Sky broadband launches in Ireland

bealtine · 09-02-2013 10:27am

MMFITWGDV wrote: »

I'm in the boondocks, with the local eircon exchange most definitely not broadband enabled. It even says so in the IOFFL Broadband availability Map.

It tells me they can get up to 24Mbps! :eek:

Surely that's a bit misleading?

They can't give Broadband where none is available - surely?

What did you think of the availability map? Useful?

No Sky cannot provide DSL services if your exchange is not enabled, they can also only provide the speeds that the exchange is enabled for, so if the exchange is enabled for 8Mb that'll be the max you can get. You can check that too on our availability checker too.

cgarvey · 09-02-2013 4:07pm

MMFITWGDV wrote: »

It tells me they can get up to 24Mbps! :eek:

Yup, it does that on all non-DSL lines. There's some note about 24Mbps being the max they offer so you need to call them; but very misleading indeed.

ItHurtsWhenIP · 09-02-2013 4:37pm

bealtine wrote: »

What did you think of the availability map? Useful?

Yes. It is very good. That sort of gathering of all of the disparate pieces of information is really, really useful.

Years ago, the department used to have a site that you could pop a pin in a map and it would tell you what Broadband Providers could service that spot.

In my case, it showed a LOT of Satellite providers (Irish and UK), which were expensive at the time. Through my own digging around and research I went with a one-way Satellite offering from a German crowd that was cheap enough. I think I paid €60 for the dish, fitted it myself and then €10 a month for 2Mbps. Had to pay eircon for the dial-up for upstream though

.

watty · 09-02-2013 5:01pm

bealtine wrote: »

What did you think of the availability map? Useful?

No Sky cannot provide DSL services if your exchange is not enabled, they can also only provide the speeds that the exchange is enabled for, so if the exchange is enabled for 8Mb that'll be the max you can get. You can check that too on our availability checker too.

Also Nationwide the AVERAGE DSL speed is less than 4Mbps. So an unqualified up to 24Mbps is VERY misleading compared to many Fixed Wireless speeds (distance can be irrelevant if you get a signal). Any upgraded UPC area would likely be 30Mbps minimum.

Mobile "up to" 21Mbps is even more dishonest as the speed not just varies dramatically with distance (as DSL does), but with only TEN simultaneous users on a Mast sector the speed can be as low as 0.12Mbps, or no connection. Average on Mobile is about 1Mbps, but the variation of speed even for same location is enormous. On DSL, whatever speed you get, is whatever it is unless the exchange has insufficient backhaul for peak periods.

bealtine · 09-02-2013 5:56pm

watty wrote: »

Mobile "up to" 21Mbps is even more dishonest as the speed not varies dramatically with distance (as DSL does), but with only TEN simultaneous users on a Mast sector the speed can be as low as 0.12Mbps, or no connection. Average on Mobile is about 1Mbps, but the variation of speed even for same location is enormous. On DSL, whatever speed you get, is whatever it is unless the exchange has insufficient backhaul for peak periods.

My tests on mobile show a ping variation from 80ms to over 500ms...
Speed tests vary from 0 to 5Mb/s and download speed anything from 0 with an average of about 400kb/s to 2Mb/s.

Mobile sucks for real internet access:)

armen tamzarien · 27-02-2013 12:07am

Hi , I have been researching this rumour re sky broadband and stumbled across the forum re broadband , im living in a remote area of county wicklow & I'm currently using satellite broadband from an English company called beyond Dsl , it's just about ok , a little expensive and was looking for an alternative, could anyone inform me (since the posts were 7 months old) has there been any further info from sky on this ??, I'd believe their claims re speeds etc having seen what my own can do all be it hit & miss but im sure that rate of download would be very expensive, any info would be greatly appreciated

Headshot · 27-02-2013 12:14am

sky broadband is DSL like what eircom sell, not satellite broadband

if you cant get broadband from eircom ie DSL, its a waste of your time going for sky broadband

aindriu80 · 27-02-2013 2:22pm

I ordered Sky broadband the day it was made available here in Ireland. They phoned me yesterday to say to say that they messed up the order and it will take another two weeks to deliver the router.

RonnieL · 17-04-2013 4:01pm

Hi Guys,

I'm currently a Sky TV customer and Vodafone broadband customer. I'm out of contract with Vodafone, and I was thinking of switching to Sky for their unlimited broadband. Then I got an email from Vodafone saying "Very soon we'll be introducing our new fibre broadband. With speeds of up to 70 Mbps, it's now up to ten times faster. And it comes at no extra cost." Since then, I've noticed Eircom doing similar advertising, which doesn't surprise me since I understand they use the same infrastructure?

Anyway, this afternoon I got a call from Sky offering me half price broadband for the first 6 months (of a 12 month contract). I didn't sign up but asked them to call me back in a week. Now I'm wondering if I do go to Sky, will I miss out on the new fancy fiber broadband that I am supposedly going to get "very soon" with vodafone?

