sky broadband

binaryknight

binaryknight

binaryknight

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opinions on sky adsl from a gaming point of view

as subject i know this is a networks related question however im more interested in the opinions of people that use the isp to game with.

im aware that sky use interleaving? how bad does this affect games?
i currently average 50ms to just about all local servers in the uk with pipex however paying around £32 a month for a 2mb service is expensive to other providers.

i live in Northern Ireland and sadly my exchange is not be internet enabled

being around 2 miles from the exchange im sure my speeds wont increase much but as long as its cheaper (the package deal to get sky tv and broadband will be less or match my surrent isp price) .

opinions very much appreciated!
 
ive started a thread in pc games to try and get some opinions on sky broadband as my main concern is game pings.

the thread is here http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?p=11286652#post11286652

however im also interested in the other aspects of the isp,

do they port throttle or limit the service in any way? such as monthly caps

reliable?

any info would be appreciated as im considering switching seeing as the package deal from sky would be cheaper that my surrent internet provider pipex, paying the same or less with the benefit of getting sky tv!
 
I have sky Broadband 8mb and the pings I have on servers are the best I have had in 8 years of gaming on broadband, when I play TFC2 I have between 11-25 ping on most servers.

Get good speeds on torrents too.
 
Goberpiles316 said:
I have sky Broadband 8mb and the pings I have on servers are the best I have had in 8 years of gaming on broadband, when I play TFC2 I have between 11-25 ping on most servers.

Get good speeds on torrents too.
Click to expand...

cheers for the reply that sounds good ingame on some servers id been on id heard the occasional person saying the ping was bad.

will have to look into how long the contract is id hate to be tied into a lengthly period if the service was bad for me
 
Would've started a new thread on this, but perhaps doesn't warrant it.

I've been having issues with speed with Sky recently.

About a fortnight ago i upped my Sky Base package (2Mbit) to the 8Mbit package. My exchange only supports upto 3.5Mbit. Ok, fair enough, can't help that.

At first, downloading from sites like download.com, speeds reached over 500kb/s, more than double what i used to get before max, chuffed. However, this last week it's plummetted. I noticed with Patches,etc, i'd DL at around 90kb/s, fair enough, maybe dodgy link, but it's getting slower and slower not matter where i DL from.

Torrents won't break 40kb/s, DL's won't break 100kb/s and worst of all speed tests rate me at 1100/74. Thats LOWER than what i got for free! Games also lag bad and my ping is often over 150ms.

Now as when i first got it, speed tests proved it was 3.5mbit, and i was getting fast DL speeds, what could have affected it suddenly?

1. I heard certain Anti-Viruses get a bit carried away, scanning so much it owns the connection. Have Norton Internet Secuirty 2008 i think. Though this has always been isntalled.

2. Download speeds are also slow on other PC, so it's not localised to my system.

3. I have followed the Windows performance tips guide on here, disabling some services that hinder the performance with no change.

4. There's been no change to my line, doesn't need checking.

Dunno why i've mentioned above because speedtests aren't affected my local settings, just linespeed, so im flumped.

Currently using the netgear supplied wireless router. Any thoughts? I know ofr a fact sky do not throttle any of their services and this has happened literally after first week of upgrade.
 
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Just remembered, left PC on for 2 days solid whilst away til wednesday DLing torrents (my PC restarted for some reason, bleh). Anyway, i left them DLing at 90kb+ and rising, still a 5th of what my line can take, but since coming back, nothing goes remotely fast, even web pages.

The previous abse package i upgraded from was 2gb cap, maybe they didn't upgrade that bit and are now throttling my connection? It has happened at almost random.
 
i have sky boradband 8mb, i dont have too many problems gameing wise, cod4 i get around 70 latency but wow is normaly around 150-200. they stay pretty stable though.

torrent wise it sucks, if i have more than one downloading all internet access dies and i have to restart my pc and router(it can sometimes cause my system to lock up). if i have 1 downloading i get around 10kb/s speeds. it doesnt like downloading torrents and doing anything else even when ive limited my upload.

its no were near as good as virgin i had at old house but i moved to a house with no cable around so i have to get adsl :(
 
Hmm, well Sky claim they don't throttle or restrict use of torrents, but it certainly feels like throttling. Sky user forums keep saying to everyone to check sockets and wiring, mostly actually Sky CSR people, but they fail to realise this happens when just switching to sky, i didn't let a rat chew on my cables beforehand.

Also with uTorrent, you can encrypt torrents so they can't be identified. It's like if you download files for longer than a day, they kick your ass. But now it won't speed up!

P.s. I still have only DL'd maybe 2-3gigs tops since upgrading a fortnight ago, if you include patches,etc.
 
tolien said:
No, just your line. It's got nothing to do with the exchange, besides how far away you are from it.
Click to expand...

Oh right, Samknows worded it differently, saying my exchange supports upto 3.5mb/s.

Oh to those above, Sky is back to normal for me, running near the speed my line can support and torrents i saw reach 200kb/s+ (for a VERY popluar well seeded one mind) sorted my torrent issues last night with uTorrent, very noob mistake heh. . But for the router, i've got this for anyone having issues:

UPnP enabled: For those who don't want to mess about with a static IP. Allows you're programs, such as torrents, to decide what ports to open. uTorrent has an uPnP option, so with both enabled, the torrent program will open the port up without you needing to foward any ports...at all.

Firewall Rules: Two settings here. Outgoing and Incoming. Now, i personally don't have an issue with opening both, that is, setting you IP server (i believe that's your client PC, but i also set the router I.P up too, 192.168.0.1) to allow all incoming and outgoing on all ports. However, the above setting actually probably overrides these so it's really a convenience thing.

Most importantly, with torrents are the upload settings. Contrary to popular belief, increasing upload bandwith/slots too much will result in very low speeds. With utorrent, for my 3.5mbit restricted connection, i set speed settings to xx/265kb, as my upload tests at around 320kb/s, greatly increased the eiffiency of my torrents.
 
V3g3tto said:
UPnP enabled: For those who don't want to mess about with a static IP. Allows you're programs, such as torrents, to decide what ports to open. uTorrent has an uPnP option, so with both enabled, the torrent program will open the port up without you needing to foward any ports...at all.

Firewall Rules: Two settings here. Outgoing and Incoming. Now, i personally don't have an issue with opening both, that is, setting you IP server (i believe that's your client PC, but i also set the router I.P up too, 192.168.0.1) to allow all incoming and outgoing on all ports. However, the above setting actually probably overrides these so it's really a convenience thing.
Click to expand...

I'm assuming / hoping you have a very good software firewall / virus checker in place.
 
i have 8mb sky broadband and at first i had pings of 70 - 120 but i rang up and now its fine.

god knows what the little Indian man did on the other end of the telephone but thanks to him i can play lag free!
 
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