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[MrsDaddyCoull]

Hi folks

I have recently thought about changing ISP from AOL to sky, thinking i could get sky for a nice £5 per month instead of the £25 i am currently paying to aol (i refuse to renew my contract and submit to a new 18 month contract to get the monthly bill down to £15)

on checking i find that i can only join sky on a £17 a month tariff as they dont actally have service in my area but can provide broadband to me by reselling bt service.

my question is, if they are reselling bt wholesale service, will my broadband be throttled? as BT do throttle but sky are reported not to be

My sync rate should give me a speed of 5mb but the best i have ever achieved with aol is just under 4mb, most evenings i'm down to 1.5mb so i really would like to change to an isp who isnt throttling.
My boyfriend who lives in same town is with BT and he is being throttled to about 1.5mb in the evening

[guest]

Sky have a 40GB cap which I believe they do enforce on IPStream lines (that's where they use BT's equipment). If you are on IPStream then you'd also have whatever contention was present at your exchange and also on your ISPs BT Central (connection from BT's network to the ISPs network) so it is entirely possible that you'll see no improvement over your existing service.

There are lots of ISPs who use IPStream and definitely don't throttle/shape but they will have a cap on their service.

Take a look here - http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/caps.htm but do be aware that  there is no "free lunch" on IPStream services and anyone offering sub-£20 pricing is going to either have a cap or some sort of shaping/throttling. Don't believe any ISP who claims otherwise as an unlimited service with no shaping will cost in the region of £60-70.

[Broadband1]

From all what I know sky offer the 2mb connection with the 40gb  limit + 4 TV Mixes + phone for $19 and If you are looking for an ISP that doesnt throttle you could (remember that word COULD) get Sattelite broadband in parts of UK or ADSL I reccomend Eclipse Zen and Waitrose as all of those ISP's I know for sure do not throttle or shape traffic. Although Tiscali maybe upto 2Mb fixed rate I'm not sure.

Made a few adjustments after extensive research and I know for sure Waitrose don't throttle as I used to se them.

[oldfogy]

Have you had a look at Virgin Media non BB connection?

Again, this is supplied through a telephone connection and at the moment they are doing some nice sign-up rates and offers.
(Just a thought)

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/

[guest]

From all what I know sky offer the 2mb connection with the 40gb  limit + 4 TV Mixes + phone for $19 and If you are looking for an ISP that doesnt throttle you could (remember that word COULD) get Sattelite broadband in parts of UK or ADSL I reccomend Plusnet Tiscali Eclipse Zen and Waitrose as all of those ISP's I know for sure do not throttle or shape traffic. Although Tiscali maybe upto 2Mb fixed rate I'm not sure.

Out of the ISPs you mention, the ONLY one who doesn't shape or throttle traffic is Zen.

[guest]

Have you had a look at Virgin Media non BB connection?

Again, this is supplied through a telephone connection and at the moment they are doing some nice sign-up rates and offers.
(Just a thought)

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/

I'm not sure I'd recommend anyone uses Virgin's ADSL service 

[guest]

Made a few adjustments after extensive research and I know for sure Waitrose don't throttle as I used to se them.

Sorry to tell you they do use traffic shaping. Waitrose ADSL service was provided by a company called Brightview who were bought by BT last year

Its getting harder and harder to find ISPs who aren't owned by one of the major players Eclipse for example are owned by KCOM - Kingston Comms as was and on their website there's a FUP which says "If you do exceed your usage allowance your traffic light will turn red and your connection speed will be reduced to 256kbps for the remainder of the period." There's also a nice little explanation of how they traffic shape the Evolution accounts here - http://www.eclipse.net.uk/index.cfm?id=contention_res

Like I said the only ISP you listed who don't shape or throttle was Zen

Who do of course throttle when you exceed your allowance. Sorry, the penny has just dropped

[Broadband1]

If I ever get rich I would buy BT and give every kitz member free (cheap) broadband (dial-up).

[MrsDaddyCoull]

thanks folks for your input.
i dont mind about the 40gb a month limit with sky, its just the throttling of speed i want to avoid.

on kitz site it lists sky as an isp that has no signs of throttling speeds, where as BT do

so my question is really if i use sky even tho they dont have LLU in my area and will just be reselling bt, will the service be controlled by sky or by bt?

[roseway]

Your internet service will be controlled by Sky. It's not quite true to say that they are only reselling BT; what they are doing is the same as other ISPs, i.e. buying capacity on the BT network from BT Wholesale. BT Internet buy capacity in the same way, and on the same terms, and have no influence on the performance of other ISPs. So any traffic management by BT Internet only affects their own service.

[oldfogy]

i dont mind about the 40gb a month limit with sky, its just the throttling of speed i want to avoid.

With Virgin Media, the only throttling is if you exceed a total of 800MB during the hours of 4pm and 9pm.
(Various packages have different rates, this is for their M "Medium" package) (L, M, XL)

Other than that there are NO OTHER CAPS whatsoever.

However I am talking from a BB point of view and not "A/DSL" My DL/UL is generally in the region of 100+GB p/m.
Surely a phone call is worth the time.
Or try the Post Code checker on their site to see if it is available in your area.

Warning - while you were typing a new reply has been posted. You may wish to review your post.

[kitz]

Virgin adsl is pretty dire right now..  speed reports are actually worse than "The T ISPs" :/


>> If I ever get rich I would buy BT and give every kitz member free (cheap) broadband (dial-up).

Gee thanks...   Although I seem to be having problems of my own right now with my connection.

>> its just the throttling of speed i want to avoid.
>> will the service be controlled by sky or by bt?


This exchange is particularly well known to suffer from congestion...  bear in mind that all IPStream ISPs are likely to suffer from exchange contention at some point... and this could be a point of slow downs at peak times.  Depends what everyone else in your area is doing.