Sky broadband launches in Ireland

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.

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 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 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.

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.

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:)