Sky Unlimited and Sky Talk

Tayla

BrianHal wrote: »

Esat Telecommunications Limited

Mine keeps switching between Esat and Eircom.:(

BrianHal

Tayla wrote: »

Mine keeps switching between Esat and Eircom.:(

Maybe I'll hold off on my rejoicing for the time being so...

Just as a matter of interest, what provider appears if you're a Vodafone customer?

jay93

BrianHal wrote: »

Maybe I'll hold off on my rejoicing for the time being so...

Just as a matter of interest, what provider appears if you're a Vodafone customer?

Vodafone broadband displays as Vodafone Ireland on speed test.

Dcully

Lads sky said give it 10 days ,how many more times does this need to be said ?
Its clearly stated by sky ,I'm seeing fluctuations in speeds but there's no point coming in here to say in not happy after 3days,I'll be giving it 10 days just like sky have constantly stated.If after that period I'm not happy I'll be making some noise then but for now ill just let the sky hub do its thing.

Nonoperational

Cheeking speedtest.net is a completely unreliable way of checking how the connection is doing. If your getting speeds lower than expected check the line stats the router is showing. Sky will stop increasing the speed when the SNR margin is around the 6db mark. If you are syncing lower than expected and your SNR margin is a nice bit >6 then you have room to sync higher. If your syncing and your SNR margin is =6 then that's about all your line can handle.

Mine synced at 11976 from day one with a SNR margin of 6. It hasn't moved since and I don't expect it to.

positron

Dcully wrote: »

Lads sky said give it 10 days ,how many more times does this need to be said ?...

I would hate to be the sky tech support..!

BrianHal

Nonoperational wrote: »

Cheeking speedtest.net is a completely unreliable way of checking how the connection is doing. If your getting speeds lower than expected check the line stats the router is showing. Sky will stop increasing the speed when the SNR margin is around the 6db mark. If you are syncing lower than expected and your SNR margin is a nice bit >6 then you have room to sync higher. If your syncing and your SNR margin is =6 then that's about all your line can handle.

Mine synced at 11976 from day one with a SNR margin of 6. It hasn't moved since and I don't expect it to.

I'm looking around the router settings. I went to Maintenance -> Router Status and clicked [Show Statistics] and on that popup there's a "Noise Margin" with a downstream value of 6.9db. Is this the same as the SNR Margin you speak of?

Dcully

Speaking of SNR etc in the stats, how does these stats look?

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 7168 kbps 384 kbps
Line Attenuation 18.0 dB 12.0 dB
Noise Margin 14.4 dB 19.19 dB

naughto

not sure if this is true found it on another site

Attenuation.............Approximate Line Length............Potential Connection Speed
32db...................................2.3km.....................................16000kbps
35db...................................2.5km.....................................14500kbps
40db...................................2.9km.....................................11800kbps
45db...................................3.2km.......................................8500kbps
50db...................................3.6km.......................................6500kbps
55db...................................4.0km.......................................4500kbps
60db...................................4.3km.......................................3200kbps
65db...................................4.7km.......................................2000kbps



Noise Margin (AKA Signal to Noise Margin or Signal to Noise Ratio)
Relative strength of the DSL signal to Noise ratio. 6dB is the lowest dB manufactures specify for modem to be able to sync. In some instances interleaving can help raise the noise margin to an acceptable level. The higher the number the better for this measurement.

6dB or below is bad and will experience no sync or intermittent synch problems
7dB-10dB is fair but does not leave much room for variances in conditions
11dB-20dB is good with no synch problems
20dB-28dB is excellent
29dB or above is outstanding

Line Attenuation

Measure of how much the signal has degraded between the DSLAM and the modem. Maximum signal loss recommendation is usually about 60dB. The lower the dB the better for this measurement.

20dB and below is outstanding
20dB-30dB is excellent
30dB-40dB is very good
40dB-50dB is good
50dB-60dB is poor and may experience connectivity issues
60dB or above is bad and will experience connectivity issues

Output Power

How much power modem (upstream) or DSLAM (downstream) is using. Maximum recommended is about 15dB. The lower the power the better for this measurement.

naughto

Dcully wrote: »

Speaking of SNR etc in the stats, how does these stats look?

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 7168 kbps 384 kbps
Line Attenuation 18.0 dB 12.0 dB
Noise Margin 14.4 dB 19.19 dB

you get a gold star:D
compare to mine

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 5120 kbps 512 kbps
Line Attenuation 42.0 dB 27.0 dB
Noise Margin 20.2 dB 25.25 dB

Harry Deerpark

What about mine?


