Sky Broadband

Lona · Dec 12, 2013, 18:37:44

I've just had a call from Sky offering me Sky Broadband with fibre connection. I argued with the guy that fibre wasn't available in my area but he assured me it was. I did a check on Sky's website and sure enough it said I could have fibre.

My question is why can Idnet not provide fibre in my area?

Steve · Dec 12, 2013, 18:43:04

It's quite simple one of them is incorrect, unless of course it's just been enabled recently. There's no such thing yet as unbundled FTTC, it's OpenReach supplying all providers.

What does the BT website give as your options?

Lona · Dec 12, 2013, 18:49:52

Quote from: Steve on Dec 12, 2013, 18:43:04
It's quite simple one of them is incorrect, unless of course it's just been enabled recently. There's no such thing yet as unbundled FTTC, it's OpenReach supplying all providers.

What does the BT website give as your options?

I've just gone into IDnet website and it seems I can now have fibre up to 38mb for £27 per month. I think I'll pass

Lona · Dec 14, 2013, 18:55:55

I'm even more confused now. Zen state that fibre is not available in my area yet Openreach says it is. Other isps that I have checked some say I can have it, others say I can't. Who's right?

Steve · Dec 14, 2013, 19:06:12

I think if OpenReach say it's available then that should be correct , it possibly depends where the other ISPs search for their information and whether it's up to date. The BT 'check your speed' was correct for me within a day of FTTC activation at my local street cabinet.

Edit: just checked on BT and it now says it's not available for my line or Postcode- I've had FTTC now for 2 years.

Lona · Dec 15, 2013, 03:06:45

Thanks Steve

kinmel · Dec 15, 2013, 07:52:40

BT claim this DSL checker - http://www.dslchecker.bt.com/pls/adsl/ADSLChecker.AddressOutput - is always correct and on 1/7/13 it changed to show FTTC available for me and I was able to place an order with Sky on the same day.

Lona · Dec 15, 2013, 12:55:17

Thanks Alan. My postcode checked out as being available.

Can I ask what you think of Sky as my niece has it down in Wales and says it's not a very good service.

Steve · Dec 15, 2013, 13:23:22

Is your niece on FTTC?

kinmel · Dec 15, 2013, 18:31:34

Quote from: Lona on Dec 15, 2013, 12:55:17
Thanks Alan. My postcode checked out as being available.

Can I ask what you think of Sky as my niece has it down in Wales and says it's not a very good service.

There are areas where Sky is apparently having problems keeping up with demands for bandwidth. Here I have truly unlimited FTTC with no issues and with Sky offering so many new services through broadband I am sure I use a lot of bandwidth, now I no longer keep a check.

Sky Customer Service, especially for FTTC is excellent, they offer 24/7 knowledgeable support and as a big ISP and they seem to have clout with BT. When there is a fault Sky happily keep sending the BT engineers back time and again and there is never any question of having to pay if no fault is found. If Sky's system sees the fault then it is BT's problem. They operate just like AAISP and closely monitor their systems.

In the past I always agreed that paying extra for a good ISP was worth the money; Zen, IDNet, AAISP and others provided excellent service, but now in my opinion they are too small to have the clout customers expect. Some cheaper ISPs now offer a better service.

During last week's floods in this area 3km of railway track and cableducts were washed away and local Sky customers lost all fibre services. Openreach worked through Friday night, all of Saturday and the service came back on in the early hours of Sunday morning. Apparently BT do work at weekends for some ISPs.

I have no hesitation recommending Sky for any of their services, they have invested a lot of money in infrastructure and staff training, only people who have not experienced them in the last few years are hesitant.

Lona · Dec 15, 2013, 18:38:46

Thanks Alan. I will have to give it some thought. Thing is I've paid my line rental a year in advance to BT and am I right in saying that you have to take Sky phone service to receive the full benefit.?

pctech · Dec 15, 2013, 21:04:49

Zen have started to put their own kit in exchanges to provide ADSL, FTTC and Ethernet for businesses.

It's possible they haven't reached your exchange yet.

Steve · Dec 15, 2013, 21:08:54

Are you sure FTTC has been unbundled?

kinmel · Dec 15, 2013, 21:25:06

Quote from: Lona on Dec 15, 2013, 18:38:46
Thing is I've paid my line rental a year in advance to BT and am I right in saying that you have to take Sky phone service to receive the full benefit.?

Yes, Sky Fibre Unlimited ( £20 per month ) requires you to have Sky line rental at £15.40 per month and it seems all ISPs have a 12 month contract for Fibre.

pctech · Dec 15, 2013, 21:41:55

Quote from: Steve on Dec 15, 2013, 21:08:54
Are you sure FTTC has been unbundled?

I asked about ADSL as was looking to go back if the TTB connection didn't work out for me and was informed that ADSL would be provided from their own kit in my case.

