Sky Broadband -Opinions?

ABajaninCork

Am thinking of changing from Voda to Sky BB. I've been having serious problems with the connectivity and stability of the BB connection, am looking around for suitable options.

I'm attracted to Sky as I call home to the UK often, and Sky do offer the unlimted any time calls, and Voda do not (not with the Superfast option AFAIK.) Sky's service is also unlimited.

Does anyone have any opinions good, bad or indifferent they'd like to share?

TIA

Faith

We're with Sky. We were with them in the UK as they were the only provider in our area, so we just transferring the services to our new house in Ireland because we were still in contract. I've found them extremely pleasant to deal with, actually. Any phone conversations have been with very helpful and polite individuals who seemed to really care about getting things sorted. We have a phone line and broadband. It was activated way before they initially advised - phone was up and running on Monday, after being ordered on the Friday, and the broadband equipment arrived and was activated by the Wednesday. So far, we've had no problems with either service. I've not noticed any drops in connection, and we're online constantly. We get speeds of 12-13Mps, which is a lot lower than UPC but completely sufficient if you're not a gamer/heavy downloader.

It's costing us €30 a month for the first 6 months, and then it goes up to €40. The phone package you're interested in is another €7 per month, which is good value if you'd use it a lot.

mordeith

ABajaninCork wrote: »

Am thinking of changing from Voda to Sky BB. I've been having serious problems with the connectivity and stability of the BB connection, am looking around for suitable options.

TIA

Same here. Also with VF and the speed of the connecton lately has been brutual. Barely getting 1mb from a 4mb lilne (and that's on speedtest). YouTube is becoming unwatchable. Used to be fine before. Looking at SKY as well maybe when current contract runs out.

.red.

Im pretty sure that vodafone and sky are both running on eircoms lines so if one of the 3 of them is poor then it could be the exact same with the others.
Im with vodafone on a 3mb line and its shocking. They have told me its my own fault cos the lead going into my modem is longer than 1.5m.

hoodwinked

i am with eircom, my neighbour is with sky, she regrets it, as she is constantly having problems, same as my mum had with vodafone tbh,

also the fastest speed they gave her was 4mb where we are on 30mb for €10 more.

ABajaninCork

.red. wrote: »

Im pretty sure that vodafone and sky are both running on eircoms lines so if one of the 3 of them is poor then it could be the exact same with the others.
Im with vodafone on a 3mb line and its shocking. They have told me its my own fault cos the lead going into my modem is longer than 1.5m.

Eircom provide the Fibre Optic trunking, and look after the main lines. Voda and Sky are simply re-sellers of the same lines.

Meanwhile - it's been a while since I put up the thread, so it's worth putting this out there in case anyone else was interested. I was paying for 8MB, and some nights was barely even getting 1MB!! The BB kept dropping out as well. Complained to Voda both here and via 1907. No joy. Their teccies don't know what they're talking about. I was even told that my modem (300mbps no less) couldn't handle the line speed!!! This went on for about six weeks. Eventually, I got fed up and made a complaint about Voda to Comreg.

They've upgraded the line to 70MB (we get approx 50-60MB which we're happy with - for now!), and have given me credit for the past six weeks BB.

We'll see how we go with that...

mossie

.red. wrote: »

Im pretty sure that vodafone and sky are both running on eircoms lines so if one of the 3 of them is poor then it could be the exact same with the others.
Im with vodafone on a 3mb line and its shocking. They have told me its my own fault cos the lead going into my modem is longer than 1.5m.

I was getting 2mb with eircom, now getting 4 with Sky.

Ludo

Well don't even think of switching to sky do. They dont provide fibre service so you would be back to 3 megs. They have no plans to provide it either.

Sephiroth_dude

Anyone in ballincollig area have it?

Jimjay

Ludo wrote: »

Well don't even think of switching to sky do. They dont provide fibre service so you would be back to 3 megs. They have no plans to provide it either.

Sky do have plans for fibre, they just wont tell anyone yet

Ludo

Ok fair point. They are losing lots of potential customers I imagine though until they clarify their position.

joelanderseen

Sky is very good. Very fast internet connection with me.

MrFrisp

Has anyone got sky broadband with a deactivated phone line?

We have a phone line,but it was last active about 10 years ago. Wouldn't mind trying Sky,as what we have is going down the drain.
.

Jimjay

MrFrisp wrote: »

Has anyone got sky broadband with a deactivated phone line?

We have a phone line,but it was last active about 10 years ago. Wouldn't mind trying Sky,as what we have is going down the drain.
.

As long as they can find your address in the database you will be ok.

Why_oh_why

I had a non active line, phoned Sky with the old number and they were able to tell me straight away. With them now no problems.

MrFrisp wrote: »

Has anyone got sky broadband with a deactivated phone line?

We have a phone line,but it was last active about 10 years ago. Wouldn't mind trying Sky,as what we have is going down the drain.
.

scuby

managed to get the initial offer from Sky, where it costs €17.50 a month for 12 months - for BB and phone line. had 3mb with VF and now getting 13mb with sky, no problems since transferring.

mystickey

Anyone in Ballincollig using the SKY BB if so what speeds do you get on it???

gimmick

Has the vodafone/eirom fibre power been rolled out anywhere yet?

