Sky broadband

I was thinking of switching my broadband and since I have Sky I was thinking of using their broadband too. I guess there must be a number of Sky broadband users here, so I thought I'd ask if you recommend it? Can you always access the service OK? I'm currently using Carphone Warehouse/ Talk Talk and am mightily fed up of keep losing the connection.

I have Sky Broadband,the £10 up to 16mb option.My Dad was being fleeced by AOL for £26.99 for 1mb so I took the phone and broadband option to cut down the family bills! I have had it for over 9 months and have not been disconnected once and the speed has always been constant.I use the wifi for my netbook and spend a lot of time online now that I am unemployed and it's been faultless.I notice no drop in performance when my Dad is on the PC downstairs and all the uploading I do to Imagevenue and Rapidshare goes without a hitch.My line has been tested for up to 8mb speeds but I took the 16mb as our neighbour said the lines are due to be updated soon.I think it's £5 for up to 8mb and the up to 4mb is free if you have Sky and Sky Talk.These offers are always changing,so I would check out the latest options.

Dreamlander

I'm with sky aswell I was with aol but switched and sky has been really good and it was easy to set up unlike aol which was murder

Yeah Bill, i would agree with Dreamlander. The service and performance is top notch. I've had the 8mb (5 pounds sterling a month) for a little over a year now, and have not had one single problem to date. No dropped connections or no problems getting online. I too have experienced stable speeds and no drop in performance when multiple users are online. The wireless router that Sky provide is also top notch (imo), pushes out a strong signal to all regions of the premises (can even get 'very good' signal strength in the loft, which i think is good considering that the router is downstairs in the kitchen).

In the aim of making this as balanced as possible i must state that i was previously a subscriber to the Sky 4mb (free option) for a little over 4 months. I decided to upgrade to the 8mb option to try and take full advantage of the areas reported quick speeds (and also to increase my download allowance). No problem with the download allowance, but the network speed did not noticeably change (which was verified by an online line test). I understand that network speeds are often advertised as 'up to' (so it is not an absolute promise), and are also dependent on a number of factors (quality of BT line, distance from the hub, number of people also online on your road and a few other factors). So i fully understand that the line speeds were never guaranteed to increase. In essence, I am paying 5 pounds sterling for a bigger download allowance, which i do not mind so much, as the level of performance is excellent.

If i were to offer you any advice, then i would get your line tested to see what speeds you can realistically expect, as there is no point signing up for the 16mb option if your line can only facilitate 2mb (for example). The other factor to consider, would be your estimated download usage. Before signing up I was told by Sky that if you go over your monthly allowance, you will receive two written warnings. However, if you go over a third time, then the line may be cut off and the contract terminated. Whether or not this is just scare tactics to keep usage conservative, i do not know. This may be worth checking before u decide to join (if you do that is).

5/5 for me. No problems at all. Pleasure to use. Hope this has helped you in some way.

As to the quality of the router signal,I get 100% most of the time and I'm 2 floors away from the router! More impressive though is that my Brother-In-Law can get connected with his PSP and he is 3 houses away!

Dreamlander

Depends on how much you like a real email address rather than Googlemail
The connection and service is good but with Googlemail accounts, like Hotmail, Yahoo! and their ilk always have been the easy way to send spam. As such some services refuse to accept them.

This I'm guessing won't cause an immediate issue as the email address won't be a Googlemail one. However it seems to be getting increasingly popular for traces on MX records to be used and seeing as they'll trace to the Googlemail servers it is increasingly likely to be an issue in the future as places try to block spam by blacklisting those servers responsible for the majority of the problems

go for it bill, i have had sky broadband since feburary and haven't had one bit of bother, (touch wood). i have the unlimited download one and it costs me £10 because i took skytalk with it. i have never been dis-connected or cut off while online also. you also get 12 month free mcafee security with it and 10 sky e-mail addresses.
i hope this helps you bill.
cheesyboy.

I'm with Sky Broadband and have no complaints. Red's right, the email is a pain, just for the length of time it takes to log into the damned thing, but sign up for a free email account elsewhere and use an email client for desktop access and it's no bother at all. Connection's reliable and quick and the price is pretty good for the service offered. I can't speak for customer service as in the 12 months I've been signed up, I've never had to call them.

DDT43 Wrote:I use yahoo as the master email. Never used sky. Plus if you have to swap providers, it saves changing every email. Plus it guards against forgotten accounts.

...and will have exactly the same issues in the future if they don't clean up their act
Don't get me wrong I don't hate the free email services, I have several myself including Googlemail and Yahoo!. I would never use one as my main personal address though due to the previously stated issues.

Afraid gone are the days where ISPs included all you wanted. Now they are mainly www portals and nothing more as that is all the general public requests

DDT43 Wrote:it might be prudent to have important ones going to my sky

Which is Googlemail

If you want proof, and are using client software rather than the horror that is webmail, then just change the Sky server addresses for Googlemail's.

In fact on the rare occasion you have issues with Sky email quite often it is Sky routing that is the problem, just switch to Googlemail settings and more often than not it'll work