If you would be kind enough to post the exchange name Lona or PM with it I'd be happy to try and clarify the situation with Zen for you.

I suspect you maybe right Steve.

Simon · Dec 15, 2013, 22:39:44

So, Sky is actually £35.40 per month, with the required phone line rental, yes? Does that include VAT?

kinmel · Dec 16, 2013, 07:08:43

Quote from: Simon on Dec 15, 2013, 22:39:44
So, Sky is actually £35.40 per month, with the required phone line rental, yes? Does that include VAT?

The price includes VAT, BT's equivalent package is £38.45, not sure if that includes VAT, but I would assume so, it's a retail product.

Steve · Dec 16, 2013, 07:17:32

I suppose BT is the cheapest if you want BT sports as well as Sky sports.

Gary · Dec 16, 2013, 08:34:39

Quote from: Steve on Dec 16, 2013, 07:17:32
I suppose BT is the cheapest if you want BT sports as well as Sky sports.

Thier DNS lookups for overseas websites can be painfully slow though, my mothers set up with the whizzflop box they gave her to record TV and sky and BT sports (skys box is so much better) just brings her line to a standstill, it does not like homeplugs (BT installed them) which means nasty lengths of Ethernet cable. Homplugs just choke on the volume of data 24/7 and dont always get on with FTTC anyway as they use similar frequencies as vDSL so can reduce speeds.

Steve · Dec 16, 2013, 09:15:30

I assumed Gary that if your were a BT customer you could use our Sky box to access BT Sports? Anyways I'm trying to save money,not increase my outlays but it would have been good for me to watch City beat Arsenal.

Gary · Dec 16, 2013, 09:45:17

Quote from: Steve on Dec 16, 2013, 09:15:30
I assumed Gary that if your were a BT customer you could use our Sky box to access BT Sports? Anyways I'm trying to save money,not increase my outlays but it would have been good for me to watch City beat Arsenal.

You probably can, Steve. I don't watch any sports myself and dont like football so have no interest in the changes that occur with BT/Sky sports tbh. If you are a sports kind of person its a good deal though. I was mentioning the BT/Freeview PVR box simply because my mother does not have sky, and its bladdy awful piece of home entertainment technology/ I never have used a device that lags so much in my life, you could have a three course dinner between button presses, unless it crashes then all hell breaks loose and you have to talk to India which can result in premature baldness from the constant tearing of ones hair out at their ineptitude in dealing with simple requests

kinmel · Dec 16, 2013, 14:03:39

Quote from: Gary on Dec 16, 2013, 09:45:17
my mother does not have sky, and its bladdy awful piece of home entertainment technology/ I never have used a device that lags so much in my life, you could have a three course dinner between button presses, unless it crashes then all hell breaks loose and you have to talk to India which can result in premature baldness from the constant tearing of ones hair out at their ineptitude in dealing with simple requests

I am not sure the last time you experienced Sky, but the modern HD Sky+ box is considered by experts to be the best PVR available. All Sky support is now UK based and is award winning too.

You need to try it's current offering before condemning it.

Sky manage to convince a lot of people to voluntarily pay good money for their services - 10.5million TV subscribers, over 5million broadband and 4.7million telephone. I doubt the BBC could find many more voluntary subscribers if the TV Owners Tax was abolished.

mervl · Dec 16, 2013, 15:24:12

I'm not sure it's really that easy to tell one mass-produced piece of Chinese plastic from another. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

What does grate me with Sky is their hype - everything is sensational, even the cr8p. But they invest where it matters, in the technology. I've dealt with a fair few Murdoch org staff and always found them helpful, but it always depends on whether they can do what you want. The Empire is a good commercial outfit - which is a problem for those who don't like its commercial approach or if their rules don't suit.

pctech · Dec 16, 2013, 15:57:33

I have to agree,

I take out a Now TV day pass when there's something on sports I want to watch.

Only other thing appealing to me are the Discovery and Nat Geo Channels as I'm a bit of a factual programming junkie I have to say.

Gary · Dec 16, 2013, 23:08:38

Quote from: kinmel on Dec 16, 2013, 14:03:39
I am not sure the last time you experienced Sky, but the modern HD Sky+ box is considered by experts to be the best PVR available. All Sky support is now UK based and is award winning too.

You need to try it's current offering before condemning it.

Sky manage to convince a lot of people to voluntarily pay good money for their services - 10.5million TV subscribers, over 5million broadband and 4.7million telephone. I doubt the BBC could find many more voluntary subscribers if the TV Owners Tax was abolished.

Im not sure the last time you read a post properly, I was taking about the BT box, not the sky PVR. I have a 2TB wifi sky box (brand new) and its a brilliant piece of kit compared to the awful thing that BT give its users.

