Kitz Forum

Broadband Related => ISPs => Topic started by: stevebrass on April 09, 2018, 05:29:00 PM

Title: Time to change
Post by: stevebrass on April 09, 2018, 05:29:00 PM
Our BT contract end soon and I dare say I will be ringing up to haggle. However given the pricing of Vodafone and Now TV for example I don't imagine BT will get anywhere those prices.

I am erring towards Vodafone as they allow use of own equipment; my trusty unlocked HG612 achieves the best sync of those I have tried whereas Now TV supply a modem/router (seems to be a SKY Hub) and don't allow other modems. I would not wish to lose any of my present 19mbs due to modem issues.

Another option is to go for Virgin Media, but there is no easy route from pavement to house and I don't fancy cable tied to walls and fences.

Wish me luck!
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: Ronski on April 09, 2018, 07:27:33 PM
Good luck, you'll need it if going with Vodafone  ;)
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: NewtronStar on April 09, 2018, 08:40:31 PM
Is Vodafone using that old second hand network called CW which TalkTalk used years ago.
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: Westie on April 09, 2018, 10:10:01 PM
Switching to Vodafone has proven (so far) to be a good choice for me.

Real (SamKnows) download speed has gone from <7 Mbps on ADSL to >37Mbps on 40/10 VDSL, and I am syncing at 39999/9999 kbps. Attainable is reported as a little above 125/31.

Latency has dropped from ~50 ms on ADSL to ~13ms on VDSL. (I have no interest in gaming, and do little streaming.)

And I am paying less for FTTC VDSL than I was for ADSL.

But I know I am blessed with a very good line: I am on a Huawei cabinet installed under the BDUK scheme with both Vectoring and G.INP, which is approx. 200m by underground duct from the house, and half of that distance is on our property with no possible crosstalkers. With my limited requirements and the availability of such a good line, price was the determining factor, and I have not regretted it. I hope your experience is as good as mine!
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: kitz on April 10, 2018, 01:20:15 AM
Is Vodafone using that old second hand network called CW which TalkTalk used years ago.

Think TT started their own (CPW/CW) network as OPAL but within a few months had bought out AOL UK's network for LLU....  and then a couple of years later they bought out Tiscali's network.

C&W is a bit more complex, their retail arm (Bulldog) was sold to Pipex and for a while they concentrated purely on wholesale/backhaul services.    Later Pipex was then also sold to Tiscali, but Pipex/Murphx/Daisy have quite stong links with C&W in the past and C&W mopped up what remained of Pipex's Access Network. 

During the period surrounding 2006-2008 there were so many buyouts, mergers and re-aquistitions it was hard to keep track.. especially when retail arms may go to one buyer and wholesale to another.   Tiscali soaked up a lot of the retail/consumer SPs whilst business or wholesale may remain untouched.  Pipex was a heck of a tangled web and I still don't fully know what went where other than consumer ended up at Tiscali and yet somehow reverse takeover meant parts of their business ended up as what is now Daisy and other bits at C&W.   ???
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: Chrysalis on April 10, 2018, 06:41:51 AM
sky do allow other modems
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: kitz on April 10, 2018, 09:11:45 AM
Quote
sky do allow other modems

Not for FTTC - It's now in their T&C's which you are supposed to read and agree to before you sign up.

Quote
If you wish to use a modem or any other equipment that we have not supplied to you in order to
access Sky Broadband we cannot guarantee that ADSL Sky Broadband will work with these.
You must not use a modem or any other equipment that we have not supplied to you in order to
access Sky Fibre Broadband.

That's not to say that some people don't break the rules ;)
I'm not sure as I don't use Sky...  but don't you either need a MER modem/router or run in bridge mode?
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: skyeci on April 10, 2018, 09:21:49 AM
never used a sky modem/router in my 10 years with sky...

bridge mode modems will work fine with fttc. You need option  61 ability on a router to make it work. There are very few that will work off the shelf. Asus needs merlin to get ipv4 up. I use Opnsense and pfsense before that which work fine thanks to mods done by others... Netgear don't work either unless they have ddwrt loaded like the r7000, stock firmware doesn't have the option to add a user name which you need when the wan port is setup for sky's requirements.

I just keep my sr102 incase of faults etc..
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: Chrysalis on April 10, 2018, 09:34:43 AM
Not for FTTC - It's now in their T&C's which you are supposed to read and agree to before you sign up.

That's not to say that some people don't break the rules ;)
I'm not sure as I don't use Sky...  but don't you either need a MER modem/router or run in bridge mode?

yes its allowed kitz. --> edit--> I agree with kitz now, reread it and yeah thats clear sky specifically consider these devices not allowed.

They dont support it, but thats very different to not allowing it. I know people can confuse the two things but they not the same.

Actually locking down a modem, look at Virgin Media, they have customers stuck on PUMA devices that cause constant latency problems, but they are locked to those devices via MAC enforcement and would be breaching t&c if they swapped the devices.

Also the sky hub even allows you to use an openreach modem on their setup wizard (any compatible modem, but the image shows a hg612). It has a WAN input connection for this purpose.

