Sky internet and phone contract ends soon, so looking for a better alternative

Old Man · 23 Jan 2019 at 06:57

I'm paying just over £50 a month for my phone and internet (includes unlimited international calls; 75mb dl and ul) as a package deal, but as the internet service is not the best, I am looking for better deals which has to include an unlimited internet (a true unlimited), so any ideas welcome.

TY in advance for any help

Shawreyboy · 23 Jan 2019 at 10:33

Seems cheap for what you have. Sky BB is truly unlimited - speeds are dependant on local congestion. For instance, my Sky Fibre Max at 7pm will fluctuate anywhere between 40 -> 60Mb/s downstream throughput but in the silly hours will achieve the full 70Mb+.

Log in to your sky router and provide the stats. Link here if you need help finding them.

Shawrey

bremen1874 · 23 Jan 2019 at 11:08

Have a look at Plusnet. They’ll be cheaper than that including the calls package.

Just ringing Sky and asking for a better deal would probably drop the cost.

Avalon · 23 Jan 2019 at 11:56

The speed you get from Sky is more or less what you’ll get from every FTTC provider, minor differences exist, but Sky have history for not just handing over consumer details to 3rd parties and actually standing up for it’s customers rights, unlike others. If you do want to switch, then usually Quidco/TCB and whatever offer BT/Sky/PN/TT have on will work out cheapest, just bounce between them, TT is still a bit of a gamble on CS though.

bremen1874 · 23 Jan 2019 at 11:59

Shawreyboy said:
Seems cheap for what you have. Sky BB is truly unlimited - speeds are dependant on local congestion. For instance, my Sky Fibre Max at 7pm will fluctuate anywhere between 40 -> 60Mb/s downstream throughput but in the silly hours will achieve the full 70Mb+.

If you're getting variable speeds complain and/or jump ship. That's a situation that's in Sky's power to fix.

Shawreyboy · 23 Jan 2019 at 13:25

bremen1874 said:
If you're getting variable speeds complain and/or jump ship. That's a situation that's in Sky's power to fix.

As I have already mentioned, contention is the issue with my fluctuating speed. The cabinet is oversubscribed which is not Sky's fault, it is BT Openreach's as there is insufficient capacity to deliver maximum speed at all times.

I was one the first to upgrade in the street to FTTC and could solidly get 76Mb/s throughput but now approx. 5 years have gone by the speeds can be half that at peak times.

There appears to be a misconception with broadband speed (as do most of my customer's & being a Network Engineer) that speed is yours to have at all times. This is not true. Liken your speed to a motorway and in the early hours of course I can set my cruise control to 70mph and because there are no cars on it I can have all of the bandwidth (speed) available however, during peak times I'm lucky if I can get up to 70mph as the traffic speed constantly fluctuates with load/volume.

Shawrey

Caged · 23 Jan 2019 at 13:31

I've not heard of links from the cabinet back to the exchange getting congested. Backhaul from the exchange, sure.

Do your neighbors on the same cabinet have the same problems?

[Darkend]Viper · 23 Jan 2019 at 20:04

If you change from one FTTC provider with congestion issues due to cab oversubscribed surely that would be the same for all as the infrastructure is BTO, only way round it would be Virgin, or another independent supplier from BTO.

What kind of issues are you experiencing apart from speedtests?

bremen1874 · 23 Jan 2019 at 20:29

A FTTC cabinet can’t be oversubscribed, it can only be full.

APM · 24 Jan 2019 at 07:42

BT have been solid for me for a few years now and topcashback is always a good idea.

Just signing up with someone else will have sky retentions on the phone to you offering to match whatever your new price is.

Avalon · 24 Jan 2019 at 08:40

APM said:
BT have been solid for me for a few years now and topcashback is always a good idea.

Just signing up with someone else will have sky retentions on the phone to you offering to match whatever your new price is.

Unless something has changed, they can’t do that unless you contact them, you get an acknowledgment letter/email from memory. It’s slightly different if you contact them to cancel, but the 3rd party process is different.

Old Man · 24 Jan 2019 at 12:15

I appreciate all of the replies on this and will need to have a serious rethink on what to do, as the only real problems at the moment is the very poor router you are stuck with and the expected price increase which I will be getting when this contract ends.

