Sky Broadband review

jusvi2001

As it been a month or more since Sky broadband is live. i think it's fair to share the individual experiences. Please share your experiences here including any significant speed increase, consistency and reliability of the connection and off course Customer service .

cheers

Nonoperational

Perfect. It's €50 a month less than eircom. It works exactly the same but the pings are slightly better.

Stopped thinking about it now really. It's the exact same technology as eircom so I wasn't expecting anything different. 10/10.

colm_mcm

Nonoperational wrote: »

Perfect. It's €50 a month less than eircom. It works exactly the same but the pings are slightly better.

Stopped thinking about it now really. It's the exact same technology as eircom so I wasn't expecting anything different. 10/10.

Just curious as to what you're paying if its €50 less per month?

Peregrine

Nonoperational wrote: »

Perfect. It's €50 a month less than eircom. It works exactly the same but the pings are slightly better.

Stopped thinking about it now really. It's the exact same technology as eircom so I wasn't expecting anything different. 10/10.

What speeds are you getting?


Is the Unlimited package really unlimited?

Patrick2010

Nonoperational wrote: »

Perfect. It's €50 a month less than eircom. It works exactly the same but the pings are slightly better.

Stopped thinking about it now really. It's the exact same technology as eircom so I wasn't expecting anything different. 10/10.

Lot of people pay Eircom 50 euro a month, are Sky giving it for free?

Nonoperational

colm_mcm wrote: »

Just curious as to what you're paying if its €50 less per month?

€10 for broadband and calls for the first year. I got in as part of the trial that was well publicised on here.

Nimrod 7 wrote: »

What speeds are you getting?


Is the Unlimited package really unlimited?

12Mbit sync and around 10Mbit down, 0.9Mbit up real time. Same as eircom. It's the same line so the speed will in general be the same bar some rare customers who had limited speeds by eircom.

Yep. Unlimited. The girl on the phone told me to invite all my friends over and see who could download the most.

Patrick2010 wrote: »

Lot of people pay Eircom 50 euro a month, are Sky giving it for free?

I was paying eircom €62, I pay Sky €10.

iwangmeng

Nonoperational wrote: »

I was paying eircom €62, I pay Sky €10.

I guess there is also a line rental fee.
which is about 30?

so the saving is about 20 rather than 50..

ccazza

Trial offer was for €10.

Nonoperational

iwangmeng wrote: »

I guess there is also a line rental fee.
which is about 30?

so the saving is about 20 rather than 50..

Nope, €10 includes line rental.

Kristopherus

Got Sky through the trial offer.Was with Voda on a up to 8mbps tarriff & was getting a constant 6mbps. That was costing me €47.00 per month. With Sky I'm getting a constant 18mbps for €17.50. Have it for almost 3 weeks now. Happy out.

butts

Was with Vodafone getting about 11mbps. Now getting 14mbps with Sky. Upload speed of 1mbp with both providers. So far only downtime was on a day where a lot of other Sky users had problems connecting to the internet. Got in on the €10 a month trial offer so all in all, very happy

CraigSmith_IO

You're getting it as part of a trial offer. I'm sure then it will go up to standard pricing afterwards and you'll then only be saving a measly €5 right?

notahappycamper

Kristopherus wrote: »

Got Sky through the trial offer.Was with Voda on a up to 8mbps tarriff & was getting a constant 6mbps. That was costing me €47.00 per month. With Sky I'm getting a constant 18mbps for €17.50. Have it for almost 3 weeks now. Happy out.

Do you know if you were connecting with ADSL2+ with vodafone before Sky and Sky just increased your profile or were you switched from ADSL to ADSL2+ with Sky?

jusvi2001

notahappycamper wrote: »

Do you know if you were connecting with ADSL2+ with vodafone before Sky and Sky just increased your profile or were you switched from ADSL to ADSL2+ with Sky?

How to find out that? also is there anyway from my end to see what profile (like max speed)the provider set for me.

notahappycamper

jusvi2001 wrote: »

How to find out that? also is there anyway from my end to see what profile (like max speed)the provider set for me.

