Get SKYBB Soon Advise Required.

[smithphilip1]

Dear all,

I moving to sky bb on the 12th january 2012. I currently have BT broadband which I find very good. The only reason i'm switching is the make use of anytime+.

I have concerns that sky bb will offer a worst service, i.e. speed, ping times etc.

Below I have posted my currently router stats and a speedtest result from my current bt broadband service. Can anyone tell me if I will get same / worse or better service with sky bb.

speedtest with bt broadband

ping average for me is 25ms (lowest 19ms) and download LOWEST EVER even in peak was 19.63mbps
BT have my line set on interleaved. Have not bothered requesting fastpath.

router stats connection with bt broadband
System Up Time 6 days 16:45:22
Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN pppoa 6118760 13627875 0 1138 3233 5 days 11:40:58
LAN1 1000M 8348363 4524132 0 4426 7 6 days 16:45:12
LAN2 Link Down --
LAN3 Link Down --
LAN4 Link Down --
WLAN b/g/n 300M 4212086 1585245 0 2196 438 6 days 16:44:58
WLAN a/n 300M 2980302 1184438 0 6909 262 6 days 16:44:58

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 22989 kbps 1279 kbps
Line Attenuation 8.0 db 6.4 db
Noise Margin 3.1 db 6.5 db


My postcode is NR27 9DS and exchange is CROMER (EACRO)

I look forward to your responses and hope I have not made a big mistake signing up for sky bb.

[User05]

19-20mbps downstream and 1-1.1mbps upstream.
Ping times will typically be in 20s-mid30s.

[smithphilip1]

19-20mbps downstream and 1-1.1mbps upstream.
Ping times will typically be in 20s-mid30s.

Thank you for your reply. How have you worked out these figures? Would going on sky bb gamer profile make any difference for me?

So my service should be same(ish) to bt broadband your saying?

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

As above but as you've got a low SNR you might possibly get a bit less. Doubt it though

[User05]

Thank you for your reply. How have you worked out these figures? Would going on sky bb gamer profile make any difference for me?

So my service should be same(ish) to bt broadband your saying?

Sky's target SNR is 7dB, so just a guess at the probable speed based on your current rates / SNRs.

Sky's DLM usually puts most customers on 8ms delays ('gamer profile') anyway, so you probably won't even need to call Sky to request this.

[smithphilip1]

If I get a SNR slight higher than I have now sky might just be faster then?

[User05]

Lowest SNR Sky will apply is 7dB, so you'll lose some speed than what you have now. Sky's theoretical highest downstream is 20000/20480kbps.

It's really just a guessing game as to how much of a difference the higher target SNR, and thus 4dB difference, will make to your speeds. I would assume you'd have no problems reaching 20mbps downstream and around 1-1.1mbps upstream with your stats at the moment, but it's all really educated guess work.

[smithphilip1]

Lowest SNR Sky will apply is 7dB, so you'll lose some speed than what you have now. Sky's theoretical highest downstream is 20000/20480kbps.

It's really just a guessing game as to how much of a difference the higher target SNR, and thus 4dB difference, will make to your speeds. I would assume you'd have no problems reaching 20mbps downstream and around 1-1.1mbps upstream with your stats at the moment, but it's all really educated guess work.

Spot on. I get around those speeds at the moment. Just spoke to sky support. Good news SNR can go lower than 7 SNR even as low as 0 but no one gets this normally.

[IWasNotTheEnemy]

Uh, no it can't go lower than 7dB as that's the lowest the config tool allows. The line might go lower during noisy periods (e.g. early evening) but it can't be manually set lower

[smithphilip1]

Off topic slightly. I'm using an iMac with OS X Lion 10.7.2

I changed my MTU to 1430 in system pref's and also in my Netgear N600 router.

I also ran this command in terminal
sudo sysctl -w net.inet.tcp.delayed_ack=0

I now get pings of 19/20ms and downloads speeds of 20mbps and above every time via speedtest.net

So just changing few settings can have big effects. I'm amazed to get over 20mbps! Highest so far 22.58mbps and upload of 1.10mbps

These results are from my BT broadband. 6 days until SKY goes active. Fingers crossed.