Hey guys. It appears my ISP is being totally useless recently and I'm paying far too much for the level of service Im recieving anyway, so I've been contemplating the move to Sky Broadband onto the 16MB MAX package (the tenner a month LLU one). I just have a few questions really. Anyone here have it and use it? What's it like? Any troubles with the service? Any issues with the LLU service it self? Any port throttling/similar stuff? Those are all the things I can think of right now but any help you can give me is most appreciated
I advise caution. I have heard many people purchasing but not getting anything out of Sky. I have even filled a form in on the sky website, but nothing has ever come of it.
There have been many issues with Sky broadband, but the issue is with ordering the product not so much with the product it's self. Integrating the broadband setup into the booking system caused a lot of problems, not all rectified I'm afraid. Once switched on the concensus is that it's a great product. I should be getting mine in a week or so, so I'll update on the progress, unfortunatly my exchange is not LLU yet so I'll just have the 8meg BB.
What I was thinking of doing was to get my MAC from the current ISP, and then cancel the service after having just paid for a month (assuming that they let me ride out the rest of the service I have paid for) and subbing to SKY so they have a month to get their asses into gear and get it running for me. Obviously though at the moment it's nearly Christmas and I'm wondering when they shutdown in terms of sending techs out to exchanges to perform the LLU switch over on the line (unless that's BT's job?)
Because of the limited support for LLU MAC keys by ISPs, LLU > IPStream migrations often require a cease and reprovide (instead of a normal migration) which costs ~£47.
How about the other way round then? Is IPStream to LLU simple enough with my MAC (if I can obtain it from my ISP)
it took sky 2 months from my activation date to get me connected, and that's using a MAC code from my previouse provider, and all through that time no broadband and no one had a clue when it would be fixed, ended up cancelling (which takes 4 or 5 days) and then reordinging then BT cancelled that due to an incompatible service on my line (aparently BT were conviced I didn;t have a phone socket dispite having broad band for over 2 years before that) then finally my order went through I think my case may be a little extreme but I'd advise caution as it's cost me a lot more in incoveniance in the past 2 months then it will have saved me in a year or more. On the plus side it's been working since monday no problems and the router syncs at 4mb which is a little better than I expected on the 8mb package as I'm miles away from the exchange
Not that extreme, even on my account a problem prevented the booking going through as normal, which led to a week delay in processing, I know of several others too. As I said there are still some minor issues in the booking system, most of which have been resloved but some still remain. These are leading to delays in getting an activation date. It is very frustraiting waiting on a connection you know will be decent, but can't get it because of the booking system is a POS.
I know a lot of my problems were down to BT rather than sky as they managed to cut my phone off for 3 days at the beginning of the whole process, and once things are started you locked in with it takes a week to cancell then upto 14 days to reactiveate (with what ever ISP you choose) . But yes just generally really frustrating and for me costly not having the internet (no working from home, no xbox live, no online shopping (I'd forgotten how horrible Tesco's on a sunday afternoon was!) paying for dial up or GPRS etc)
IPStream > LLU is a standard migration and you can expect a < 2 hrs minimal outage to your internet connection and phone line. A cease and reprovide usually takes ~5 working days to complete. There's no good reason why your ISP shouldn't issue you IPStream MAC key. You will be charged for cancelling any contracts that you may have (free connection, free hardware, etc)
Well 3 weeks after handing over my MAC to Sky they have activated my line and I have 8 meg BB from Sky. Slight problem, they didn't send me the router. No big problem you would think, but unlike other ISP's with Sky you can only use the supplied router as it has your password imbeded into the firmware and there is no way to retrieve it to be use on another router. So I am now awaiting the Sky router to get surfing
That's a bit.. extreme. I know you have to have a Sky box to receive Sky Digital, but a specific, hard-coded router to receive LLU broadband.. that's a bit monopolistic. I'll steer clear, methinks.
Thats not even the LLU broadband, I'm just getting ADSL Max as my exchange hasn't been upgraded yet. Sky offer their broadband at free, £5 and £10 with a free router, they are just looking after their investment after all. I'm just a bit pee'd off as I now have no broadband, if the router arrives soon, then no harm. I just hope that when up and running the router doesn't go faulty, as then I'd have to wait on a replacement and wouldn't be able to just use one of my own in the mean time.
Router arrived today and I'm back up and running as before. Speeds seem comparable with what I had before, so far so good. Just need to try it out for a couple of weeks before I can fuly comment on the service, which up until the point I recieved the router was not that great.
Cheers yoda. I'm still looking into it as it will save me loads. It's nice to have another users opinion
Small update, this applies to ADSL Max (Sky Connect) as I'm not on LLU, bit torrent is throttled. Changing ports seemed to relieve the problem slightly but only for a short period, using encryption in Azureus does work though I can't say I'm happy, as I did ask the broadband team specifically about this issue and was assured that there was no port throttling/blocking. PS, once you have the router there is a way to retreive the user name and password by opening the router config file. You can then use it with another router of choice.
Ah, that's good then. I might think about going for their all-in-one service once llu comes this way.
At this time of year, I guess you could expect postal delays. However, the ISP should still set realistic expectations Sounds like you were missold the product. Tried contacting their customer support about this? Do employee's got free BB?
