Is sky broadband any good?

Associate
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My dad's thinking of changing from bt Internet/phone to the sky equivalent. Afaik the sky package comes with a new Belkin router, is this significantly better than the bt home hub?

At the moment we have the white hub (v2 I believe). The alternative is paying bt £29 for the home hub 3. Which is the more worthwhile upgrade? I have noticed the current home hub dropping its connection once or twice a week so I think some sort of change is necessary.

Opinions?
 
Associate
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Weymouth
Your broadband speed will depend on the distance you are from the exchange so you probably wont get much off a differance in speed. I'm personally not a fan of the belkin routers though it would depend on the model they are shipping. The BT hub 3 does seem to have quite a good range compairing with rotuers many of the isps are inlcuding. There may be other reasons why the connection might be dropping, your internal wiring or filters might be at fault for example. The main benifit with BT supplying your internet is that if there are any issues with your service they are the only people you need to contact. Ive had trouble with other isp's blaming bt for connection problems and then bt saying it's not us it's them.
 
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Well my dad originally phoned them to upgrade out sky sports package, but the g managed to tell him about internets too so that might still be someone who knows what they're talking about :p
 
Soldato
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I was switching broadbands the other day, Choice of virgin, BT, and Sky.

I asked how the fibre optic was connected and sky said that the only part that is fibre optic is the wires up to the exchange.

So...
You still keep your exsisting phone cables. (good)

If they are poor quallity they might affect your speeds. (bad).


I then gave virgin a call and they say they go fibre optic all the way and don't even go into any exchanges.

so if you are worried you might not to be able to get good internet where you are, see if virgin can do anything. They were cheaper than sky aswell. (for me anyway).
 
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Sky is far better than BT, cheaper and uk support no indian call centres during office hours (weekends have overseas call centres). I've been with BT and they used to be great so not gonna s1ag them off but my sevice failed after getting vision and my linecard dying.

From 2007 i went to adsl24 and they supplied me a stable fixed 2mb line as with a knackered line card my 8mb max connection was flakey. I left adsl24 to go to o2 and that was the best net Ive had & I enjoyed astable 16mb up 1.2mb down, best 3 years of downloading

Ive since moved house an sky were the best offer over bt/02 as they wanted to charge me 124.99 plus vat for a line install which sky done for nowt. I only get 6mb now but hey its £7.50 per month plus £12.25 line rental making it far better than bt.

I've recently switched my sisters line from bt to sky and got a great deal but you need to get through to customer retenions to get it, she got her rental for £1 per month and her net £7.50 for the initial 12 months.

I find sky cheap and reliable and their tier 1 staff on faults arent that bad but some need some help lol.


@HecFam

I think your a little confused over the fibre install, its to the green cab box and then via copper or if ya unlucky ali to your door. To what I was told they will be renting bt's fibre or ducting their own by bts network or using poles.
 
Associate
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Cornwall
Yes it is good. I've been using sky broadband for 4 years now without issue. I'm getting a rock solid 8mb speed down here in the wilds of Cornwall. Each year I ring them and get a 50% reduction on my rental cost. They never budge on the skytalk price though.

As always, your line speed/capability and quality will vary from area to area.
 
Last edited:
Associate
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Surrey
It's still FTTC, just like what BT is doing (fiber goes to the cabinet and it's standard cable the rest of the way).

Yeah but it's still higher speeds compared to fttc, what I mean is you actually get 100mb sync with virgin, obv depending on your area ya may not get it due to congestion, that's the other story to virgin media ha. It's coax cable from the cabinet to your house with virgin.
 
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