I am not sure if you can see it on the Sky router but on my Linksys one you could. It should be somewhere in settings or try googling it to see how to do it. I dont think you can see your max profile at your end but through your account you can.

Kristopherus

notahappycamper wrote: »

Do you know if you were connecting with ADSL2+ with vodafone before Sky and Sky just increased your profile or were you switched from ADSL to ADSL2+ with Sky?

I don't know. Cannot get into the router to check anything. But I'm only 400m from the exchange. Had been told by Voda a few years ago that my line could take 24mbps. When I check my speed on the Sky site it tells me I'm getting 22.6mbps

Buzz84

Was it like for gaming any Nat issues?

Ranelite

How does this compare to the UPC 30meg broadband?

adox

CraigSmith_IO wrote: »

You're getting it as part of a trial offer. I'm sure then it will go up to standard pricing afterwards and you'll then only be saving a measly €5 right?

Well yes but the trial is for 12 months so its a great deal.

I got the trial offer too, paying €17.50 per month for unlimited broadband, line rental and free calls to 20 countries anytime. Have relations in the UK Germany and The States so it works out great from that point of view.

I`m getting the same speeds i was getting with Vodafone. I have it maybe 4 or 5 weeks now. Had one minor issues when I came home and the Sky Hub was showing orange and wouldnt connect but a reboot sorted it straight away.

Over the course of the 12 months I will save €330.00 over Vodafone so it was a no brainer. I`m also on a discounted TV package for 12 months too, which will expire around the same time.

I will look for discounts on both again when they are due for renewal(obviously wont get the same price on the broadband) and if they dont want to play ball I will look elsewhere and weigh up my options, but for the rest of the year Im saving a fortune for what I am getting so am happy out and will address it all again next year.

adox

Ranelite wrote: »

How does this compare to the UPC 30meg broadband?

It doesnt. Its not trying to compete with UPC either, just other DSL providers.

If I could get UPC broadband I wouldnt even consider Sky.

adox

Buzz84 wrote: »

Was it like for gaming any Nat issues?

I have only played a couple of evenings online on PS3 and had no issues/no disconnects.

Ranelite

adox wrote: »

It doesnt. Its not trying to compete with UPC either, just other DSL providers.

If I could get UPC broadband I wouldnt even consider Sky.

Well is it worth saving the few quid for the year by switching if I don't download much?

Nonoperational

Kristopherus wrote: »

I don't know. Cannot get into the router to check anything. But I'm only 400m from the exchange. Had been told by Voda a few years ago that my line could take 24mbps. When I check my speed on the Sky site it tells me I'm getting 22.6mbps

22.6 is pretty good.

Kristopherus

Nonoperational wrote: »

22.6 is pretty good.

My Speedtest runs tell me I'm getting 18mbps since I installed it. But funnily enough I'v had a couple of blips last night & early this afternoon. Hope its not the start of a trend;).

Gonzo

Nonoperational wrote: »

22.6 is pretty good.

how accurate are the readings of speeds from skys website tho? Im on Eircom, I was originally on 7.6megs and since then they downgraded me to 6meg. My line attenuation is 36db down, sky's website says I can get 11.7meg, would love to move if that was true?

Fattes

Have got nothing greater than 8Meg since connection, the first week I could get nothing more than 1Meg and when I called they told me there was a stop on the account.

In fairness to the Customer service lad he removed it straight away and was very apologetic, I have yet to get 10Meg and I am averaging out about 3Meg. I was told I would get a call back Tuesday that never came and another on Wed which never came.

Also experiencing signal drops every 2/3 days, if it keeps up it will be going back next week.

Nonoperational

Gonzo wrote: »

how accurate are the readings of speeds from skys website tho? Im on Eircom, I was originally on 7.6megs and since then they downgraded me to 6meg. My line attenuation is 36db down, sky's website says I can get 11.7meg, would love to move if that was true?

I go by sync speeds because that's what your line can do.

