Broadband speed

[Lazydonkey]

If it's not an unbundled exchange you'll probably get faster speeds keeping everything with BT. BT throttle their competitors speeds in you hvae a BT line but another BB provider.

Gibberish. Sorry, who told you that?

BT Wholesale is separate from BT Retail, and BTW must act independently and impartially, required by OffCom (the whole reason for the split). If BTW were caught preferring BT Retail in any way, they'd get fined bazillions.

Correct. We are currently gathering evidence to prove this as we have multiple examples of customers who have seen huge speed increases when moving from Sky BB to BT. We've got large volumes of complaints from customers that we can't get anywhere near the speeds we should get to. My in-laws are one such example, my parents are another.

BT aren't allowed to do it, should be able to do it but appear to be managing it quite successfully.

[Shug]

If it's not an unbundled exchange you'll probably get faster speeds keeping everything with BT. BT throttle their competitors speeds in you hvae a BT line but another BB provider.

Gibberish. Sorry, who told you that?

BT Wholesale is separate from BT Retail, and BTW must act independently and impartially, required by OffCom (the whole reason for the split). If BTW were caught preferring BT Retail in any way, they'd get fined bazillions.

Correct. We are currently gathering evidence to prove this as we have multiple examples of customers who have seen huge speed increases when moving from Sky BB to BT. We've got large volumes of complaints from customers that we can't get anywhere near the speeds we should get to. My in-laws are one such example, my parents are another.

BT aren't allowed to do it, should be able to do it but appear to be managing it quite successfully.

And I am another such customer.

[graeme]

And what suggests that the slowness is down to the BT portion of the network? It's hardly news that Sky BB is sh*t.

Interesting though... keep us posted.

Also, why would BT specifically target Sky? Why are no other ISPs seeing the same thing? Unless it's size... maybe Sky haul more data than BT can cope with? They are probably the biggest BTW customer, are they not?

[renmure]

If it's not an unbundled exchange you'll probably get faster speeds keeping everything with BT. BT throttle their competitors speeds in you hvae a BT line but another BB provider.

Gibberish. Sorry, who told you that?

BT Wholesale is separate from BT Retail, and BTW must act independently and impartially, required by OffCom (the whole reason for the split). If BTW were caught preferring BT Retail in any way, they'd get fined bazillions.

Correct. We are currently gathering evidence to prove this as we have multiple examples of customers who have seen huge speed increases when moving from Sky BB to BT. We've got large volumes of complaints from customers that we can't get anywhere near the speeds we should get to. My in-laws are one such example, my parents are another.

BT aren't allowed to do it, should be able to do it but appear to be managing it quite successfully.

Totally as an aside, but I also live out in the middle of nowhere and have had AOL as a broadband provider on a BT line for yonks. Changed over to BT broadband in September and it has been a total and instant revelation. AOL was never great but we assumed that was just the price for living 4 miles from an exchange in the sticks, especially in the evenings when it was well neigh impossible to even watch a YouTube video. Now with BT we can do all the stuff everyone else probably takes for granted..iplayer, catchup tv, YouTube etc.

[Lazydonkey]

And what suggests that the slowness is down to the BT portion of the network? It's hardly news that Sky BB is sh*t.

Interesting though... keep us posted.

Also, why would BT specifically target Sky? Why are no other ISPs seeing the same thing? Unless it's size... maybe Sky haul more data than BT can cope with? They are probably the biggest BTW customer, are they not?

Using one of those sh*t "how fast" apps i can get 25mg wirelessly on my phone so Sky with all my other devices pinging and hogging bandwidth so Sky BB isn't all sh*t

Internally they've been quite honest when the network has been patchy but they've massively massively invested in capacity and they are confident that it isn't an issue with our kit in most situations.

EDIT : Our biggest competitor is BT. For TV, sports and BB. BT Sports was set up to stop their BB customers leaving to go to Sky.

[Sanjøy]

Fiber in the field? I'll have what Sanjoy's smoking! That'll be quite pricey.

This is the retired resourceful Tut who worked on community bband a few years back. I have no doubt he could beg borrow and steal permission to get dsl installed in a location with his pre req 8mb and then beg borrow and bribe the owners of the land all the way back to his house to hang some fibre from the barbed wire fences.

