Sky Unlimited and Sky Talk

Wils110

jasonb wrote: »

From what I've read, Sky are doing what they say. They are notifying your current provider and getting your service cut over.

However, they're not waiting 30 days after they notify your current provider before they turn your service on (and start charging you). So basically your current provider is notified by Sky, and counts down 30 days from then and charges you for it. But Sky also start charging you from they moment they get their service up and running. Which means there'll definitly be some overlap when you're charged for both.

I plan to notify Eircom first, giving them their 30 days, and then wait a week or so and then contact Sky. That should reduce the overlap as much as possible. Of course, I run the risk that if Sky don't get my service up and running before the 30 days are up, then I'll have no phone or internet until they do..
J.

There can be an issue with that we have had it were customers give their provider notice and we can't sign them up cause when we do the check on the line it says theirs an order on the line an you could be without a service then when we try your uan again it won't match the line in some cases this would be an issue if you live in a rural area finding your address

Tayla

Basq wrote: »

Going through the same rigmarole..

.. have been averaging out 0.3MB at it's lowest and 3.6MB at his highest (not been getting much of that lately).

Despite these inconsistencies in speeds, my speed on the Sky Hub stays consistent (3572 downstream).

Expecting another call back tomorrow on the matter.

On the plus side, the girl I was dealing with couldn't have nicer and more sympathetic.

After the initial 10 days my speeds were averaging between 0.6mb and 1.6mb, It did go up to 3.6mb once but that was it, the vast majority of the time it was less than 1mb.... my boyfriend rang up a few times and the last time he rang he got a really unhelpful, rude woman on the phone who said..."well we told you it would be up to 7mb, not that you would actually get that" and also that "what you are getting should be enough" which it wasn't obviously or we wouldn't have rang kept ringing up.

I then made a complaint on their website that the product had been missold and I would cancel my tv package and the next day a lovely guy rang back and said they were going to try to higher the profile in the area (or something like that)...that was a Friday so he said it might not be done until after the weekend and on the Monday my internet went off for a couple of hours and it has been at roughly 5.6mb since then and I have had no trouble with it since.

Nody

muffler wrote: »

Hope Im reading that right but I have had a couple of calls from private numbers since moving. I dont belive that Sky or any provider can display a number if the caller chooses the number to remain private

Every phone provider can show the number; the request to not show it is simply that, a request, but the phone company knows exactly what number is calling you (I've taught that lesson to a few prank callers who thought it would be fun to call and troll one of our helpdesks; they were not overly happy with the 10 faxes calling them back on staggered 5 min redial).

themacdaddy

jasonb wrote: »

That's interesting, anyone else heard this? I'm thinking of going with Sky but I'd hold off for a month if I can get this offer...

My girlfriend rang them yesterday and the sales rep said there will be no discount, and they were told that there won't be any discounts on the new launch. Hard to know what to believe.

Looking for advice from people.
My girlfriend bought a new house in Rathangan (Co. Kildare) and her phone line is not activated.
She rang Sky about the broadband and they told her she needed to get Eircom to activate the line.
She rang Eircom and they said it would cost her €120 as she was going to move to Sky Broadband. (I presume they would do it for free it you were going to stay with them).She then asked the Eircom agent if they would match Skys offer of €40 per month unlimited and they said they would not.
Stuck between a rock and a hard place as UPC don't offer broadband where she lives sadly. I don't mind paying the extra bit for Sky but if the service is unreliable I would just settle for Eircom.

Any suggestions on what I should do?

platinums

Digiweb sorted my line out (its an Eircom line) and they price very competively. Ive had no major probs with them the last year, I was thinking of switching to Sky last month but from what Ive read the service is teething for now.

jasonb

Great, I finally decide to take the plunge and now all I'm reading about are problems!

Wils110 wrote: »

There can be an issue with that we have had it were customers give their provider notice and we can't sign them up cause when we do the check on the line it says theirs an order on the line an you could be without a service then when we try your uan again it won't match the line in some cases this would be an issue if you live in a rural area finding your address

I know exactly what you're saying, but I also refuse to pay two companies for a period of time when only one of them are giving me a service. When talking to Eircom, they have assured me that the line will not be cancelled until the 30th day, which will be around the 7th or 8th of April. I'll be ringing Sky next week to kick off the order, so I'll see how I get on. Hopefully I'll have Sky up and running before the 7th of April, but not a couple of weeks before (if that makes sense).

themacdaddy wrote: »

My girlfriend rang them yesterday and the sales rep said there will be no discount, and they were told that there won't be any discounts on the new launch. Hard to know what to believe.

