Sky Broadband (merged)

penrhyn

Its good to hear from a satisfied customer.
Can I ask which broadband product you are taking from Sky? Mid, Max or Connect?
I fail to see why Demon could not offer a faster service, for as you say its the same line, as even if the Demon service was via BT they should have been able to go up to 8mbps.

S0litaire

Sky is probably using LLU exchange equipment where as Demon my be stuck with BT equipment hence the difference in speeds and price.

neil40

Im moving to them when my contract finishes later this month with Madasafish.I will save £20 per month by moving unless MAAF can come up with an offer under £10 per month to keep me!

Stumpy

I've been with Sky BB for over a year now. Prior to Sky, I was with several different providers, and the maximum speed I ever got was around 1.5Mb. Once I went to Sky, I went up to 2.5. (I'm on the Mid "up to 8Mb" package, but due to the distance from the exchange was told I could only get around 2Mb. I wanted the Mid as it has a higher download limit).

Recently, I had several problems with my connection which resulted (a) in discovering they had capped me at 2.5, and I could actually get 3.5Mb, and (b) that my internal wiring needed an upgrade.

So I then spent several happy days/weeks, on 3.5Mb. HOWEVER - Sky are currently rolling out a new automated line management system and unfortunately I'm one of their initial guinea pigs for the scheme. Some people have been very happy, but mine is still in the process of being "trained", resulting in constant disconnections and speeds of around 0.5Mb.

I have been told that this "training" can take anything from between 8-20 days, usually around 10.

Apparently Sky are picking the worst performing lines, either due to errors on the line (that they can see with their software), or those lines that are not running at optimal speeds for one reason or another. They are not only "training" our lines, but also "training" their software to cope with any problems the lines may throw at them, so that when they roll this out to the rest of the Sky customers, most problems will already have been foreseen and solutions discovered.

According to Sky, once this is properly in place, it will be a good thing - only time will tell, I guess.

Regarding their customer service - its awful, abysmal, horrible and expensive.

It regularly takes an inordinately long time to get through to someone, and then you have a high chance of getting through to the foreign call centre, where the staff are (a) difficult to understand and (b) have no idea how to solve any problems that aren't on their script.

If you are really, really lucky, you get through to their Scottish call centre, where the staff appear to be a lot more knowledgeable and helpful.

Apparently they also respond to e-mail requests for help now, which may improve things:

http://mysky.sky.com/portal/site/skycom/skyhelpcentre/contactus/kana

chrispyphillips

Quick question guys, I'm with Pipex now (and hate them) and am looking to get away from them. I'm a Sky+ customer, so am looking at Sky's free broadband deal for the time being, as I mainly use the net for browsing, and rarely for downloading. I do stream occassionally through youtube etc, but not often.

Is their free deal worth it, and is there a contract I have to enter into? I may only want it a few months and dont want to be stuck with it if it aint no good! Also, do you have to use the router they send you, as I have a netgear at the mo and its pretty brilliant, so dont see the need to use another one!

Thanks

PaulK_3

Yep 12 month contract for the BB to start with, the free package has a very low usage allowance but it may be suitable for you and yes you have to use the router provided as that has the adsl user name and password locked into it. You will receive either a Netgear or Sagem router from sky.

scanner_2

if I go over the 2gb limit on sky broadband base package, then will I get charged extra or is there a CAP in place so as to make sure you wont be able to go over the 2gb limit?

Larumbelle

I have been over almost every month that I've had it, never been capped, never been charged. I don't know of any one who has ever been charged/capped by sky, though I know that doesn't necessarily mean noone is.

PaulK_3

At the moment there is no cap or major enforcement, if you go over the limit by a loooong way you will be contacted about it, do it regularly and you will be asked to either upgrade to the next package or you may find your service stopped till the month end or you get charged for the extra usage.

penrhyn

If you want to see what you are downloading then download Netmeter or something similar, its free ware.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Network-Tools/Bandwidth-Tools/NetMeter.shtml