With 36db attenuation you should get close to 12Mbit sync which will give real world download speeds of around 10.5Mbit.

Branoic

Thinking of switching from Eircom but a bit confused around line rentals.

at the moment I pay Eircom roughly €60 every two months covering calls, broadband, line rental.

I also pay €50 a month to Sky for my TV.

So €110 monthly.

By switching calls and broadband to sky for €40 I can bring this down to €90, saving me €20 a month.

However someone said that as the line is still owned by Eircom, you still end up paying them something like €20 or €25 a month for just line rental, which wipes out the saving or could actually end up costing a few quid more.

Is this true? Do you still pay something to Eircom?

Kristopherus

No. You zilch to Eircom. The € 40 you pay for Sky telephone services INCLUDES the line rental.

Dubba

I got Sky Broadband on the €10pm trial. I have a letter from that time stating - Sky Broadband Unlimited €10 and Sky Talk €1.

Now today I get a letter from the stating that my next bill will be €40!?

I'm going to give them a call and see if I can get this sorted.

Are other people who got in on the €10pm 1 year trial getting the same letter?

Nonoperational

Ya got the letter. Ignore it. The way they do it is charge you and discount your bill I think. I was charged the correct amount anyway. €10.

Dubba

Thanks Nonoperational, that's a load off. I didn't have time to ring them today.

Nonoperational

I actually meant to phone them and forgot too. When I got the bill it was all correct.

Dubba

On a plus note my broadband speeds have changed from an intermittent 4.25Mb/s with Vodafone to a nicely consistent 5.25Mb/s with Sky. I presume this is because of lack of contention due to less people being with Sky atm.

Dubba

How are you finding the speeds compared to your previous supplier, have they increased at all?

Squeaky the Squirrel

two questions

1)will they activate a line

2)do you have to be in an old BT area

Probably ans a million times already but anywho...

themacdaddy

Squeaky the Squirrel wrote: »

two questions

1)will they activate a line


Probably ans a million times already but anywho...

My girlfriend bought a new house and her phone line is not activated.
She rang Sky a few minutes ago and they told her she needed to get Eircom to do it.
She rang Eircom and they said it would cost her €120 as she was going to move to Sky Broadband. (I presume they would do it for free it you were going to stay with them).

She then asked the Eircom agent if they would match Skys offer of €40 per month unlimited and they said they would not.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place as UPC don't offer broadband where she lives sadly.

Mc Love

Could you contact COMREG? Surely thats not right to charge someone 120 euro to activate a line?

themacdaddy

Mc Love wrote: »

Could you contact COMREG? Surely thats not right to charge someone 120 euro to activate a line?

I am not sure to be honest, I will have to look into it. I am not sure where a consumer stands on these issues sadly mate.

zacmorris

have just joined sky. bit of a mess trying to get set up. worng activation dates, clueless but helpful staff.
Speed is terrible so far http://www.speedtest.net/result/2625764330.png . Not sure how everyone is getting those good speeds, but our are beyond terrible!!

Going to give it a few more days and then will call to complain- or just going to cancel my contract it not sorted in the month. My vodafone mobile bb is getting over 4-5mbps, use it for my business too so not really a cost to me. Joke of a service so far to be fair...

Nonoperational

Mine still better than Eircom was... Delighted with it for €10 per month.

Mc Love

Mc Love wrote: »

Could you contact COMREG? Surely thats not right to charge someone 120 euro to activate a line?

That's what they do alright.

Back in 2008 I paid the €120 only to find that my "new" line came up as red on the broadband test and could only manage 16.8k on a dialup modem. Ended up cancelling the line and cutting my losses. This was in Drumcondra of all places, hardly the middle of nowhere.

aindriu80

I pay €40/month with Sky vs €52/month with Eircom. Thats why I moved. Eircom speed was around 6Mb though constant ('ish). Sky quoted me line speeds of 20Mb but the fastest I ever got was 17.5Mb. Speeds have dropped well below that and I have got speeds of 0.22Mb recently.