DSL Mode: ADSL2+
Speed: 12287 kbps /670 kbps
Line Attenuation (Down/Up): 28 dB /13 dB
DSL Noise Margin: 8 dB /18 dB

naughto

your noise margin is very low

Harry Deerpark

naughto wrote: »

your noise margin is very low

What does that entail? I don't like the look of it.

naughto

Harry Deerpark wrote: »

What does that entail? I don't like the look of it.

are u getting any disconnects??

BrianHal

naughto wrote: »

you get a gold star:D
compare to mine

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 5120 kbps 512 kbps
Line Attenuation 42.0 dB 27.0 dB
Noise Margin 20.2 dB 25.25 dB

I reckon I'm about 2.5-3km from the exchange via the road, about 1km as the crow flies but I'm assuming the cabling follows the main road and not run through housing estates.
Are these figures ok or even promising?

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8128 kbps 512 kbps
Line Attenuation. 23.5 dB 15.0 dB
Noise Margin 6.9 dB 24.24 dB

Harry Deerpark

naughto wrote: »

are u getting any disconnects??

Once or twice a day. Maybe three times. I always figured it was high contention, but I was online one night at 4 or 5 a.m. and it disconnected. In fact, it disconnected early this morning at around 10-ish now that I think about it.

It used to be a lot worse, though.

I'm an avid torrenter and I don't really have much issues with torrents stopping.

At least I now know why I have random disconnects when most people are offline

Nonoperational

The SNR margin values are different if your on ADSL or ADSL 2+. On ADSL 2+ then a SNR margin of 6 is fine. Mine is between 5.5 and 6 for years and I never get a disconnect.

Dcully wrote: »

Speaking of SNR etc in the stats, how does these stats look?

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 7168 kbps 384 kbps
Line Attenuation 18.0 dB 12.0 dB
Noise Margin 14.4 dB 19.19 dB

That looks like ADSL not ADSL 2+, I'm not sure if ADSL 2+ is available on all exchanges. Your attenuation and SNR Margin is good, if you were on ADSL 2+ you could go a lot higher speed wise I'd say.

Harry Deerpark wrote: »

What about mine?


DSL Mode: ADSL2+
Speed: 12287 kbps /670 kbps
Line Attenuation (Down/Up): 28 dB /13 dB
DSL Noise Margin: 8 dB /18 dB

That looks fine for ADSL2+. You'd be happy with a DSL noise margin around 6. You could expect speeds a little higher than this. My attenuation is 35 and I get speeds around the same as this.

BrianHal wrote: »

I reckon I'm about 2.5-3km from the exchange via the road, about 1km as the crow flies but I'm assuming the cabling follows the main road and not run through housing estates.
Are these figures ok or even promising?

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8128 kbps 512 kbps
Line Attenuation. 23.5 dB 15.0 dB
Noise Margin 6.9 dB 24.24 dB

That looks like it's syncing around the max speed for adsl 1, but the noise margin is a bit low I'd say. Might be a bit of noise on the line.

Disclaimer: I'm no expert on this, just giving my opinions!

BrianHal

Harry Deerpark wrote: »

Once or twice a day. Maybe three times. I always figured it was high contention, but I was online one night at 4 or 5 a.m. and it disconnected. In fact, it disconnected early this morning at around 10-ish now that I think about it.

It used to be a lot worse, though.

I'm an avid torrenter and I don't really have much issues with torrents stopping.

At least I now know why I have random disconnects when most people are offline

I had the same problem with VF starting April 2011. Up to then, there was never a problem and from then for about three months it happened anything up to once every ten minutes. It's been much better since but there is an odd time when it acts up like the original April. It is unbelievably frustrating when it happens.

Does anyone know if the ISPs have any control over the Noise Margin or is that only a value that is shown but can't be changed?

Harry Deerpark

Nonoperational wrote: »

That looks fine for ADSL2+. You'd be happy with a DSL noise margin around 6. You could expect speeds a little higher than this. My attenuation is 35 and I get speeds around the same as this.

Disclaimer: I'm no expert on this, just giving my opinions!

I've yet to switch over to Sky, but they said my line can handle 15 Mb. I'll post Speedtest results of both Eircom and Sky when I get my hub hopefully this week.

Cheerful Spring

Hogzy wrote: »

Funnily enough my speeds seem to be getting worse. I was told my line can support 12mb. When I got the sky hub I was hitting 9.8mb. Thought over the 10 days that would go up to 12 but its doing the opposite. For the last 2 days I have barely been able to break 9mb.

My downstream connection speed has gone from 11374 to 10574 in the 3 days that I have sky broadband. Really not happy with that.

If you were told 12meg.-expect a 1 to 2mb loss or more of download speed.

Eircom, for example, has 8mb and 24mb packages available on their website, but it rare anyone gets even close to those speeds

People are asking themselves is it worth it to switch to Sky? Yes if you care about price in the short term. But most will still get the same speeds they had with Eircom.