Thanks,

Ronan

clint_silver · 17-04-2013 4:04pm

RonnieL wrote: »

Hi Guys,

I'm currently a Sky TV customer and Vodafone broadband customer. I'm out of contract with Vodafone, and I was thinking of switching to Sky for their unlimited broadband. Then I got an email from Vodafone saying "Very soon we'll be introducing our new fibre broadband. With speeds of up to 70 Mbps, it's now up to ten times faster. And it comes at no extra cost." Since then, I've noticed Eircom doing similar advertising, which doesn't surprise me since I understand they use the same infrastructure?

Anyway, this afternoon I got a call from Sky offering me half price broadband for the first 6 months (of a 12 month contract). I didn't sign up but asked them to call me back in a week. Now I'm wondering if I do go to Sky, will I miss out on the new fancy fiber broadband that I am supposedly going to get "very soon" with vodafone?

Thanks,

Ronan

Im with sky and Im paying them 10e a month for 24mb with no download cap.

Thats for a year.

what do you need 70mb for and how much you paying vodafone?

RonnieL · 17-04-2013 4:20pm

clint_silver wrote: »

Im with sky and Im paying them 10e a month for 24mb with no download cap.

Thats for a year.

what do you need 70mb for and how much you paying vodafone?

It's not about need, it's about want!

Seriously though, you make a good point I guess. I don't really need super fast broadband, although I do plan to hook the Sky box up to my broadband so I can use on demand, so I'd imagine that will need a decent download speed.

Also, that €10 a month is on top of the €30 a month they charge for the Sky talk piece right (aka line rental)? I'm paying vodafone €45 a month for broadband and free anytime national/uk calls. So I'll probably switch to Sky in any case, but I am still curious to know if Sky customers are likely to benefit from this supposedly imminent fiber rollout?

clint_silver · 17-04-2013 4:27pm

RonnieL wrote: »

It's not about need, it's about want!

Seriously though, you make a good point I guess. I don't really need super fast broadband, although I do plan to hook the Sky box up to my broadband so I can use on demand, so I'd imagine that will need a decent download speed.

Also, that €10 a month is on top of the €30 a month they charge for the Sky talk piece right (aka line rental)? I'm paying vodafone €45 a month for broadband and free anytime national/uk calls. So I'll probably switch to Sky in any case, but I am still curious to know if Sky customers are likely to benefit from this supposedly imminent fiber rollout?

Nope. 10 for the whole lot. They're taking the hit on the rental.

RonnieL · 17-04-2013 4:29pm

clint_silver wrote: »

Nope. 10 for the whole lot. They're taking the hit on the rental.

Nice! How did you get that?!

aindriu80 · 17-04-2013 6:09pm

OP I pay €40/month for unlimited broadband. I was quoted speeds of 20Mb download when they tested my line but in the evenings and weekends I can expect to get 1Mb.

Since you're not one of the people testing broadband for Sky you can expect to pay €40/month and not the €10. Sky's actual speeds are well lower that the theoretical 24Mb.

Vodafone might be the better option especially with possibility of fibre coming on stream soon. Sky have no plans to increase broadband speed in the future or remedy current crawl speed in the evenings/weekends.

RonnieL · 18-04-2013 9:34am

aindriu80 wrote: »

OP I pay €40/month for unlimited broadband. I was quoted speeds of 20Mb download when they tested my line but in the evenings and weekends I can expect to get 1Mb.

Since you're not one of the people testing broadband for Sky you can expect to pay €40/month and not the €10. Sky's actual speeds are well lower that the theoretical 24Mb.

Vodafone might be the better option especially with possibility of fibre coming on stream soon. Sky have no plans to increase broadband speed in the future or remedy current crawl speed in the evenings/weekends.

Oh I had registered my interest in Sky broadband right at the start, and I did miss a couple of calls from them at one point months ago, so I'm guessing I missed out on the €10 a month thing then. Not to worry.

That's good information about your experience with Sky. I'm still in two minds though because my vodafone service isn't exactly setting the world alight either. I have to restart the router at least daily, and this morning the internet was just broken altogether. My upload speed is pitiful too.

At the end of the day, does the quality of your connection boil down to the eircom infrastructure, regardless of provider? (assuming the routers are roughly equivalent)?

keno-daytrader · 18-04-2013 1:54pm

RonnieL wrote: »

Oh I had registered my interest in Sky broadband right at the start, and I did miss a couple of calls from them at one point months ago, so I'm guessing I missed out on the €10 a month thing then. Not to worry.

That's good information about your experience with Sky. I'm still in two minds though because my vodafone service isn't exactly setting the world alight either. I have to restart the router at least daily, and this morning the internet was just broken altogether. My upload speed is pitiful too.

