Sky broadband

Hobbitfeet

Anybody got the new sky broadband? Thinking of trying it, in ballymote and the signal here for phone and internet is not good.
€40 for unlimited download and 12mb speed.

red sean

If eircom is poor so will sky. They go on the phone line as well.

johnire

Hi there.

I have had it a couple of months now and can highly recommend it.
The changeover was very easy and the Internet speed is much faster than I was getting.


Quote=Hobbitfeet;83830564]Anybody got the new sky broadband? Thinking of trying it, in ballymote and the signal here for phone and internet is not good.
€40 for unlimited download and 12mb speed.[/Quote]

bennyc

I was informed by a mate working in Eircom that Ballymote is going fibre in the next month so they would be able to provide up to 50MB.

Now I am about three miles from Ballymote and and currently getting 2MB on a good test, maybe 1.5 average. I don't know if this will increase my speed as its only the exchange getting the upgrade not the line outside the house.

Either way if your the same as me then your DSL is already MAX if its under the speed that you can get. The lines are the same and everyone uses the same exchange so Sky / Vodafone / Eircom will all be the same.

I am on 40euro a month with Eircom and have evening / weekend calls and unlimited BB.

red sean

johnire wrote: »

Hi there.

I have had it a couple of months now and can highly recommend it.
The changeover was very easy and the Internet speed is much faster than I was getting.


Quote=Hobbitfeet;83830564]Anybody got the new sky broadband? Thinking of trying it, in ballymote and the signal here for phone and internet is not good.
€40 for unlimited download and 12mb speed.

[/QUOTE]

Are you in Ballymote like the OP?
Location makes a big difference, even in the areas of a town.

Hobbitfeet

Never had eircom but heard bad things about speed and limiting download. We have meteor thing at the minute, it's stuck to the window upstairs window needs to be open a bit for it to work!!
Sky said they tested the line and we would get 12mb speed, we'll see.
So if ballymote is getting fibre will we then be able to get UPC? It's so much cheaper would be great. I'm in ballymote town

shanec1928

Hobbitfeet wrote: »

Never had eircom but heard bad things about speed and limiting download. We have meteor thing at the minute, it's stuck to the window upstairs window needs to be open a bit for it to work!!
Sky said they tested the line and we would get 12mb speed, we'll see.
So if ballymote is getting fibre will we then be able to get UPC? It's so much cheaper would be great. I'm in ballymote town

no upc use their own lines separate to eircom

Henlars67

Eircom don't give you the max speed available on your line though, have no idea of the reason for this.

Presume it's something ridiculous like being able to very slightly increase it every time you complain.

Sky will be faster ads they will give you the very maximum speed available on your line.

johnire

I'm living in Sligo town.

red sean wrote: »

Are you in Ballymote like the OP?
Location makes a big difference, even in the areas of a town.[/Quote]

Henlars67

Regardless of where you live they don't give you the full speed available on your line.

If the max speed is 12, they'll give you 9 or 10.

If you're out the country and it's only something like 1.3 or 1.4 you'll be lucky to get .7 or .8

I left eircom and just use mobile internet now as it's much cheaper and not a whole lot slower.

Hobbitfeet

Well I signed up so will see how it goes. Try said eircom slow down there speed at times and that sky won't. Will update when it's installed

bennyc

Hobbitfeet wrote: »

Well I signed up so will see how it goes. Try said eircom slow down there speed at times and that sky won't. Will update when it's installed

What speed do you get currently on speedtest.net and how far from Ballymote are you ?

Be interesting to see but my money is if your currently under 8MB which would be the usual eircom max then you wont see an improvement , however I would be delighted if you do get an increase.

Hobbitfeet

Getting around 2mb with meteor wifi dongle in ballymote town. This varies and its constantly disconnecting so we have to go upstairs and press connect button numerous times. We should be connected with sky next Tuesday

Basq

Been on it since the start of February.. got it in their trial for a tenner a month for phone and BB.

Am in town (up by Heatherview) and finding it very unreliable.. was promised speeds of 3.5MB - 4MB (my line supported up to 4MB) but while it was stable enough initially, am finding for the past month or so that it veers wildly between 0.2MB - 2.8MB (the higher end is rarer).

Am on my second Sky router and still the same.. tried my old router and even that's unreliable so it's definitely poor service and not equipment.

Not impressed.. am sticking with them purely because it's cheap but am not particularly happy!

Seamus1964

Now you've said it!

Very same here,been on it since the end of February (previously Vodafone)
Morning to lunchtime 17mb - lunchtime to evening 7mb-8mb - evening to night 1mb-1.5mb
Vodafone was at least 5mb stable speed 24/7

I seriously regret my decision to become Sky Broadband customer..

Basq

Seamus1964 wrote: »

Now you've said it!

