May be jumping ship to Sky LLU

adamb · Dec 12, 2012, 17:25:15

Hi all,

I love IDnet and their service but Sky have recently gone LLU on my exchange. The price difference is massive so I am considering leaving IDnet.
My phone line is also with IDnet, I am wondering what sort of downtime I would have making the switch from IDnet (phone and ADSL) to Sky phone line and LLU ADSL? Does anyone have any ideas on this? Obviously a seamless switch over would be nice but I have a feeling that this would not be the case as I would be changing phone provider too. We really cannot afford to be without ADSL for too long as we run a business from home so any long downtimes would make the move a deal breaker.

I feel a bit guilty asking this in the IDnet forum because I have been really happy with the service I have received. I have also recommended IDnet to friends in non LLU areas and they are as equally impressed. I know you get what you pay for but I have read great things about Sky LLU. We are in a little village so over-subscription should not be a problem. I will also get unlimited bandwidth which is the only reason I am considering moving. IDnet unlimited is close to £100 a month compared with £7.50 from Sky.

Steve · Dec 12, 2012, 18:00:00

Surely the Sky forum would be able to give some clues but in theory it should be done within the day, it will require an engineer visit at the exchange which is usually daytime hours.

adamb · Dec 12, 2012, 18:05:57

Thanks Steve, I did look at the Sky forum but couldn't find anything concrete. I thought someone here may have had experience. If it's a day or two, I can cope with that. I really don't want to leave IDnet but the difference in price is just too tempting.

Steve · Dec 12, 2012, 18:09:03

It should be relatively simple shift from BT's equipment to Sky's, but can take a bit longer to organise due to the exchange visit required by the engineer.

adamb · Dec 12, 2012, 18:29:42

I just wondered if it was a switchover or a case of the IDnet services being cut off and then waiting for the gaining provider to hook things up. If it's a swap then that would be good.

Steve · Dec 12, 2012, 18:53:04

It depends on the LLU equipment at the exchange as to what the transfer process is.

kinmel · Dec 12, 2012, 19:56:34

I moved to Sky 6 months ago, AAISP was my ISP and IDnet supplied the line and calls package.

The changeover was straight forward, I was offline for 2 hours and the broadband and tels came on together.

C.S. at Sky is good with the first agent you speak to taking ownership of the problem. The big difference is that C.S. manage everything from their screen, no reporting to BT, no BRAS etc.

My BB went down on a Sunday last month, phone was Ok., C.S. checked the line and rebooted the exchange equipment and that fixed it. Line faults between the exchange and you still suffer from BT of course.

Technical Ben · Dec 13, 2012, 07:54:55

Could Kimmel and Adamb let us know if the Sky package performs well? As in is it throttled? As this is a piratical product, it's nice to compare services from time to time. I still get the best from IDNet, so I like to check if other companies are catching up.

kinmel · Dec 13, 2012, 10:38:07

Sky performs better than IdNet because the line provides whatever it is capable of, there is no BRAS artificially reducing the speed. The SNR is what it is, no profiling at 9 and 12Db.

I have not noticed any throttling, throughput is pretty constant.

Of course there is no BT system congestion either, your line goes directly onto the Sky equipment and their backbone.

No fibre here, but I pay £7.50 a month for unlimited ADSL2 broadband, no congestion and 24/7 UK based support.

I was a big believer in IdNet and AAISP, but in the end they were just reselling whatever products and service level BT decided was "suitable". Sorry, but Skys residential service out performs them on every front.

Gary · Dec 13, 2012, 12:38:58

Quote from: kinmel on Dec 13, 2012, 10:38:07

No fibre here, but I pay £7.50 a month for unlimited ADSL2 broadband, no congestion and 24/7 UK based support.

Since it's LLU really they do have more control, but if you use your own router you breach T&C's and I would not want to use the sky router at all. Horrible thing the new one is.

pctech · Dec 13, 2012, 18:36:10

When I switched from a BT wholesale based service to LLU time without sync was about 30 minutes (I happened to be at home when they did it so saw the sync light go out)

What I've always done when switch ISP is put the new details in the night before and usually by the time I'm home from work the next day its online.

Niall · Dec 14, 2012, 14:14:27

I'm actually being forced to consider moving, and to BT :-/

Basically my mum pays for TV and as she's retired and working part time, £76 a month for sky is too much, so I've told her to cancel all the sky multi room and the sports package. BT have a bundle that includes fibre, evening and weekend phone package and their new TV bundle which includes sky sports 1,2 and espn. It's the same price as I'm paying now and my mum saves money too. I have no doubt the support sucks looking at reviews, but unless IDnet can compete with that package I see no other option. My connection had been cr*p for 7 months and no one seems to care enough to fix it or even reply to my emails now, so I might aswell move when fibre is activated.

mervl · Dec 14, 2012, 14:45:00

My line performed abysmally on ADSL, but is as good as it's going to get at my distance from the cab on VDSL2 (FTTC) and the reason for that is not, sadly, IDNet but that it's simply a better technology and with a better implementation by Openreach who are the cab and local loop contractors for all the FTTC ISPs. So quite frankly it's who offers you the best bundle of services and price, and QoS if that matters to you. If you have to deal with anyone's customer services then I think you need a qualification in nagging (but there's plenty of advice around on th'internet if you look for it but you need a good brain sieve). I can't fault IDNet's QoS (and I think they are price competitive at that level), which I think is as good as it gets, but quite frankly it is no-where near mission critical on the usual shopping list, and I don't think the mass market boys are so far behind, but you'll notice the difference - whether it matters is quite another question and I suspect, for most of us with a different answer. I took early retirement and have to watch the pennies and should certainly look at consolidating my "entertainment" budget, though for the moment I'm resisting (if I can avoid it going up! - thanks IDNet for keeping the old packages).