MER has absolutely no affect on the modem.  For the router, it has an affect and yes is a limited set of routers/firewalls that can technically support it, such as PFSense and OPNSense.

To the OP check my sig to see hardware I am using on sky right now.
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: stevebrass on April 10, 2018, 10:05:04 AM
Thanks for the input folks. The thing is on other forums they state that Sky's T and C's prohibit use of anything but their own equipment to connect to the internet.

Obviously this does not mean it is not technically possible which clearly it is.
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: Chrysalis on April 10, 2018, 10:57:51 AM
I reread the quote kitz kindly posted.

Quote
If you wish to use a modem or any other equipment that we have not supplied to you in order to
access Sky Broadband we cannot guarantee that ADSL Sky Broadband will work with these.
You must not use a modem or any other equipment that we have not supplied to you in order to
access Sky Fibre Broadband.

The last 2 lines to be fair indicates its a breach, that does seem to have been reworded actually.

So I now change my opinion in relation to kitz's post, I think it wasnt always like this, but I am not 100% sure either.  However sky are definitely aware there is people using other devices on their network and to this date have decided to not block it and have even made it easier by making technical changes to accommodate these devices.

If your supplied device for now tv is a sky hub, at the very least tho that does support plugging in a 3rd party modem on its setup wizard which would mean your hg612 should work in an out of box config.  However my sky hub does have old firmware, I cannot rule out a firmware change altering the setup wizard to prevent this.

So I suppose it comes down to if you want to take a punt that sky will not decide to enforce their hardware on their network at a technical level (I think they wont).  But just be aware if you ever contact tech support you may need to plugin their equipment if they want to follow their support scripts.  When I reported my last line fault I didnt have to do this, they ran tests on my line without the sky hub hassle.
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: kitz on April 10, 2018, 11:20:00 AM

The last 2 lines to be fair indicates its a breach, that does seem to have been reworded actually.

So I now change my opinion in relation to kitz's post, I think it wasnt always like this, but I am not 100% sure either.

I'm not certain either but I think they changed it within the past couple of years to specifically mention FTTC.  It wasn't like that when they had the Pro option (ex BE) and if I were to take a stab at when they reworded it, it would most likely be when they dropped the Pro account. 
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: kitz on April 10, 2018, 11:25:25 AM
bridge mode modems will work fine with fttc. You need option  61 ability on a router to make it work.

There are very few that will work off the shelf. Asus needs merlin to get ipv4 up. I use Opnsense and pfsense before that which work fine thanks to mods done by others... Netgear don't work either unless they have ddwrt loaded like the r7000, stock firmware doesn't have the option to add a user name which you need when the wan port is setup for sky's requirements.

I just keep my sr102 incase of faults etc..

Thanks for the clarification.  I was concerned that people would think they could just go buy any modem/router and expect it to work out of the box.
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: Chrysalis on April 10, 2018, 11:30:21 AM
Well sky specifically cannot block modems as thats openreach managing that part of the connection, so it would come down to if they do things like MAC whitelisting to enforce the router and then decide to not allowed modems to be connected to those devices.

Merlin's Asuswrt does work with sky, the ipv6 side of it is dodgy but stable on ipv4.  So any asus router that will work on Merlin Asuswrt should be fine as a router, as well as OPNSense and PFSsense compatible devices.  DDWRT does have option 61 support as well.
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: kitz on April 10, 2018, 05:19:42 PM
Quote
Merlin's Asuswrt does work with sky,

Merlin (for ASUS) is one example of  what I meant when I said MER (http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php?action=post;topic=21334.0;last_msg=369628) for modem/routers   
I think there may be a couple of TP-link modems that are also MER capable.  Only reason I know is I supplied most of the auto config info to TP-link combined modem routers and my contact said they were going to look at MER options to enable their modem/routers to work on Sky out of the box.

Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: stevebrass on April 14, 2018, 07:57:46 AM
UPDATe

It seems that VM is now a possibility. It transpires that the ducting to my house is not where I thought. It is 10m away with just lawn to the house. I will look at deals.
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: kitz on April 14, 2018, 01:18:22 PM
Good luck :)
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: stevebrass on April 14, 2018, 09:06:20 PM
Gone for a 12 month deal with VM.  Up to 50mbs.  Weekend calls included. £29 a month. £20 installation but £100 credit. I aim to overlap a couple of weeks with BT. Do BT still charge a “broadband cease” fee?
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: stevebrass on April 17, 2018, 12:57:05 PM
First visit. Kelly comms working for VM have put a "T" on the lawn to represent where the ducting is.
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: stevebrass on April 27, 2018, 01:40:27 PM
Well, a positive experience so far. Cable guys came yesterday and did their stuff. I had already put ducting in for them, for which they thanked me.
Connected up this morning. Very polite guy, neat and tidy job.
All working. I have gone for 50mbs which is plenty for us.
Title: Re: Time to change
Post by: stevebrass on May 01, 2018, 09:59:34 AM
Now using Virgin Hub in modem mode. Asus connected with no problem. DS/US consistently around 50/3 mbs. Latency around 15ms.