sky BB

Hello how is sky broadband these days?
Thinking of getting rid of my new ish virgin 20mbs service as i only seem to be hitting 10mbs all day after 10 am!

Yeah i heard Dickie Branson was throttling his bandwidth somewhat

Have a look here which should answer all your questions about Sky broadband.

This site will let you know if your exchange is unbundled or not. From a personal point of view am with Sky broadband on the Connect Package - I've got a steady 8Mb downstream connection speed thats as steady as a rock and doesn't fluctuate. Though as i've mentioned before - I am somewhat biased

Im on the max package and was unbelievably aprehensive about joining sky bb as for one i left Zen who were a great provider however a little pricey, and secondly, being ex Sky staff i knew all too well how easily they could muck things up. I have to say though that since i joined nearly a year ago now ive had great service with no downtime and far higher speeds than i got on the BT network (fair enough i wasnt on ADSL2 with Zen). I know more than a few people have had issues with their service and with migrations causing a problem a few months back, but in my cirumstances i havent had a single problem, its dirt cheap and if you do a little research you can find way's to improve you connection speed and a whole host of other tweaks.

Does sky broadband require you to use their own router or can you use anyone you feel like (as long as its ADSL2+ compatible) ?

I'm thinking of going to Sky when I move, as they are one of the only LLU providers in my new exchange. I am still wondering whether or not to still go for the standard BT MAX package as I've heard a few horror stories about people trying to get the Sky service.

A requirement of Sky BB is that you have to use one of their routers.

I would think that most isp's have got a fair share of horror stories TBH.

I have just gone from virgin to Sky, the only problem i had was my line was capped, one e-mail later the line was uncapped.

Well thats not so good, but I'm sure it would be an OK router.

Your right about the horror stories, so I think I'll just have to try it and see what happens.

philip41 said:

A requirement of Sky BB is that you have to use one of their routers.

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Yes it is - they'll say you must use their router for security purposes also it breaches the terms and conditions that you agreed to when signing up to Sky and Sky therefore have the right to kick you off their broadband service (which is highly doubtful)!

There's a discussion here about this subject

Personally I'm using the Sky branded Phase one Netgear DG834GT with firmware Version 1.01.00 and I've never had a single problem with it !

I did a hack to get the username and password out of my relatives sky router 8 months ago but not sure if the sky routers can be hacked.

im with sky and have been for a while now, been happy enough no problems yet!!, i did abit of research first the same and saw lots of complaints but went ahead anyway. currently getting 10/11 out of 16mb but thats constant never dropped below. the router is fine unless u planned on doing something special does excact same as my netgear i now have sitting there doing nothing !!!

I switched from Zen to Sky 7 months ago. I'm only on Mid 8Mb - now I've sorted the wiring I probably could get a little more but I'd take a stable 8mb over a flaky 10-12mb connection. For a fiver a month I've got no complaints - download speeds fluctuate a bit more than they ever did on Zen but on the whole its fine.

daveyp said:

I did a hack to get the username and password out of my relatives sky router 8 months ago but not sure if the sky routers can be hacked.

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Yeah they can, i used the hack for the username and password in case the router ever packed up so i wouldnt be without internet, also the snr tweak is very handy if your on ADSL 2, i have my snr at 4 (down from 7) with a steady 13meg.

can you do the username and password hack on the new sky routers?

daveyp said:

can you do the username and password hack on the new sky routers?

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yes you can, but as stated above it goes against the T&C's.

There is a Tutorial here but use it at your own risk.

My Sky BB has been nothing but trouble since I joined, constantly loosing connection and inumerous calls to the helpline has left me with a 2MB connection and the same/similar disconnection problems

Is there a tutorial or something somewhere (yes I am a newb) that I can check my pc/router/server setup/connections to optimise usage?

The router should give values for attenuation/SNR margin and the speed it's connected at. There isn't much to "optimise", except you're better with the router connected at the master socket with all your extensions filtered there.

Hi Grumpy have a look at www.skyuser.co.uk lots of very helpful peeps over there, not saying there are not very helpful guys over here, just that they are used to dealing with Sky issues on a daily basis.

cool will check out as soon as i get the router.

I love my sky package

dont use the sky router though, and I know its breaking skys t&c's

I 'know' of a SKY BB worker or what ever they are known as, he highly recommends it.

looking at my previous stats before i moved to virgin cable i had a downstream line attenuation of 31db so i think i can get between 13-15mbs downstream.