Sky Connect Broadband - Are you being slowed down?

[steve16751]

SuperMoto
Hi you are right but there are agents which do help it is just a pity that the agents that cause all the friction are talked about more than the agents who have made an effort and really Helped

[C-Pk]

Are you ready for this???

* Broadband package: Sky Connect
* Normal Speed: 6.55
* Current throttled speed: 0.5mb (Yes you read that right. A speed test give me that during peak)
* Average usage per day: Hardly any during day as usually at work. Only small browsing and gaming
* What does this throttling affect? Browsing / Gaming (Almost impossible at times)

I would like to make it aware I am changing from Sky Connect as soon as possible due to this unbelievable state. I am being crippled and I don't even download!!!

[steve16751]

C-Pk
Hi is that a Bt speed test and yes I have seen as low as 1kbps

Test1 comprises of Best Effort Test: -provides background information.
Your DSL connection rate: 8128 kbps(DOWN-STREAM), 448 kbps(UP-STREAM)
IP profile for your line is - 7150 kbps
Actual IP throughput achieved during the test was - 1 kbps

It is happening to a lot of connect Customers there are various threads about the connect problem have a look at Sky User - Sky Connect Broadband - Are you being slowed down? which is a different thread also you can have a look to see if there is any LLU at your exchange just follow the instructions
SamKnows Broadband - Availability - Exchange Search

[andyconnect1]

As I write this in the early hours, I am only 4 days or less from O2 LLU @ £7.50 per month with £50 quidco cashback (its "tracked" already so 2 months approx) and the first 3 months free.

I will be surprised if SKy have the audacity to charge for the last three months to settle the contract as the connect service is a known dog due to BT's throttling between 5pm and midnight and Sky's own "traffic management" (useless attempt at spreading the internet load)

I too, cannot even watch most youtube or other site stuff and downloads...oh dear, it's always so inconsistent.

Partially in sky/bt defence(not defending their appalling customer service though)
I would say that even with Zen internet there were signs of BT's backbone fail at my exchange, particularly with a simple thing like emailing using thunderbird...

Anyway, I will be transferred in in 4 days or less.

I gave O2 the mac on Wednesday 7th Oct and I already have the O2 wireless (delivered friday) box II which looks quite interesting.

The worst thing about all this, is that I generally don't download more than about 40GB per month and all I wanted was to be able to watch something WHEN I wanted to....if it was a steady connection instead of an interrupted flow, even 100-150KB sec may have been enough....instead the terrible ups and downs made it a nightmare..... oh well.

[Smithy99]

The worst thing about all this, is that I generally don't download more than about 40GB per month and all I wanted was to be able to watch something WHEN I wanted to

What you have to understand is that using the Sky re-badged BT product has a cost to Sky as they have to buy the capacity from BT which is far from cheap.

If you consider that each 1gb of use costs them 75p then your 40GB per month is actually causing a loss for Sky, this deos not even take things like customer support etc into account. This is the problem with Connect, too may heavy users and not enough light users to compensate.

The only way to cure this is to manage the heavy users and limit their downloads or to charge on a price per GB basis them when they reach a certain limit which I guess would need to be 10-15gb.

Either that or just throw more capacity at it which will cost a lot and return nothing.

At the moment, Sky seem to be doing little to address this, I would imagine that because they have other services tied in to this deal (TV etc) they don't want to be seen to be using "a big stick" and would rather that the heavy users drifted off on their own accord, the problem here is that there are few places for them to go that would be any better or cheaper.

[andyconnect1]

It's not my problem if companies offer a service that they can't maintain and then, when the customer has an issue, they just generally play around and give generic responses which don't do anything to actually satisfy the customer or achieve a resolution.

Maybe if they actually made a statement (for once) about the connect service and said "look here, these are our costs, but we are soaking it up based on a "you win some, you lose some, policy)

It's just typical business practice, it seems, but I don't like it.

I started on pipex 512kb, 10GB in 2003 approx. (I think it was that long ago..)
that worked....... and I paid £25 per month inc.
Then I changed to Freedom2Surf, which was very nice.
However Tiscali puchased F2S(and pipex) and I had to get out quick because the contention was terrible and I was getting 20Kilobytes/sec at some points of day, but 540Kilobytes/sec during the off peak hours.

I moved to .....ZEN, for the extra cost and everything was fine.
However, for some reasons, the bil payer wanted to go to sky. I totally advised, look, I have no idea what the service will be like etc.
it was £17 per month for 40GB..end of story. Nothing said that we would have trouble using recreational websites and emails during what is effectively 40% of the 60%?? of the populace's leisure hours.
When complaining, they were totally avoiding the issue, so I don't care.
That's why I went, end of story really.

Too many companies have bad attitudes and just line themselves up for a beating, in my opinion. The F2S one was a real shame because the directors sold it to pipex who were then bought by Tiscali argh. . (Whilst still F2S owned, the email service REALLY was rubbish at the weekend......if it failed and backlogged, no one would do anything until monday, about 7am....., so that was very poor..but I was educated then, not to use any ISP's email services, anyway, so no big deal.. Anyway, once Tiscali bought it.........ouch, I think 20-30% of us went to companies like O2, BE, skyLLU, adsl24 etc, bulldog?, madasafish? etc

So, I don't expect any excuses for companies like that and sky, especially when sky has a massive presence around the world.

In fact, it seems to be clear that, as many adsl companies have been fighting over whose got the biggest this and that, the biggest UPTO lies etc, the adsl population has had to suffer, partially or massively, in the name of "progress" lol.

Harsh maybe, but why do customers always have to be wary? It would be great if things just worked.....it's only the internet after all..

[C-Pk]

The Speedtest I did was with BT's test and a few others. All give me similar results.

My Only real gripe is that I do not hit the bandwidth hard. Yet I am crippled as if I was regularly downling all day every day.

My PS3 I am sure does not take up huge bandwidth so I am left with unreliable internet connections and slow laggy games. Its depressing as I am tied in with Sky for like another 9 months.

[Smithy99]

Its depressing as I am tied in with Sky for like another 9 months.

Ask for your MAC code and state that the current service is unuseable, they will let you leave with 30 days notice as they have let many others.

I am certainly not defending Sky here, I understand what and why the Connect package has problems, this does not mean I agree with Sky's treatment of their customers.

[C-Pk]

I understand also. No Sky LLU, thats fine. But I am being throttled for barely any use. Surely its supposed to be the other way. Throttled for heavy use. I have now requested my MAC. Moving to anyone who will supply a proper service

[Smithy99]

In an ideal world, that is how it would happen. I can only think that Skys reluctance to make a stand is more due to the fact that they don't want people to consider moving their BB business away just in case this also makes them consider saving money and reducing their TV packages aswell.

By saying nothing, they do not have to make any decisions, by making a policy they would have to. Better for people to drift away as they want than to make or enforce a policy that will ensure people to make that choice.

Not ideal but that is what happens when you have all your eggs in one basket.