Very same here,been on it since the end of February (previously Vodafone)
Morning to lunchtime 17mb - lunchtime to evening 7mb-8mb - evening to night 1mb-1.5mb
Vodafone was at least 5mb stable speed 24/7

I seriously regret my decision to become Sky Broadband customer..

Yep, sorry to hear you've similar experiences Seamus.

If I wasn't paying a tenner a month, I'd have scrapped it.. but will live with it at that price hoping it improves. It's a big saving over a year so once the 12 months is up and they want to increase my bill to €50 or thereabouts, I'll be telling them where to go.

tomwmurphy

Ive been with sky for just under a month and im going to cancel before my 30 day period is up - speeds during the day up to 9mb but after 7pm the best i get is 1.5mb - just not suitable for anything beyond email really.

Spoke to a helpful tech guy but he said there is nothing they could do. I was previously with UTV and never had any issues - constant 4-5mb any time - i was on an 8mb package - sky is supposed to be 12mb!

crustybread

I'm not in Sligo, living in Ratoath, Meath but have similar problems with Sky especially in relation to online gaming and downloading.

Moved to the broadband at end of January on the 10euro deal. At first it was great getting 10MB (told my line would support 12MB) but the past two weeks it's been terribly inconsistent.

I'm not sure if this is related but the problems started roughly around the time
I bought a lot of games from the xbox live sale and these were 6gb downloads. I've noticed since then the speeds I'm getting in the evening are terrible (between 1-2.5 mb download.)

I've read a lot on the forums about Sky in the UK throttling speeds if your a heavy user. I wouldn't consider myself a heavy user. I was on to them last Thursday when I first noticed it dropping speed, there customer service is very helpful and to be fair it came back up to 10Mb the following day. But again the past two days the speed is dropping again. I asked about throttling and the customer service denied that they would throttle customer speeds.

I will be calling again in the morning to try get it fixed again. I was with Eircom for the past five years and never had to call them once. I'd consistently get 5-6MB and the speed was fine.

As Basq said the fact it's so cheap is keeping me with them but it's been a pain to be honest and I'm starting to think about trying to cancel the service and move back to eircom.

I wouldn't recommend them unless you've low usage and get a good deal on the price. :mad:

Hobbitfeet

Well our broadband arrived yesterday morning. Plugged it in and checked speed was getting 10mb, great so of course started to download. That evening we went to stream a show and it was so slow checked speed again getting about 1mb. Checked speed this morning getting 10mb so downloading more will see what happens and if it slows down again. The person who signed me up said sky promise to never limit your speed like eircom does and that's what sold me, so if it keeps happening ill be able to cancel. Any idea why the speed would be dropping? Apart from sky doing it?

Basq

Hobbitfeet wrote: »

so if it keeps happening ill be able to cancel. Any idea why the speed would be dropping? Apart from sky doing it?

I was convinced it was the Sky Hub / router they supplied.. but I managed to get the encrypted Sky username / password from the router (relatively easy, but not straightforward job!) and plug the settings my old reliable Netopia router and even that was unstable.

They've definitely done something to my profile.. and they can blame the "environment" / phone line as much as they want, but something's definitely fishy with the whole thing.

Tech support was good but kept relaying me back to the status area of the Sky router where the downstream was always what my lines support, but rarely close to the speed I was getting via various SpeedTest sites.

I'll stick with them at a tenner a month hoping it'll improve, but they're gonna lose paying customers quickly if something isn't done.

Hobbitfeet

Just off the phone with them now. They said for the 1st 10 day they bombard the line with different speeds to try and determine the highest speed and once that's done we will have a consistent speed. Here's hoping they did assure me that they will never restrict my speed and if after 10 day we are having fluctuating speeds we can cancel no problem

Seamus1964

9:30pm - download speed 0.56mb :eek:
Ah come on! Is this really broadband ??? More like dial up..

Why is this happening to me..

magnumlady

We are with UTV broadband and can really recommend them.

johnire

Yes....I would have to agree. We were with them for years and found them to be excellent. We changed over to Sky about 2 months ago and have to say very happy with them. I just find it handier too just getting the one bill for TV phone and Internet.

magnumlady wrote: »

We are with UTV broadband and can really recommend them.

crustybread

Just a quick update. I have not had problems for the past week or so with the evening/nighttime throttling. Funnily enough the problems stopped when I gave them a rollicking and told them once the contract is up I would be moving to another provider if the service did not improve. Make of that what you will but I'm convinced they were throttling the broadband.

Seamus1964

Sky did let me go (they can't do anything about my evening slow bb speed problems)
No early termination fees, I do appreciate that move.

Sky has really friendly and mannered customer service staff...but that's not what I'm paying for..so time has come to move on.
Previously been with vodafone but as them customer service is crappiest crappy crap (bunch of front screen zombie robots)- my next stop will be eircom ultimate bb package.