We are with Vodafone and they said in June it would be in my area (Shanakiel) "soon". Heard nothing since and my BB speeds are lucky if they hit 3.5mbps.

ABajaninCork

Should be imminent Gimmick. Fibre Power has been in my area (Ballyvolane) since May. Call Voda and ask them.

gimmick

Look at this map below - it seems to go around the area I am in which I am not sure is it a good thing.

http://www.nextgenerationnetwork.ie/ngn-access

I emailed them a while ago as I really couldnt be putting up with a call centre person.

evilivor

gimmick wrote: »

Look at this map below - it seems to go around the area I am in which I am not sure is it a good thing.

http://www.nextgenerationnetwork.ie/ngn-access

I emailed them a while ago as I really couldnt be putting up with a call centre person.

http://www.eircom.net/efibreinfo/map/

Enter your phone number in Can I get It and it'll tell you.

gimmick

Thanks. Cannot get it yet. Doesnt give an indication of when either though.

evilivor

gimmick wrote: »

Thanks. Cannot get it yet. Doesnt give an indication of when either though.

Yes- they seem to be remiss is that regard - it's ridiculous that the city centre hasn't gotten it yet.

Karl Stein

You've tried UPC Gimmick have you?

gimmick

Ya, those fúckers have said to me each year since 2007 that they will be in my area "next year".

gimmick

Had an eircom "rep" doing door to door at my place the other night. He said eircom fibre BB will be rolled out all over the City in the next 10 days.

SpaceTime

ABajaninCork wrote: »

Eircom provide the Fibre Optic trunking, and look after the main lines. Voda and Sky are simply re-sellers of the same lines.

Meanwhile - it's been a while since I put up the thread, so it's worth putting this out there in case anyone else was interested. I was paying for 8MB, and some nights was barely even getting 1MB!! The BB kept dropping out as well. Complained to Voda both here and via 1907. No joy. Their teccies don't know what they're talking about. I was even told that my modem (300mbps no less) couldn't handle the line speed!!! This went on for about six weeks. Eventually, I got fed up and made a complaint about Voda to Comreg.

They've upgraded the line to 70MB (we get approx 50-60MB which we're happy with - for now!), and have given me credit for the past six weeks BB.

We'll see how we go with that...

That's not quite correct.

Eircom own the lines to your house and the local exchanges (and fibre to cabinet if you're in an e-fibre area).

Other providers can use that local access network to reach your home.

Some providers use local loop unbundling (LLU) which means they collocate their own equipment in eircoms exchange building. Your line will be connected to that gear either for ADSL only or ADSL and voice service.

Other providers use eircom local exchange equipment but traffic is routed back to the other company's national network. This can happen at every major exchange or at various handover points depending on how much infrastructure the other company has.

A lot of companies use multiple wholesale providers to build their network.

Sky for example uses BT Ireland and in many local exchanges BT has their own ADSL2+ gear installed.

The products are not simply eircom broadband resold. Depending on how well setup the networks are, you may experience different levels of speed, ping times and congestion.

Fibre to cabinet (efibre) uses eircom local cabinets on the street. The data is handed over to other providers at key locations too. So that's also not just resold service. Only the local access element of it is in common.

However if your speeds are poor because it's very long or noisy line from the exchange to your house, changing network won't do anything on ADSL services.

Changing to fibre will drastically improve things if it's available.

Things like congestion (slow speed at peak times) and bad ping times on DSL can be down to choice of provider though. However there are some small exchanges with very limited connections to the outside world. In this case all providers will be hit by the same bottle neck. That's usually only the case in small (mostly rural) exchanges not on the NGN network yet

ABajaninCork

That is exactly what I said. I simplified my post for reasons of brevity, but did not got into as much detail as you. I know exactly how the system works having worked in telecoms for over twenty years!

Most people don't really want to know the ins and outs. All they want is a BB line that is fast as well as reliable for a reasonable cost.

SpaceTime

No you said that eircom owns the fibre trunks and everyone else was just a reseller.

That just isn't the case and it's a common misconception that distorts the market.
Some ISPs are really quite bad due to congested back haul so I think it's absolutely vital that customers understand what they're buying is not just eircom broadband relabelled.

Both Vodafone and Sky are sitting on BT Ireland's wholesale network.

Also if your speed was dropping at night that would indicate network congestion, not a line or access network issue. Quite possibly nothing to do with eircom infrastructure at all.

Most people want to know why their broadband isn't working and how they can avoid picking a dudd product. The advertised speeds are often hypothetical from many ISPs, especially on ADSL services.

It's worth reading honest reviews before signing anything.

Sephiroth_dude

gimmick wrote: »

Ya, those fúckers have said to me each year since 2007 that they will be in my area "next year".

We were told eircom need too update the exchange.

evilivor

gimmick wrote: »

Had an eircom "rep" doing door to door at my place the other night. He said eircom fibre BB will be rolled out all over the City in the next 10 days.

Cork city centre was meant to be going live this month now it's "Cork Central eFibre launching Jan - Mar '14".