Yeah, it is. In the end I decided not to wait for an offer that might not appear, and just go with it for a guaranteed saving now...

J.

uck51js9zml2yt

i just had the pleasure of filling in a survey online for sky from irishopinions.com

greendom

They're probably banking on making a bit of money out of people who are sick of their current service provider at the moment. It probably suits them to keep prices relatively high while they ramp up their service. I imagine in a year or so they'll start introducing discounts or make their offering significantly cheaper. More hoping tbh as I managed to get on to their trial where I'm only paying 17.50 a month.

brinks_18476

Guys, can you confirm if Sky "hub" facilitates wired ethernet connection as well as wireless?
Did search forum but could not see answer. UK reviews do show ethernet connections - guess it is same with Irish version?
I'm set up for wired and would prefer that, Thanks

BArra

yes it has ethernet

brinks_18476

So whats the expert concensus on line speeds? Do they increase, decrease or stay the same as eircom? A bit of each?

Getting 2mb with Eircom. Sky suggesting 3.9mb available...

AidenL

AidenL wrote: »

Yep, on Friday last.

I know they say wait 10 days to settle, but other boards say its a red herring? If you look in MySky, there's a section where you can see if your line is being tested - I assume that covers line training too? Perhaps not.

I'm just worried that what started pretty well last Friday at 8ish downwards has deteriorated by the day so far? Its odd.

Ok, my faith is restored - speed is vastly improved today, seeing pings of 44 and downloads of 8megs, so I'm happy with that, my previous Vodafone highs were just under 6 megs down.

Sorry for doubting you Sky

Wils110

jasonb wrote: »

Great, I finally decide to take the plunge and now all I'm reading about are problems!



I know exactly what you're saying, but I also refuse to pay two companies for a period of time when only one of them are giving me a service. When talking to Eircom, they have assured me that the line will not be cancelled until the 30th day, which will be around the 7th or 8th of April. I'll be ringing Sky next week to kick off the order, so I'll see how I get on. Hopefully I'll have Sky up and running before the 7th of April, but not a couple of weeks before (if that makes sense).



Yeah, it is. In the end I decided not to wait for an offer that might not appear, and just go with it for a guaranteed saving now...

J.

You will have to ring sky over 2 weeks before u plan to be active to ensure no loss of service that's the time frame we've to allow 7 days cooling off where we can't approach eircom to do anything to the line then your hub is dispatched that takes a few days then a few days for bb activation and roughly 3 days later your talk switches over

jasonb

Cool, thanks for that!

J.

Padraig Mor

BArra wrote: »

yes it has ethernet

Only 100Mb though for some reason. 4 ports.

Padraig Mor

A question for those who know more about this than I do! I recently switched to Sky (supposed to be max speed your line can take) from Vodafone. I'm getting circa 6 Mb download speed, a huge improvement over Vodafone's speed! I just got a standalone TP Link modem (trying to ditch the Sky router and get a decent one instead) and it's giving me the following line stats:


SNR Margin 23.5 db
Line Attenuation 9.0 db
Data Rate 7168kbps
Max Rate 12512 kbps
POWER 11.5 dbm
CRC 0

So I'm getting 6M from a 7M connection, which is probably as good as it gets. However, obviously it looks like my line can handle c. 12M and, reading around, the SNR and attenuation figures look respectable. Is there any technical reason why I'm being synced at a lower speed than I could get, or is it high jinks at the exchange - perhaps Eircom limitations? I have no idea how far I am from the exchange BTW.

Harry Deerpark

Padraig Mor wrote: »

A question for those who know more about this than I do! I recently switched to Sky (supposed to be max speed your line can take) from Vodafone. I'm getting circa 6 Mb download speed, a huge improvement over Vodafone's speed! I just got a standalone TP Link modem (trying to ditch the Sky router and get a decent one instead) and it's giving me the following line stats:


SNR Margin 23.5 db
Line Attenuation 9.0 db
Data Rate 7168kbps
Max Rate 12512 kbps
POWER 11.5 dbm
CRC 0

So I'm getting 6M from a 7M connection, which is probably as good as it gets. However, obviously it looks like my line can handle c. 12M and, reading around, the SNR and attenuation figures look respectable. Is there any technical reason why I'm being synced at a lower speed than I could get, or is it high jinks at the exchange - perhaps Eircom limitations? I have no idea how far I am from the exchange BTW.

Mine is similar. I'm on 12 Mb and they said I could get 18 Mb, but there's something wrong with the equipment at the exchange or my line that prevents it from going over 12 Mb. I think he said that eircom tried and it would handle anymore so they left a note on the profile.

I don't enough tech savvy to understand, but he said there was nothing they could do until the equipment was upgraded - which, I presume, is fiber.