TY so very much

wesley · 24 Jan 2019 at 12:33

I'm paying £24 a month for unlimited internet service with phone line with Vodafone . No package thou.

Connecting at 58mb as I'm a little far away from the cabinet but I'm very happy overall.

Avalon · 24 Jan 2019 at 14:30

Old Man said:
I appreciate all of the replies on this and will need to have a serious rethink on what to do, as the only real problems at the moment is the very poor router you are stuck with and the expected price increase which I will be getting when this contract ends.

TY so very much

Replace the router if you aren’t happy or add a decent AP - same advice applies to every single FTTC ISP.

Old Man · 24 Jan 2019 at 15:35

Avalon said:
Replace the router if you aren’t happy or add a decent AP - same advice applies to every single FTTC ISP.

When Sky first made changes to their internet service, I had to stop using my Buffalo router because of compatibility issues, so not sure if that's changed. Time to have a long look at what is compatible these days with their present setup.

ty

Jez · 29 Jan 2019 at 10:45

Shawreyboy said:
As I have already mentioned, contention is the issue with my fluctuating speed. The cabinet is oversubscribed which is not Sky's fault, it is BT Openreach's as there is insufficient capacity to deliver maximum speed at all times.

I was one the first to upgrade in the street to FTTC and could solidly get 76Mb/s throughput but now approx. 5 years have gone by the speeds can be half that at peak times.

There appears to be a misconception with broadband speed (as do most of my customer's & being a Network Engineer) that speed is yours to have at all times. This is not true. Liken your speed to a motorway and in the early hours of course I can set my cruise control to 70mph and because there are no cars on it I can have all of the bandwidth (speed) available however, during peak times I'm lucky if I can get up to 70mph as the traffic speed constantly fluctuates with load/volume.

Shawrey

As others have mentioned, you are likely mistaken with regards to where the congestion is occurring. The back-haul from your cabinet is very unlikely to be the choke point here, rather it'll be congestion internally within your ISPs control. I would seriously consider jumping to another ISP if you regularly notice congestion on an 80/20 fttc service, as you simply should not ever see it.

Avalon · 29 Jan 2019 at 14:45

Jez said:
As others have mentioned, you are likely mistaken with regards to where the congestion is occurring. The back-haul from your cabinet is very unlikely to be the choke point here, rather it'll be congestion internally within your ISPs control. I would seriously consider jumping to another ISP if you regularly notice congestion on an 80/20 fttc service, as you simply should not ever see it.

Users blame the ISP as they usually lack awareness of how many different networks data is carried over before it gets to them or that the remote host has an impact.

Shawreyboy · 31 Jan 2019 at 08:41

Avalon said:
Users blame the ISP as they usually lack awareness of how many different networks data is carried over before it gets to them or that the remote host has an impact.

THIS

Neighbours either side suffer the same issues and get similar throughput's and they aren't on Sky so the issue is not ISP centric. There is a lack of capacity at the cabinet as when traffic volumes are quiet e.g 1am I am able to get the full 70Mb+ speeds.

Upload throughput is always 19Mb regardless of time which should be a given as I am in a heavy residential area where the scope for any one doing massive backups or pushing large files out is minimal.

Shawrey

Jez · 31 Jan 2019 at 09:27

Shawreyboy said:
THIS

Neighbours either side suffer the same issues and get similar throughput's and they aren't on Sky so the issue is not ISP centric. There is a lack of capacity at the cabinet as when traffic volumes are quiet e.g 1am I am able to get the full 70Mb+ speeds.

Upload throughput is always 19Mb regardless of time which should be a given as I am in a heavy residential area where the scope for any one doing massive backups or pushing large files out is minimal.

Shawrey

If you are sure, and have actually checked with neighbours and diagnosed this (rather than saving face on here!) then fair enough. The diagnosis sounds incorrect to me, but that isnt to say that cabinet backhauls couldn't get congested in theory.

Caged · 31 Jan 2019 at 20:23

It could just be a DSLAM fault and no ISP has actually bothered to escalate it