Ebay will be awash with old "slow" DWDM (or is DWM I get confused?) kit to light it.

Would be a great SE tech project.

[graeme]

And what suggests that the slowness is down to the BT portion of the network? It's hardly news that Sky BB is sh*t.

Interesting though... keep us posted.

Also, why would BT specifically target Sky? Why are no other ISPs seeing the same thing? Unless it's size... maybe Sky haul more data than BT can cope with? They are probably the biggest BTW customer, are they not?

Using one of those sh*t "how fast" apps i can get 25mg wirelessly on my phone so Sky with all my other devices pinging and hogging bandwidth so Sky BB isn't all sh*t

Internally they've been quite honest when the network has been patchy but they've massively massively invested in capacity and they are confident that it isn't an issue with our kit in most situations.

EDIT : Our biggest competitor is BT. For TV, sports and BB. BT Sports was set up to stop their BB customers leaving to go to Sky.

If you said, "We think there's a technical issue with Sky's connection to BTW and we're gathering evidence to support that so BTW are forced to fix it", I'd believe you 100%. Sounds entirely possible that the biggest ISPs find issues with BTW network first.

But, "BT throttle their competitors speeds", no chance. I'll eat my hat if Sky can prove that.

[Shug]

And what suggests that the slowness is down to the BT portion of the network? It's hardly news that Sky BB is sh*t.

Sky BB at my old place was excellent - no downtime, faster than Plusnet, then O2, from which we moved when the exchange was unbundled. Move here, with no unbundled exchange, suddenly it won't break 2MB for the same product, switch to BT on their competitor product (which is more expensive) and suddenly high 6MB range. Still guff by city centre standards, but okay for downtown nowhere.

I don't see Sky as the weak link in that chain of events...

[graeme]

The plural of anecdote isn't data. It could be a million things. There are sooo many variables in that scenario. Different exhange, different house, different distance to exchange, out in the sticks, old house, old wiring.... Maybe you bought a new microwave... who knows. Do you know you were provisioned on the same wholesale product at both addresses (you did say BT cost more...) EDIT: Just re-read, your not comparing two addresses, but two ISPs at the new place. Different set of variables, but same principle. Proves nothing.

It's hardly indicative of highly illegal national-scandal-level, billions of pounds of fines, dodgyness. People will go to jail if Donkey's correct. In fact, the ISP networking world is not a big one... we'd already know if they were doing this, because it would require a lot of key techy people to keep very quiet indeed, which doesn't happen.

Could there be a technical issue? Yes. Is it BT deliberately crippling Sky? Absolutely no way.

[campbell]

Buchan Community Web 2.0

Has a ring to it.

Get cracking, Tut.

A mast, some copper and a mini-digger is all you need. Surely

[douglasgdmw]

Tut,

Due to living out in the sticks I had to get Satellite Broadband - I went with Avonline who offer Tooway & Avanti. I also have Sky Broadband (at a rather slow 0.5Mb) but only use that if I want to download a Sky Movie overnight.

To be honest if you are streaming videos etc then get an idea of your current usage as with Satellite broadband everything is based upon Download amounts and if you go over that you will get throttled to modem limits. I am currently on a 30Gb/month but don't use it for Sky as it predominantly for when I work from home.

Had to use the Avonline customer services a number of times and not massively impressed as it just seems to be a handful of people - however I very much doubt that other companies have more support staff.

Maybe best having a look at the Satellite Broadband forums as to what people recommend from other providers and whether you are best going via Tooway/Avanti. Via the Avonline speed checker I am getting around 8Mb which is ok for work/surfing but definitely way off anything they discuss in their "Up to" advertising.

George

[tut]

Obviously different customers are getting different results from Sky and BT. I was with BT who were charging me £26 for BB with 25GB Data and 5mb download. Also it was dropping out far too often. As I have Sky anyway I put my phone line across and have two years free BB with unlimited Data, 8mb, and no drop outs or throttling, so my move was in the right direction. I have also found Sky's Customer Support to be excellent, managed to get another deal after my half price year was up, so have been quite happy with them.

Did not know what to accept when I moved home as I would have to keep my Contract, but it is £25 for them to come and install a dish, run two lots of twin cables for my box and Verian's Multi-room, and we take our own equipment with us.

tut