There might be other factors like a low noise margin that loses speed as it passes down through the line.

You best option is to ring them and ask can your line handle more speed, I tried to get this done over on their forum but it took weeks until I rang them yesterday and got the disappointing news.

basillarkin

i am 3 miles from the exchange, how will this effect my connection?

Padraig Mor

Harry Deerpark wrote: »

Mine is similar. I'm on 12 Mb and they said I could get 18 Mb, but there's something wrong with the equipment at the exchange or my line that prevents it from going over 12 Mb. I think he said that eircom tried and it would handle anymore so they left a note on the profile.

I don't enough tech savvy to understand, but he said there was nothing they could do until the equipment was upgraded - which, I presume, is fiber.

There might be other factors like a low noise margin that loses speed as it passes down through the line.

You best option is to ring them and ask can your line handle more speed, I tried to get this done over on their forum but it took weeks until I rang them yesterday and got the disappointing news.

That's the thing. I have no background in this area, but looking at various forums it seems my attenuation and SNR figures are good so I'm not sure why I'm on a lower sync speed. Must be a setting on the a/c as Sky only ever said I'd get up to 8 Mb. I wonder is it a 'sales' thing though. I was previously on a 'up to 8Mb' with Vodafone - I wonder was my line "soft" limited by Vodafone / Eircom so as to get more cash with a 'new, higher speed' product that my line was always capable of?!

ppshay

is it true that they are selling this at two prices, €40 for those on exchanges with Sky equipment and €50 for those on exchanges without Sky equipment?

Tij da feen

Just got a bill from Gaelic Telecom and they overcharged me €24 for Excess download. Completely forgot that I had a download limit of 60GB on my line. Switching over now and I'll let them send me out an amended bill since they trying to charge me for 2 months of broadband and Phone line rental into the future.

On top of that when I rang customer service yesterday they wouldn't give me a UAN and the fella on the other end was being an absolute p***k to me.

naughto

is the UAN not on your bill??

brinks_18476

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Only 100Mb though for some reason. 4 ports.

Thanks Padraig. What does that mean in layman terms (ie Internet speed for dummies). Are you saying the Ethernet connection will be slower than wireless connection? Thanks

Tij da feen

naughto wrote: »

is the UAN not on your bill??

Didn't have a bill to hand, I do now since I got one this morning. The UAN is listed on the final page of the bill and I usually only keep the front page. Irregardless there was no reason not to give me the UAN and I was told I'd get a call back today and the call was trying to get me not to leave essentially.

BrianHal

brinks_18476 wrote: »

Thanks Padraig. What does that mean in layman terms (ie Internet speed for dummies). Are you saying the Ethernet connection will be slower than wireless connection? Thanks

Ethernet line speeds generally come in 100Mb, 1Gb, 10Gb and so forth. The 100Mb and 1Gb are the industry norm. 10Gb is massively expensive and are really only used in corporate datacentres etc.

Now your internet connection at home is, lets say, 10Mb so your wired connected is more than capable of handling the internet connection. The wireless connection can vary in speed when you're different distances to the wireless transmitter and have concrete walls etc in between your device and the transmitter, but once its not slower than your internet connection (and probably wont be), then its not going to be a problem.

In this country, your internet connection is the slow part in the link to the internet. A reason for wanting faster than 100Mb connectivity at home (in Ireland) is if you are streaming large quantities of data around your home network, e.g. streaming HD movies from a NAS server to multiple TVs in different rooms. If you're not into moving large quantities of data around your house/network, then don't worry too much about the line speeds.

Squeaky the Squirrel

BrianHal wrote: »

Ethernet line speeds generally come in 100Mb, 1Gb, 10Gb and so forth. The 100Mb and 1Gb are the industry norm. 10Gb is massively expensive and are really only used in corporate datacentres etc.

And, ahem, one room libraries.

BrianHal

Squeaky the Squirrel wrote: »

And, ahem, one room libraries.

Would we have some officials in Ireland similar to the ones in West Virginia? I'd take a Cisco router if they were being handed out

ppshay

Anyone being charged €50, rather than the advertised €40, because you are not on a "Sky exchange"?

Cabaal

ppshay wrote: »

Anyone being charged €50, rather than the advertised €40, because you are not on a "Sky exchange"?

I'm on a eircom bit-stream exchange only and I have evening and weekend calls and unlimited for 40e

ppshay

Cabaal wrote: »

I'm on a eircom bit-stream exchange only and I have evening and weekend calls and unlimited for 40e

Thanks. I have it ordered, but at €50.

Edit: Anyone else paying this amount?