Anyone on here use Sky for broadband?

[Goodfella]

No-one will get 20 mb download speed unless you are next door to the telephone exchange, the further away you are the slower your download speed will be, i am approx a mile away and get speeds of 12/16 mb downloads depending on time of day.

 

[willyfantastic]

i had same problem with mine few years back in my uni flat. got great speeds but constant disconnects. i changed wireless channel and also did something with upnp (forget what, turn it off or on or something) and that seemed to work.

can do this in the sky router settings

 

[MORTY]

Sky broadband is utter crap IMO. So slow. Keep having to reset. Switched to O2 about 3 months ago. So much better.

 

[Fef]

If you need to find out what channels your neighbours wi-fis are using, there's a free programme called Inssider (nothing to do with Mr C.) which will show who's using what.
inSSIDer | MetaGeek

 

[Aldo]

I'm not too clued up on this interweb thingy, so forgive my stupidity.
I don't use an ethernet cable, I'm wireless. Does this make a difference? I'm using the standard Sagem router that sky provide in conjunction with my Fujitsu laptop.
I've done one of those broadband speed tests and it says my line offers up to 16 meg, yet i'm only getting 800k.
i'm confused

How old is your laptop?

 

[Triggaaar]

I've been happy with o2 but was considering moving to sky because of their deal for HD subscribers, where you can download movies from their catalogue

 

[beorhthelm]

No-one will get 20 mb download speed unless you are next door to the telephone exchange, the further away you are the slower your download speed will be, i am approx a mile away and get speeds of 12/16 mb downloads depending on time of day.

this. unless you're on fibre. dont cry about it too much, its the technology and old cable, though the ISP are responsible for over marketing what can be achived. most people will only get 5MB. most people will only need 2MB.

I've done one of those broadband speed tests and it says my line offers up to 16 meg, yet i'm only getting 800k.

this doesnt add up, are you using a site that says what speed you should get or an actual speed test site like this
?

800k is really low, its most likely due to interferance or shit cables. Its not the laptop, that might make using the internet/browser feel slow, but not affect the connection speed at all. check you have filters on all sockets and try plugging router into the first socket in the circuit (ie when it first comes inthe the house/flat) to see if that makes a differcence, with all telephones unplugged. if that improves, try plugging/unplugging the phones to see which one changes it. Wifi is poorer and more suseptible to interference, could be a dodgy antenna or dongle either router or laptop end. use Ethernet cable if you can to test (dont pay for anything fancy).

you might just be out of luck, with a poor cable coming to the property, and lucky to even get 800k - its still 10x better than dial up.

 

[matt]

The wireless dropping out with those Sagem routers is a known issue. Sky had a dodgy batch but kept sending them out. If you search the net (during one of the short online periods) you'll see a lot of chat about it.
I have Sky and haven't had any problems, but I was lucky as I received a different type of router.
DON'T (as one of the other posters mentioned) go to the trouble of finding out your Sky connection settings and then use a different router, because they will cut you off.
Short term, plug an ethernet cable in to connect, and then keep calling Sky. A friend of mine had the exact same problem, and eventually got it sorted. They will need to send you a new router though.

Good luck.

 

[Mr Smggles]

Mine is constantly disconecting. The light on the router will just disappear, then come back orange, before eventually going back to green. I've googled it and followed some of the suggestions on the forums but to no avail.

Anyone else on here had problems?

Thats exactly the same as I have here. Really frustrating!

 

[supaseagull]

I've had Sky Broadband for 2 years and I've decided to move back to Virgin because of the issues mentioned.

The connection is either too slow or it just drops. I play alot of FIFA online and it's so frustrating when you lose connection because of your ISP.

I'm meant to be on 20mbps, but I rarely achieve 2!

 

[Mileoakman]

No problem with Sky in darkest Mile Oak. I'm about 2 miles from the Portslade Exchange but get about 3.5 to 4.5 mb which is ample for me and is fine for Anytime + as well. I've had it for about 3 years and never had any problems, never dropped out once as far as I can remember. A couple of things worth noting, I brought one of those power surge protectors which you can also run your phone line through. Big mistake because it cut my broadband speed in half, so I just use it now to protect the PC etc. I also invested in one of those face plate thingys which disconnects the old redundant bell wire and that improved my speed by about 50%. Oh and I agree that the Sagem routers are a bit crap especially for the wireless side of things. My netbook only connects if I'm in the same room wirelessly! Overall though its fine for me.

 

[supaseagull]

No problem with Sky in darkest Mile Oak. I'm about 2 miles from the Portslade Exchange but get about 3.5 to 4.5 mb which is ample for me and is fine for Anytime + as well. I've had it for about 3 years and never had any problems, never dropped out once as far as I can remember. A couple of things worth noting, I brought one of those power surge protectors which you can also run your phone line through. Big mistake because it cut my broadband speed in half, so I just use it now to protect the PC etc. I also invested in one of those face plate thingys which disconnects the old redundant bell wire and that improved my speed by about 50%. Oh and I agree that the Sagem routers are a bit crap especially for the wireless side of things. My netbook only connects if I'm in the same room wirelessly! Overall though its fine for me.

Whereabouts are you? I'm slap bang on Chalky Road.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

this. unless you're on fibre. dont cry about it too much, its the technology and old cable, though the ISP are responsible for over marketing what can be achived. most people will only get 5MB. most people will only need 2MB.


this doesnt add up, are you using a site that says what speed you should get or an actual speed test site like this
?

800k is really low, its most likely due to interferance or shit cables. Its not the laptop, that might make using the internet/browser feel slow, but not affect the connection speed at all. check you have filters on all sockets and try plugging router into the first socket in the circuit (ie when it first comes inthe the house/flat) to see if that makes a differcence, with all telephones unplugged. if that improves, try plugging/unplugging the phones to see which one changes it. Wifi is poorer and more suseptible to interference, could be a dodgy antenna or dongle either router or laptop end. use Ethernet cable if you can to test (dont pay for anything fancy).

you might just be out of luck, with a poor cable coming to the property, and lucky to even get 800k - its still 10x better than dial up.

Is the correct answer most of the time. BN3 also has large chunks of old crap copper cable. I can only get 512k but it's sufficient to be able to work from home. I'm with Sky and get it for free. BT offered me up to 16Mb for £22 per month - I pointed out that their own tests proved the maximum I could get would be 1/2 meg so why would I pay for that sort of package ? Their answer - "our package is the best on the market". Same old BT !!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Mileoakman]

Whereabouts are you? I'm slap bang on Chalky Road.

Just up the road in Nursery Close so I'm a bit further away from the Exchange than you are!

 

[Billy the Fish]

I also invested in one of those face plate thingys which disconnects the old redundant bell wire and that improved my speed by about 50%.

I disconnected my bell wire inside the socket and pulled the extra pins from my telephone extension cable and got about 50% extra. I now get about 5.5mb from Sky which is about right for where I am. Never had any problem with disconnects but my speed did drop to >1mb for a couple of days about a month ago. Was ready to complain and it went back up again.