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Soldato
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28 Feb 2006
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Hi peeps :)

Recently moved house, and couldn't get Virgin cable at the new address :( Shame, as I've had that ~9 years with no problems...

Anyway, opted for Sky Unlimited package, and wow... what a pile of **** - download speed between 1 and 2.5 megs and upload is 600k!

I tried to work from home today and a remote link to a customer was too slow to actually use, which is very worrying, as I occasionally like to work @ home.

Now I know there's factors involved with the speeds, distance from exchange, time of days etc, but seriously, these speeds are horrendous; god forbid trying gaming on it!!!

Anyone have any tips - I'd like to rind Sky to complain, hoping it's just a line fault; but I've read recurring comments about being on ADSL 2, and having better speeds on ADSL 1 - is there a way to check?

Cheers.
 
ADSL2+ is good for shorter lines but just isn't good for longer lines. Don't forget that Sky have dynamic line management for the first 10 days and usually start you off with a low speed. If you are a few miles from the exchange then you won't see mega speeds no matter what you do, at least not until fttc happens.
 
Sky is rubbish. I had it, and that 10 day crap about calculating a right speed for your line made no difference for me. BT were better than them, but Virgin was the best and still is the best.
 
Sky is decent on LLU but AWFUL on standard ADSL. If you're not LLU, get out while your contract allows it. Worst connection I've ever had, it'd be completely useless for more than basic browsing during peak.
 
Thanks for the replies guys - like I said, I was with Virgin on a cable connection all my broadband life, so never really had speed problems... going to Sky has been like a step backwards in time!

This is my third week of being with Sky, so I guess that this is the speed I will be getting :(

I shall make a call later, I'll ask if it's ADSL 1 or 2, or if it's LLU - anything else worth asking/demanding?

I'll do a speed test when I get home GhostlyPea; I take it speedtest.net will suffice?

Edit: according to Google, I'm 6 miles form the exchange...
 
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Being 6 miles from the exchange is going to hurt your connection greatly...welcome to the world of people who suffer a poor connection, and without sounding harsh, you've been pretty lucky! I've had poor connections for quite a few years, just moved to Sky LLU and it's so much better...
 
Ask them for a full refund and go with BT, although they're not as good as Virgin, they're better than Sky (based on my experience). My connection was crap with Sky and I was only about 1 mile from the exchange.
 
I wouldn't just dismiss Sky out of hand, if you tie it in with your Sky tv (if you have it) it's a lot cheaper. 6 miles from the exchange is going to be a poor connection whoever the op goes with, adsl just isn't good over that sort of distance. I would possibly look at other solutions, but to be honest if working from home is a part of your life, why didn't the op check the broadband situation before he moved?
 
3dcandy said:
I wouldn't just dismiss Sky out of hand, if you tie it in with your Sky tv (if you have it) it's a lot cheaper. 6 miles from the exchange is going to be a poor connection whoever the op goes with, adsl just isn't good over that sort of distance. I would possibly look at other solutions, but to be honest if working from home is a part of your life, why didn't the op check the broadband situation before he moved?
Click to expand...

That's a fair point considering BT Vision isn't all that... and being 6 miles away from the exchange isn't going to help, however, BT will probably provide a better service than Sky. So bearing in mind that he works from home, he needs the best possible connection he can get. Other solutions could be using a dongle or a wireless ISP but the whole of England isn't covered by them at the moment.

If you did consider a wireless ISP, here's a link to a bunch of them:
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/isp_list/ISP_List_Wireless.php
 
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I don't agree that BT would be the best possible connection...in theory it should be exactly the same. I would look at a change of router before a change in supplier as the penalty for changing could be extremely high otherwise. Also, I'd look at the wiring, both internal and external, changing the telephone faceplate and numerous other tweaks to increase speed rather than a wholesale Sky are crap, supplier X will be sooo much better...
 
3dcandy said:
I don't agree that BT would be the best possible connection...in theory it should be exactly the same. I would look at a change of router before a change in supplier as the penalty for changing could be extremely high otherwise. Also, I'd look at the wiring, both internal and external, changing the telephone faceplate and numerous other tweaks to increase speed rather than a wholesale Sky are crap, supplier X will be sooo much better...
Click to expand...

I'm just basing it on my experience. I didn't have to check the wiring, tweak anything or change a telephone faceplate with BT. But with Sky and their customer service, it was like going round in circles... do this, do that, have you done this, have you done that?

They both use the same line, so why is it Sky's so much crapper than BT?
I've always thought that BT rent a little bit of bandwidth out to Sky to use for its customers, and then Sky has to heavily cap their users so they don't go other that bandwidth limit. But that's just something I've concocted :p
 
As someone who lives a similar distance from their exchange and gets 0.5mbps download and 0.24mbps upload all i can say is welcome to the countryside! Distance and old cabling are a killer, but hopefully some of the suggestions suggested by others will help you.
 
Tingle said:
I'm just basing it on my experience. I didn't have to check the wiring, tweak anything or change a telephone faceplate with BT. But with Sky and their customer service, it was like going round in circles... do this, do that, have you done this, have you done that?

They both use the same line, so why is it Sky's so much crapper than BT?
I've always thought that BT rent a little bit of bandwidth out to Sky to use for its customers, and then Sky has to heavily cap their users so they don't go other that bandwidth limit. But that's just something I've concocted :p
Click to expand...

Yup if you're on the Sky connect service that is true...but I *think* the OP is on LLU, in which case then it's totally different
 
Thanks for the feedback guys, I think I'll call them and have a general moan - never know, there might be something they can do; won't hold my breath though.

Working from home is just a perk really, not a requirement, as I can still drive to the office for free (joys of a fuel card and company car).

Will be a shame to say bye bye to online gaming though :( If it's no good for it that is (not tried yet...).
 
This speed shouldn't impact online gaming, actual throughput isn't really that high go check out pingtest.net. As long as you aren't getting a lot of errors on the line and your latency is ok then gaming should be fine.
 
Post the router stats already!

Tingle said:
They both use the same line, so why is it Sky's so much crapper than BT?
I've always thought that BT rent a little bit of bandwidth out to Sky to use for its customers, and then Sky has to heavily cap their users so they don't go other that bandwidth limit. But that's just something I've concocted :p
Click to expand...

Go read up on LLU.
 
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