... (their guarantee is 30).
I said nothing for a week or two because of the 10 day stabilization period then strangely got an email out of the blue that they are "sorry to hear I'm not getting the speeds I'm expecting and they can't deal with it in a timely manner so I can leave with no penalty... any time in the next year!"    Odd.     I rung up and was told the cabinet box is congested so I can't get the necessary speed.
Surely that would mean that all the other folks I know in the village would be getting 30% of their expected speed....but they aren't!

1. How did Sky know it's too slow and why can't they sort it?
2. All tests to my address from Sky and various other ISPs say I can receive Superfast...but if I change providers won't it still be 19mbps?
3. Can the cabinet be congested if no one else is affected?

Yes, I can probably just about manage with 19mbps but I'd really like to know why it's not 50?

Neil_Jones

1) Sky don't sort it, its an Openreach issue.  Until Openreach upgrade the cabinet and/or the infrastructure (which is not Sky's responsibility) nothing Sky can do.

2) Just because the provider says you can receive it doesn't mean you will.  Factors like line quality, line length...

3) Yes.  More to providing internet than just a green cabinet sitting in the middle of the pavement somewhere.  Sometimes depends where the original runs were laid and exactly where the problem is.  No two lines are the same.

Consider yourself lucky Sky noticed and gave you the option to go I'd say.

brewerdave

Are you actually connected to the fibre cabinet ? Sounds to me as if you are still on ADSL2 to the original "phone" connected cabinet because there wasn't space to connect you to the FTTC system ? I used to get ~ 19Mb on my old ADSL2+ line.

iniltous

The theoretical max of exchange based ADSL2+ is 24Mb , but that’s not real work speed , on a pretty short line ( very close to the exchange ) 17-20Mb is entirely possible, so ( as already stated ) you may well be in ADSL rather than VDSL ( FTTC ) , if Sky has supposedly ‘noticed’ this and offered you a penalty free exit, then it’s possible they sold you FTTC , (and 30Mb is not possible from ADSL ) but  provided you with ADSL , and that why they are offering you the option to quit , they didn’t connect you to what you were expecting , normally they attempt to get the minimum speed, after all it costs Sky nothing to do this , as it’s Openreach that do the work.
Do you live pretty close to the exchange building ?, often lines close to the exchange are E/O ( exchange only ) they don’t go through a cabinet , and therefore cannot get  ‘fibre to the cabinet’ only have access to ADSL , albeit it’s normally pretty speedy for ADSL
If you look at the modulation in the router stats you can determine what is being used ,