Hopefully it will work out

but

will see..

johnire

Hi there.

I'm with Sky and have had no issues.
However if you are thinking of moving supplier I can certainly recommend UTV Connect. We were with them for years and found them excellent.

Seamus1964 wrote: »

Sky did let me go (they can't do anything about my evening slow bb speed problems)
No early termination fees, I do appreciate that move.

Sky has really friendly and mannered customer service staff...but that's not what I'm paying for..so time has come to move on.
Previously been with vodafone but as them customer service is crappiest crappy crap (bunch of front screen zombie robots)- my next stop will be eircom ultimate bb package.

Hopefully it will work out

but

will see..

Hobbitfeet

magnumlady wrote: »

We are with UTV broadband and can really recommend them.

How much are you paying with UTV, what is the speed like and is it unlimited download? Thanks

wesf

crustybread wrote: »

Just a quick update. I have not had problems for the past week or so with the evening/nighttime throttling. Funnily enough the problems stopped when I gave them a rollicking and told them once the contract is up I would be moving to another provider if the service did not improve. Make of that what you will but I'm convinced they were throttling the broadband.

i will be doing this tomorrow. fed up of this rubbish, less than 1mb in the evening.

maxedw

Seamus1964 wrote: »

Now you've said it!

Very same here,been on it since the end of February (previously Vodafone)
Morning to lunchtime 17mb - lunchtime to evening 7mb-8mb - evening to night 1mb-1.5mb
Vodafone was at least 5mb stable speed 24/7

I seriously regret my decision to become Sky Broadband customer..

Mine's exactly the same. It's basically useless when I need it i.e after 6.00 pm. Getting up on 12/14 MB during the day 9 mid-week.

Though Sky sent me a link to a trouble shooting guide which involves repeatedly rebooting the router, restarting the computer and changing your socks which results in a jump to around 3 MB download which lasts about 10 mins before it drops back to 1.5MB or so.

Just waiting for a youtube video to load now...Might do a Novena to pass the time.:mad:

fitzyo

We have it in Cobh since Feb 13 and up until recently everything has been fine and we were getting a fairly consistent 10mb download. However last week it started plummeting to under 1mb at about 5pm every day and weekends (peak times). The issue has been escalated so we are waiting to see what they do to resolve the issue. I'll keep you informed.

fitzyo

Somebody from their technical team just called to say that the reason for the speed plummeting is contention on the line and they have no plans to fix it any time soon. He basically said that they will give us the UAN and if we want to leave there will be no penalties for breaking contract. I'm amazed that Sky have entered the market with such a poor product as they will get a very bad reputation. Before we moved to sky we were with Home Vision and got over 8mb constantly without fail.

cluttrell

I'm currently just out of contract with Vodafone Home BB and am shopping around. Sky's Unlimited BB + Anytime phone for €47.50 is extremely tempting but I'm glad I read through this thread and now have major concerns. Vodafone was extremely reliable, they've been doing BB for a long a while having taken over BT before them.

If you're reading this and are a Sky BB customer I'd really appreciate a very quick reply quoting my post and just say "Recommended " or "Not Recommended - Stay clear ". Elaborate further if you would like!

I'm looking for an unlimited (or the max GB allowance available) package that's reliable at the best price I can get. A static IP would be a huge + as well, for various reasons.

So far I'm thinking it may be best to stick to what I know.
Vodafone have offered 49euro pm for 300GB, they won't budge on a €3.99 pm static IP charge. If anyone has a better contract I'd love to hear about it.

Cheers all

maxedw

fitzyo wrote: »

Somebody from their technical team just called to say that the reason for the speed plummeting is contention on the line and they have no plans to fix it any time soon. He basically said that they will give us the UAN and if we want to leave there will be no penalties for breaking contract. I'm amazed that Sky have entered the market with such a poor product as they will get a very bad reputation. Before we moved to sky we were with Home Vision and got over 8mb constantly without fail.

Thanks for letting us know. I asked for their ( Sky Ireland ) return address for the modem today .They said it should be on the modem box but if it isn't give them a call. I said it isn't on the box so for yous who want to stop paying for sh1te heres the return address:
Sky Ireland,
1 Burlington Plaza,
Burlington Road,

Dublin 4. Don't forget to cancel your DD directly with your bank. Don't ask them to cancel it for you cos they won't.

Eating humble pie and heading back to Eircom's no sharing-whatever speed I can get - broadband.

Bleating Lamb

Bit unrelated...but just wondering do Sky have a call out fee if your TV reception is on blink?....ours has been coming and going for last few weeks on the 2nd tv in house,is fine on main tv.

wesf

After lots of trouble shooting with sky I was told today that my crap speed is due to congestion, which I knew already, and there isn't a thing they can do about it. They gave me my UAN to move providers, didn't even have to ask for it!
It goes from 10-12mb during the day the .6-1mb at night. Yes I did say point 6!!

