Sky 2Mb -> 16Mb upgrade - any one experienced this?

michellez

michellez

michellez

Associate
Joined
19 Mar 2005
Posts
326
Location
London, England
Hey,

Just eager for my super fast internet connection upgrade and wondered what other people had expected when doing this?

I rang up Sky last night and upgraded from the 2Mb free package to the 16Mb Max one. By the time I had walked upstairs the router had rebooted and it was syncing at 8Mb and 768Kb. Do they do this in stages? Ie. In the next few days it will go up again to what ever it can manage on the max service? I am most defiantly in a 16Mb (should get some where near it as pretty close the exchange) area! ;)

Thanks,
Shell
 
Probably your distance from the exchange. Check at www.samknows.com and find out how far you are from the exchange. As you get further away the maximum speed your line will support gets lower.

It will sync at the maximum speed Sky will allow, dependant upon the IP Profile they have set for you. You can find this out in your router configuration. If you suspect that your line will support a higher rate, then ring them up and see what they can do for you.
 
What are your line stats? If you post your attenuation and SNR it'll be fairly easy to see if your line is capable of more or not.
 
It has the right upload for the 16Mb package. The cable may not go direct to your house. It may go on for a couple of miles round before getting there.
 
Yep I'm about a km from the exchange as the crow flies (I know it could go round the houses!) and yes it is LLU enabled (London area!).

Stats:

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8096 kbps 768 kbps
Line Attenuation 30.0 db 19.5 db
Noise Margin 7.9 db 13.0 db

Cheers guys.
 
ManCuBuS said:
It will sync at the maximum speed Sky will allow, dependant upon the IP Profile they have set for you. You can find this out in your router configuration. If you suspect that your line will support a higher rate, then ring them up and see what they can do for you.
Click to expand...

Can you clarify on what, where, and what it means? Ta :)
 
Sky's target SNR is 7dB so with an SNR of 7.9dB you're not really going to get much faster than that anyway. Quite strange as your attenuation is pretty good. Is that from the master socket or via an extension?
 
Master socket. It just feels like they've put me on max instead..

I see what you're saying though. I will call them tomorrow and check with them. Overwise I'll put a new cable and stuff in and see if it makes a difference! :) Might borrow a router from work too and see what that syncs at.
 
michellez said:
Master socket. It just feels like they've put me on max instead..

I see what you're saying though. I will call them tomorrow and check with them. Overwise I'll put a new cable and stuff in and see if it makes a difference! :) Might borrow a router from work too and see what that syncs at.
Click to expand...

Yeah, to be honest, even with the target SNR of 7 you've still got 0.9dB of headroom there - not a great deal, but it's still theoretically enough to allow you to connect at a higher sync rate. The fact you're connecting at 8mbit with SNR to spare, albeit small, along with the 768kbps upstream does suggest to me that you're on their LLU platform but not on ADSL2+.

I'm not sure how you can check this with the Sky provided Netgear router, but my cousin has a similar situation where he is on the £10 package and is only connected on G.DMT modulation instead of ADSL2+, but his line is too crap to give him a decent speed anyway :)

In short I guess you're better off calling them. My guess is that although you're connected to their LLU platform, they've just not switched you onto ADSL2+.
 
Argh. Just phoned Sky. Twice.

1st time realised I didn't have the password. Took me god knows how long to get out of the idiot when they were open for me to call back. Being an ex call centre worker I am very patent with call centres but geezus!

Called back to be told I can only get 5Mb! Didn't matter than I told her I'm synced at 8Mb and can download just shy of that (normally about 6.5Mb or so isn't it?).

Meh.

Incompetent / non-technical Sky staff. She just didn't understand what I was saying. Any tips on speaking to some one with a clue?
 
Carter said:
Doesn't the exchange need to be LLu'd to get 16MB? If not 8MB is the best on offer.

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php
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Even some of the LLU's exchanges only offer 8mb on standard ADSL not ADSL2+. But the upload increases to 768k.

Its very frustrating for people not in the know about these things. When they expect one sort of product only to get something else instead.
 
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michellez said:
Argh. Just phoned Sky. Twice.

1st time realised I didn't have the password. Took me god knows how long to get out of the idiot when they were open for me to call back. Being an ex call centre worker I am very patent with call centres but geezus!

Called back to be told I can only get 5Mb! Didn't matter than I told her I'm synced at 8Mb and can download just shy of that (normally about 6.5Mb or so isn't it?).

Meh.

Incompetent / non-technical Sky staff. She just didn't understand what I was saying. Any tips on speaking to some one with a clue?
Click to expand...


Just because you are sync'd at 8meg does'nt mean thats what you'll get. That sync speed indicates the maximum speed your line will support in simple terms.

There are a number a factors that will affect the speed you actually get. eg Line quality, length, network contention and exchange contention.

For instance I'm with UKFSN. I sync at 8128 and live 1.6km away from the exchange. the maximum speed I can get is actually around 6.5meg becasue the signal quality drop over that 1.6km.

Also don't forget that Sky's backbone network has been massively over-subscribed and that too will have a knock-on effect.

In certain areas of the country they are refusing accept any new connections because of the over subscription.
 
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