If 4G can deliver next year for customers, and pricing and data limits are excellent. I expect DSL to be only used by a minority of the population ( tens of thousands at most) and i expect DSL to be not be used anymore in urban areas and towns in the next 2 to 3 years (4 years at most)

Harry Deerpark

BrianHal wrote: »

I had the same problem with VF starting April 2011. Up to then, there was never a problem and from then for about three months it happened anything up to once every ten minutes. It's been much better since but there is an odd time when it acts up like the original April. It is unbelievably frustrating when it happens.

Does anyone know if the ISPs have any control over the Noise Margin or is that only a value that is shown but can't be changed?

I know why mine was a lot worse, though, I had my router upstairs and a 10 meter phone line connecting it to the phone socket. Instead, I left the router downstair beside the phone and the socket, bought a 10 meter DSL cable, drilled a hole in the roof and ran it to the computer.

Haven't had a "time out" or a "drop out" since.

Now that I think about, it wouldn't disconnect that often, it would just stop working despite being connected. After I reset the router, it would work again, but I'd have to do this every hour and sometimes, every 30 minutes.

Another problem I had was my firewall setting had to be lowered because it was blocking people from connecting to my torrents. After I fixed that, I had no problem with Eircom, other than it being too expensive and terrible upload speeds.

Basq

Was given an activation date of June 30th, but plugged Sky Hub in just there and all was working.

As both my Sky and Vodafone BB appear to be working, what date should I expect Vodafone to credit my bill back to? I presume the activation date of Sky.

brian ireland

Basq wrote: »

Was given an activation date of June 30th, but plugged Sky Hub in just there and all was working.

As both my Sky and Vodafone BB appear to be working, what date should I expect Vodafone to credit my bill back to? I presume the activation date of Sky.

Jan or June??

Basq

brian ireland wrote: »

Jan or June??

Sorry.. meant January!

adox

Basq wrote: »

Was given an activation date of June 30th, but plugged Sky Hub in just there and all was working.

As both my Sky and Vodafone BB appear to be working, what date should I expect Vodafone to credit my bill back to? I presume the activation date of Sky.

Good luck with that. I'm still in dispute with Vodafone. They never disconnected my Broadband. It was only after 3 days of having Sky running I rang Vodafone to see if they would credit my account as they charged me up until February 13th. They told me the Broadband was still running and hadn't been cancelled. :mad:

They have now cancelled it although they said it takes 10 days to cancel. :rolleyes:

I've spoke to them on the phone, emailed them and also started a thread in the Vodafone forum. On there the rep told me I will get no refund as you have to give 30 days notice. :rolleyes:

They have been awful to deal with and quite unhelpful. I'm just trying to make sure now that everything once and for all is cancelled.

I'd advise you to ring them as soon as you can and make sure you are cancelled.

BrianHal

adox wrote: »

Good luck with that. I'm still in dispute with Vodafone. They never disconnected my Broadband. It was only after 3 days of having Sky running I rang Vodafone to see if they would credit my account as they charged me up until February 13th. They told me the Broadband was still running and hadn't been cancelled. :mad:

They have now cancelled it although they said it takes 10 days to cancel. :rolleyes:

I've spoke to them on the phone, emailed them and also started a thread in the Vodafone forum. On there the rep told me I will get no refund as you have to give 30 days notice. :rolleyes:

They have been awful to deal with and quite unhelpful. I'm just trying to make sure now that everything once and for all is cancelled.

I'd advise you to ring them as soon as you can and make sure you are cancelled.

Interesting how they say it takes 10 days, when their website for getting up and running with Home Phone and Broadband says that there will be no interruption in service etc. It seems that when you sign over to VF from eircom or whoever it's no problem but when you want to leave they act like something you'd expect from Ryanair.

Basq

Popped a message over on the Vodafone forum.. have dates of orders, last bills etc.

But actually since I plugged in the Sky hub, my connection has been incredibly volatile - have had to reboot the router twice since I connected it about 4.30pm.

Not good!

thund3rbird_

checked my VF account & showing no voice or broadband services on the line

I'm switched over since last Monday & never phoned VF to cancel anything.

no mention of any 30day notice period

maybe I got lucky??

tcawley29

Basq wrote: »

Popped a message over on the Vodafone forum.. have dates of orders, last bills etc.

But actually since I plugged in the Sky hub, my connection has been incredibly volatile - have had to reboot the router twice since I connected it about 4.30pm.

Not good!

I thought you were meant to leave that connected for 10 days straight without rebooting :O

Basq

tcawley29 wrote: »

I thought you were meant to leave that connected for 10 days straight without rebooting :O

If you've no connection for a solid half hour, what else are you meant to do?

EDIT: Short disconnection seems fine: http://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Sky-Broadband-Setup-Connection/reboot-during-initial-testing-first-10-days/td-p/306895