A bill came for €110 recently (an extra €81 after TV) so I don't really know what Sky intend to charge me for broadband seeing my total bill before was €29.

I wish they would get the line sorted out and deliver me the 17 - 20 Mb without dropping speed. I would expect Youtube to run super smooth but that is laughable.

** One thing, the Sky router is way better than the Eircom router. I can share media on my Xperia phone on the Sky router but it was impossible on Eircom. I frequently had to reset the Eircom router as it would jam. I hated the Eircom router and it wasted my time.

Bohrio

Mc Love wrote: »

Could you contact COMREG? Surely thats not right to charge someone 120 euro to activate a line?

He/she could. The 120 euro charge is a non in situ charge that every new access seeker needs to pay when ordering a new line (in situ lines are much cheaper, in situ lines are , ie, lines that have been previously activated or that have the wiring ready).

The reason why you go to Eircom is because they are probably not ready/familiar with this process or maybe they dont have the man power to do it.

Eircom retail might "waive" that charge (120 euro) if you stay with them, some providers do this too. As far as I remember those 120 euro are mandatory and everyone Eircom retail, Sky, etc will need to pay it. The only time, as I have said, when you dont have to is when is in situ.

jinjodesign

Just heard a great offer on the radio for free broadband with Sky for 6 months. So called them up. I was told though that there is a line rental fee of €30 per month, as they bring the broadband into the house via the phone line. (There is no line rental fee with UPC)

I was still going to go for the package though until the guy told me that the speed of the broadband would not be more than 10mbs!! We currently get 21mbs with UPC...

Guess we will have to wait until they decide to roll out their 'Fibre Trial' in a 'couple of months'. Guy on phone assured me there is no line rental fee with this option but he couldnt tell me how much it would cost.

I absolutely detest being with UPC and am only itching to get with someone else. But unfortunately the speed of the broadband service just isnt there yet.

Come on Sky, catch up.

Israeli Superiority

jinjodesign wrote: »

Just heard a great offer on the radio for free broadband with Sky for 6 months. So called them up. I was told though that there is a line rental fee of €30 per month, as they bring the broadband into the house via the phone line. (There is no line rental fee with UPC)

I was still going to go for the package though until the guy told me that the speed of the broadband would not be more than 10mbs!! We currently get 21mbs with UPC...

Guess we will have to wait until they decide to roll out their 'Fibre Trial' in a 'couple of months'. Guy on phone assured me there is no line rental fee with this option but he couldnt tell me how much it would cost.

I absolutely detest being with UPC and am only itching to get with someone else. But unfortunately the speed of the broadband service just isnt there yet.

Come on Sky, catch up.

UPC have their own lines, whereas, Sky use Eircom's. I'd gladly swap your UPC for my Sky if it was possible.

jinjodesign

I dont mind paying the line rental really, its more the speed of the line.. Dont understand how others are getting 17mbs when the guy was very straight telling me that we would not get more than 10mbs? Is it down to the area I am in?

Israeli Superiority

jinjodesign wrote: »

I dont mind paying the line rental really, its more the speed of the line.. Dont understand how others are getting 17mbs when the guy was very straight telling me that we would not get more than 10mbs? Is it down to the area I am in?

No, it's down to how long your copper line is. Speed deteriorates on copper lines, so the longer the line, the slower your broadband package.

It's kind of like hitting a golf ball, gravity slows it down until it comes to a complete halt.

Fiber broadband is like hitting a golf ball in space, there's no gravity to slow it down, so it keeps traveling at the same speed.

Only a handful of people have fiber broadband in Ireland.

jinjodesign

Aw thanks for that! I get it now, I think I will hang on until the gravity defying line is in place!!
Thanks again for explaining : )

Israeli Superiority

jinjodesign wrote: »

Aw thanks for that! I get it now, I think I will hang on until the gravity defying line is in place!!
Thanks again for explaining : )

Well, gravity doesn't affect data passing through copper, the copper affects data from traveling through copper. I was just using gravity as a analogy.

jinjodesign

I got that............. hahaha