Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[guest]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/03/01/bskyb_to_buy_o2_be_home_fixed_line_broadband_service/

Been coming a long time, finally officially announced this morning.

I would suggest as part of your decision as to what you wish to do that you check this site :

http://servicestatus.sky.com/serviceupdates/

Sky has quite a few exchanges congested at the moment. They mainly seem to be FTTC-enabled exchanges and the bottom line is that the backhaul has to be upgraded to 10GigE links rather than GigE links. You will (IME) usually find that BT resellers have similar problems with their FTTC products on the same exchanges but they generally don't have the same issues on ADSL products. Sky's problems in most instances affect all of their customers - the plus side of Sky is that they usually admit problems way before BT retail do, so you have some visibility of issues.

tl;dr look before you leap if you're a BE/O2 customer.

[UncleUB]

Glad I jumped ship last August,no way would I have had Sky BB

[guest]

Glad I jumped ship last August,no way would I have had Sky BB

I've had Sky for a year now.

It runs at line-speed 24/7/365. When I've phoned up to get someone to manually reconfigure the line (the DLM system has "issues" on short lines) it has been done within 10 minutes and without jumping through hoops. I would note that I never call before 9am or after 6pm as the chances of getting script-monkeys increases dramatically.

My experiences with Sky broadband support have been CONSIDERABLY better than Be's support, who are (IME) totally useless if there's any sort of real issue.

On the flip side Sky aren't a company who even pay lip-service to looking after the average customer - I'm talking TV/phone/BB here. If you never contact them then you'll stay on outdated/uncompetitive deals.

They also push firmware to routers which has resulted in several major problems in the last 9 months. You can use other routers easier now as Sky seem to have had to allow normal CHAP logins (they use MER on ADSL usually) to accommodate the FTTC customers piggybacking on the BT FTTC modem.

Would I recommend them?

No.

Would I say "avoid with a bargepole"?

No.

Sky's BB is exceptionally good in most of the UK provided everything is OK on the line/internal wiring. Their support is very variable (avoid forums like the plague for example) but that's the same for all the major ISPs.

Caveat emptor as always.