AngryGoldfish

I'm with Vodafone at the moment. We're still using the old lines, and it's highly congested at peak times. I've been dealing with this for four years now. Roughly 4MB during the day and throughout the night; 0.5-1MB in the evening. No matter what I did to correct this, it was never fixed. Someone told me that Sky was satellite broadband, using masts rather than the phone lines, so I was excited to hear about it. It appears, though, that congestion is still a serious problem. I'll probably just stick with Vodafone until UPC or Eircom upgrade our lines, something I imagine won't happen for another five years.

fitzyo

Sky use the normal phone lines just like the other providers. I think Nail Quinn's company uses Satellite so that might be worth looking into. Can't remember the name but you can Google it I'm sure... that is if you have enough speed

red sean

fitzyo wrote: »

Sky use the normal phone lines just like the other providers. I think Nail Quinn's company uses Satellite so that might be worth looking into. Can't remember the name but you can Google it I'm sure... that is if you have enough speed

Q-sat is Niall Quinns Co. They have download limits, so be careful.

wesf

just did a speedtest and got 3mb download, plugged in using an ethernet cable and got 11mb! changed the channel on the router and got 11mb wirelessly, hopefully that solved my problem!

crustybread

wesf wrote: »

just did a speedtest and got 3mb download, plugged in using an ethernet cable and got 11mb! changed the channel on the router and got 11mb wirelessly, hopefully that solved my problem!

That worked for me first time I had the problem. But it started acting up again the next day. It's a very poor offering. I think i'll be going back to eircom, although I only ever got 5-6 at least it was consistent. Sky is shocking... No one will touch them once there cheap offer runs out. Its a shame because a few different options would have been nice. :mad:

Hobbitfeet

Well we have it about 3 weeks now and find it good, yeah there is times with really crap speed but we get 10-11mbs during the day getting 6.5 now. €40 for unlimited download is great we download lots during the day.
The evening had worst speed but its fine for just browsing Internet. I'd recommend it

T-Bird

I get about 2.5 here in Grange, only problem I have is buffering in youtube. Not looked into it yet as I dont watch it much. We watch netflix quite a bit from an android mini tv mk808 and there are no buffering problems at all.

wesf

Just off the phone to sky for the 4th time. Basically told they don't provide uncongested broadband and the speed I get is it (1-2mb). Was given my UAN and will be changing provider asap.
Moral of the story, stay away from Sky broadband until they sort themselves out.

TequilaMockingBird

Mine is doing okay. Had it a few weeks now.



EDIT:

That was a couple of hours ago. This is now.



Day time:

EuskalHerria

Does location become a factor for broadband speed?
On WiMAX and looking to find an alternative. I Was wondering if being in the town would be the reason it can be congested in the evenings

Hobbitfeet

10.18 speed at the minute. I know there is some quite negative reviews here but I'm really happy with sky so far and would definitely recommend it. Getting rid of our sky tv so saving money too
Also seems like sky customer care are pretty good and are willing to cancel contract when speeds are bad, so it's worth a try in my opinion

steps_3314

Switched over to sky and started using the service 4 days ago. Getting between 0.32 and 0.81 all day ( morning/afternoon/evening).

Have rang Sky who have escalated. But after reading this forum it seems I will be moving provider. Is there a cooling off period in the contract?

Was previously with Vodafone and getting 4.5Mb 24/7.never had an issue in 4 years. Why would sky roll out such a poor service and risk losing their tv customers.

Very very disappointed as this has being a disruptive process. :mad::mad:

red sean

steps_3314 wrote: »

Switched over to sky and started using the service 4 days ago. Getting between 0.32 and 0.81 all day ( morning/afternoon/evening).

Have rang Sky who have escalated. But after reading this forum it seems I will be moving provider. Is there a cooling off period in the contract?

Was previously with Vodafone and getting 4.5Mb 24/7.never had an issue in 4 years. Why would sky roll out such a poor service and risk losing their tv customers.

Very very disappointed as this has being a disruptive process. :mad::mad:

What did Sky say? (I do'nt understand the bit in bold )

steps_3314

red sean wrote: »

What did Sky say? (I do'nt understand the bit in bold )

Sky have escalated to their technical team to check the settings. Sounds promising...not

johnire

Hi there.

I've read your post with great interest as I'm experiencing the exact same problem
For the last week it's been getting progressively worse until last night when it basically packed in altogether.
I rang them and like yourself it's been escalated.
They are obviously having major issues and if they're not sorted out then I' line leaving them.

I was with UTV Connect prior to this and rarely had any problems with them.

steps_3314 wrote: »

Sky have escalated to their technical team to check the settings. Sounds promising...not