No not all sky support is UK based, Sky TV is based in India as well, and they are awful, they put the phone down when they don't know what to do, Sky apologised for that hence the new box.

As to award winning, what award is it is it could be Sky's own award, which then means absolutely nothing. I could say I have award winning support, but that award could be from my wife and be for supporting her iPhone, its all meaningless drivel to sell a product by hooking people with marketing terminology that really means b*gger all in reality

Technical Ben · Dec 17, 2013, 09:30:40

Also, not everyone has the nice new Sky boxes, some have the old ones. (Gah, that is like watching treacle.

)

zappaDPJ · Dec 18, 2013, 16:45:42

We've just ditched everything Sky except we have retained the cheapest channel package, very heavily subsidised. As part of the agreement Sky sent me a new Sky+HD box to replace the one we had (same unit). The old unit had a tendency to lock up every now again, hence the replacement. What surprised me having just installed the new box is the difference in picture quality and a few other factors that I'd always attributed to our ageing TV. We used to get really bad menu bleed through which has now disappeared. After selecting a channel the Sky menu was often still visible half an hour later but that is no longer the case.

The contrast is also considerably better. I can now actually see what's happening in dark scenes without the need to burn my eyes out during bright scenes. One other odd thing that has completely disappeared is we used to get what I'd describe as fuzzy banding. Feint, irregular dark bands running from top to bottom of the screen. I thought it was dust sandwiched between the glass and the screen but apparently that was attributable to the old Sky box as well.

So two boxes, two widely differing picture qualities, the only difference being one is around 2-3 years old.

Steve · Dec 18, 2013, 16:46:57

Must admit I'm very pleased with our 2TB one year old Sky box.

zappaDPJ · Dec 18, 2013, 17:13:42

I guess they probably refine these boxes over time but retain the same outward appearance. Or maybe we just had a defective box

Either way the picture quality is almost good enough to tempt me to watch TV. Almost but not quite

Lona · Dec 18, 2013, 17:23:09

Quote from: pctech on Dec 15, 2013, 21:41:55
I asked about ADSL as was looking to go back if the TTB connection didn't work out for me and was informed that ADSL would be provided from their own kit in my case.

If you would be kind enough to post the exchange name Lona or PM with it I'd be happy to try and clarify the situation with Zen for you.

My exchange is Beith, Ayrshire

Lance · Dec 18, 2013, 22:33:41

Zap, did you use the same cable with both boxes?

zappaDPJ · Dec 19, 2013, 01:06:13

I did. Lazy me just pulled the box forward, disconnected everything and shoved it all into the new box. The truly amazing thing is she that must be obeyed thinks it's a revelation. She's been banging on all night about how improved the picture is and this is coming from someone that can barely tell the difference between a 9" 1950's B&W set and and £30,000 65" 4K Ultra HD TV.

pctech · Dec 20, 2013, 23:31:56

Hi Lona

I'll find out for you.

Gary · Dec 21, 2013, 10:48:35

Quote from: Steve on Dec 18, 2013, 16:46:57
Must admit I'm very pleased with our 2TB one year old Sky box.

I had a 1.5TB box, it was over 3 years old and the Ethernet port died, it didnt much like the sky mini wireless connector either which plugs into the USB port on the back. They gave me a new 2Tb box with built in wifi, which uses the 5GHz spectrum and tht means I can download large HD films in next to no time over my fibre connection. These boxes look much nicer than the original ones as well. `

As to cables a HDMI is a digital cable people who pay £80 upwards are mugs, apart from build quality all the rubbish spouted by companies like Ixos and Monster annoy the hell out of me, its either on or off its not analogue, so why spend silly money it wont make the picture better. People went and and bought HDMI 1.4 for 3D but HDMI 1.3 works and hardly anyone needs the auto return abilities of 1.4 anyway. Once again marketing hype to make you open your wallet/Purse.

pctech · Dec 22, 2013, 16:56:33

Totally agree on the cable pricing Gary.

I bought an IXOS Euro AV (Scart) lead some years ago in the hope it would solve an issue I had with the sound dropping out sometimes on the DVD player I had because it had gold plated connectors and was better build quality but it didn't and I just ended up 20 quid lighter.

HDMI is a far better connector than Scart ever was in my opinion.

Simon · Dec 22, 2013, 17:20:40

Scart was a bloody nightmare! It did make a difference with those as to the price and quality of the cables. I lost count of how many times I replaced cables that kept falling out, or having bent pins. I still didn't go mad with expensive ones, but I did find some that were about £20 each, and actually had a little ridge along the edge of the connector, which stopped them falling out.

Technical Ben · Dec 22, 2013, 20:22:35

Yep, the problem with scart was the connectors being wobbly and not actually connecting (or the whole scart falling out!). I guess the design of the HDMI cable means you have to try very hard to get it wrong.