Completely dissapointed with Sky

[diamount]

Hello (sorry for the long story, but I like to be through)

I moved from Virgin Media too Sky because they were overcharging me £40 for each monthly bill after contacting them and getting absoutely nowhere, I decided stuff them and go to the Sky for everything (TV, phone and broadband).

The TV service was installed first, then the phone service came after, with the broadband coming last, everything has been fine with the other two... the broadband? eh, not so much.

Anyway in the letter they sent me in regards to the estimation of the download we would get out of 20mb would be 4mb, just say I was happy and with unlimited downloads with no fair usage policy, that just sweetened the deal.

We got sent the wireless router and the other equipment needed to set it up, and we were ready for the activation date (wednesday 15th july 2009), once that day came we were suprised to see the line was activated earlier then usual (just 5 hours or so). Anyway the intial speed was pretty crap, perharps like 1mb (our final speed today) and I heard it had something to do with line testing going on which would last 10 days... anyway those days went and there was no absoutely no change and I was suprised to see that the line testing was complete and it was indeed 4mb which was the previous estimation.

After waiting, I decided to send them some emails, the chap who replied to me said the estimation was complete and he said my line could not support the advertised speed and was only stable at 1mb, at this point I was extremly angry as they did no attempt to contact me regarding this or show the TRUE speed on My Sky, of course I demanded the right to cancel without charge or get downgraded to a package which would have the speed that I currently have now (I still have not heard from them about that).

In other respects Sky have been fantastic and are a great value for money and entertainment, however my trust in them has been shaken and they have potentially lose themselves a long and loyal customer, before you get broadband with them... be sure to double-check first or you might make the same mistake I did.

Thank you for reading

[Smithy99]

The problem you have is that all ADSL packages with Sky are an UPTO speed. They can only estimate the speed but until the equipment is pysically connected they will not know exactly what speed can be achieved as this is based on the lenght of line.

Although Sky do offer other slower packages (base & mid) they do not offer the same unlimited downloads as Max.

That said, Sky have been known to get there sums wrong before, post your router stats from the current position and also from the Test socket (see sig for details) and we can get a better idea of the speeds you should be getting.

[Smithy99]

Just noticed your other thread with advice, did you check that no other phone points were working when you used the test socket?

[diamount]

Originally Posted by Smithy99

The problem you have is that all ADSL packages with Sky are an UPTO speed. They can only estimate the speed but until the equipment is pysically connected they will not know exactly what speed can be achieved as this is based on the lenght of line.

Although Sky do offer other slower packages (base & mid) they do not offer the same unlimited downloads as Max.

That said, Sky have been known to get there sums wrong before, post your router stats from the current position and also from the Test socket (see sig for details) and we can get a better idea of the speeds you should be getting.

But that's the problem, I cannot take advantage over the unlimited downloads since the max dl speed I get is 100 kb/s and the whole point of having unlimited downloads is downloading big files without the fear of getting capped, and I'm not going to wait for a minium of 1 hour for a file, no effing way.

All my test results are in my thread in the broadband technical help forum.

[diamount]

Originally Posted by Smithy99

Just noticed your other thread with advice, did you check that no other phone points were working when you used the test socket?

The only other socket I have is the NTL one and that was deactivated with my leaving of Virgin, and they insist the problem is my distance from the exchange (which is a minium of 2 miles) but my friend in another county is also 2 miles from his exchange and would get 45 out of 50mb.

[PaulSky]

Erm that's not on ADSL and therefor irrelevant. As you have already pointed out Cable is more expensive than ADSL and that is for a reason. Good luck with moving back to Cable, hope it works out for you.

[Isitme]

they insist the problem is my distance from the exchange (which is a minium of 2 miles) but my friend in another county is also 2 miles from his exchange and would get 45 out of 50mb.

Although you are 2 miles from the exchange in a straight line, it is probably much longer in line length. As an example I am 1.67K from my exchange straight line, but the actual length, measured by a BTO engineer, is 3.4K.

Speeds like 45-50Mb with ADSL are only possible on bonded lines, which are being trialled by some ISPs(BE). Even with that I doubt if this would be attainable on a 2 mile line, only those which are capable of 24Mb with a single line.

You line uncapped, should give 2Mb, if you want much more speed your only alternative is to return to Cable.

[diamount]

So is it possible with cancelling them without breaching the contract or being at least to downgrade to a package that is advertised as a similar speed to the one I'm at now since I cannot really take advantage over a max dl speed of 100 kb/s.

[Isitme]

I think if they estimated 4 Mb and you are only getting a quarter of that you should be able to downgrade to Base(free) or cancel.