At the end of the day, does the quality of your connection boil down to the eircom infrastructure, regardless of provider? (assuming the routers are roughly equivalent)?

Absolutley not. When I was with Eircom, I never experienced slow downs in the evening. Now that I switched to Sky I go from 14mbps in mornings to 0.80mbps in the evenings, making Sky broadband almost useless. And Im not alone, loads of unhappy Sky broadband customers.

Have a look at the broadband forum, there are multiple thread about the horrible speeds from Sky.

RonnieL · 18-04-2013 4:14pm

keno-daytrader wrote: »

Absolutley not. When I was with Eircom, I never experienced slow downs in the evening. Now that I switched to Sky I go from 14mbps in mornings to 0.80mbps in the evenings, making Sky broadband almost useless. And Im not alone, loads of unhappy Sky broadband customers.

Have a look at the broadband forum, there are multiple thread about the horrible speeds from Sky.

Thanks Keno. I had a quick scout around the threads on the broadband forum and it seems there's a lot of unhappy Sky customers out there alright. I didn't have time to read the entire thread that you started, but do you know if there are areas where people are enjoying good quality of service with Sky or is it slow everywhere in the evenings? I'm living in Oranmore in Galway.

Also, I've done some googling and it seems Oranmore is in phase 4 of the fiber rollout. I can't seem to find dates for when the phases are scheduled though. Does anyone know?

keno-daytrader · 18-04-2013 6:09pm

RonnieL wrote: »

Thanks Keno. I had a quick scout around the threads on the broadband forum and it seems there's a lot of unhappy Sky customers out there alright. I didn't have time to read the entire thread that you started, but do you know if there are areas where people are enjoying good quality of service with Sky or is it slow everywhere in the evenings? I'm living in Oranmore in Galway.

Also, I've done some googling and it seems Oranmore is in phase 4 of the fiber rollout. I can't seem to find dates for when the phases are scheduled though. Does anyone know?

Ronnie, I think if Oranmore is bitstream, or just resold Eircom dsl, it will be very poor in the evenings, I think but not 100% sure that exchanges with BT equipment are ok, not sure whats in Oran.

Just checked, Oranmore is not LLU so chances are the speeds will be horrible in the evenings. BTW im in Loughrea , getting 0.80mbps on a 14mbps line, in evenings, basically unuseable for what I need. Gone back to Eircom, just waiting to be switched now.

Oranmore (Galway)
Estimated completion date for Fibre Network Build is December 2013.

AlanS181824 · 21-04-2013 8:13pm

I'm with Sky on an apparent 12MB LLU exchange in Carlow and getting 14-16MB's. Connected last Thursday loving it so far.

aindriu80 · 21-04-2013 9:40pm

RonnieL wrote: »

Oh I had registered my interest in Sky broadband right at the start, and I did miss a couple of calls from them at one point months ago, so I'm guessing I missed out on the €10 a month thing then. Not to worry.

That's good information about your experience with Sky. I'm still in two minds though because my vodafone service isn't exactly setting the world alight either. I have to restart the router at least daily, and this morning the internet was just broken altogether. My upload speed is pitiful too.

At the end of the day, does the quality of your connection boil down to the eircom infrastructure, regardless of provider? (assuming the routers are roughly equivalent)?

I reckon you would get good speeds with Sky providing Sky could provide better back up. At the moment they can't and if there are a lot of users online in the evenings your speed will no doubt drop a lot. Maybe fibre will change all that.

airbusa320 · 22-04-2013 12:38pm

Looks like the special offer is not availabe any more I was offered 1 month free and 40 euro for the 11 months there after. I also recieved the SKY call last Thursday but never got the call back about the half price first 6 months. Thinking of changing but still in two minds?

smeal · 15-07-2013 5:45pm

I Have SKY tv and got the many letters in the post advertising the broadband/phone package so gave them a ring to set it up (sounds like a pretty good deal for 40euro and its half price of 20euro for the first 4 months) ANYWAYS gave my address etc to the very nice man from the North who was setting me up. He kept asking what the name of the street I live on is and couldn't seem to understand what I meant when i said i lived in a townland and not a street like many other people in the Republic. Anyways, it seems the townland issue hinders my chances of getting the broadband despite already having a Sky account. They have to fill in forms and send them to Dublin to double check if i can get it. Moral of the story is, sliiiiight advertising issue for Sky! Especially when they're offering it to their current customers constantly by sending out letters when they're not even sure themselves if it is available! Understand it is new to the Rep of Ire. but hopefully they sort it soon:)

watty · 15-07-2013 11:24pm

It's just reselling existing Irish Broadband. Not any new infrastructure. Just marketing. As we have no postcodes eircom have to check to see can Sky sell you their service.

Sky broadband launches in Ireland

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