Advice Broadband

[Tilda]

Hi folks,

I'm moving house with the gf. Our new place doesn't get Virgin Media.

GF wants to have something that has Syfy, Fox and Comedy Central for her shows. I want decent internet.
Our options seem to be Sky or BT fibre.
BT doesn't have the shows but I've heard only good things about its fibre optics.

I know nothing about sky internet, is it any good, or is it crap? Does it go down lots?
Do I just use sky for everything, or do I split things so Sky tv and BT internet? Suggestions and other options I haven't considered?

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Sky internet is as good as your phoneline connection. I have had absolutely 0 issues with down time in 2 years.

 

[georgie]

Having had fibre I couldn't go back to bog standard dsl again and in the 2 years of having BT Infinity I've had one evening of dodgy routing to Germany but since then Sky now offer fibre too.
If Sky did Fibre two years ago, I would have stayed with Sky, no problems with my dsl from them. Since my Infinity has been fine for 2 years now, I'm sticking with BT.

That's probably no help what-so-ever.

 

[Raven]

Not had a problem at all with Sky in the 2 years I have been with them, line is pretty crap to the village and I am limited to about 3.5meg nothing Sky can do about that though. Moving back to BT in March though as they are fitting 70odd meg infinity.

 

[ileks]

Can't you get those channels on BT's tv package thing for an extra fee?

I would get the faster internet and just download all the shows personally

 

[BloodOmen]

http://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/broadband/faster-internet

 

[Tilda]

I dont think you can just add channels. Reading their website it sounds like you basically get to buy shows they've chosen, but you dont get the entire channel.

Is Sky's stuff basically telephone line ADSL then? or do they do it through their dish?

 

[georgie]

I dont think you can just add channels. Reading their website it sounds like you basically get to buy shows they've chosen, but you dont get the entire channel.

Is Sky's stuff basically telephone line ADSL then? or do they do it through their dish?

www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/fibre-optic

Fibre, same as infinity. Or plain DSL if you'd rather.

 

[Tilda]

So basically I should get sky, rather than trying to split it?

 

[Madmaxx]

I too would go with sky.

 

[BloodOmen]

So basically I should get sky, rather than trying to split it?

Sky is quite good I hear, my mate is with them and he has no issues with connectivity etc.

 

[Syri]

If Sky have an unbundled service in your area, it's pretty good. Unfortunately, if they're relying on BT's service and only that, it doesn't look so good. My parents were looking to switch and we looked into Sky, but we would only get up to 8mb speeds, and restricted download speeds at certain times, along with a download limit. If the unbundled service is available, there's no download limits or restrictions.
They've gone with plusnet in the end, which is a subsidiary of BT, but operates independently. They worked out to be a lot cheaper than Sky, though they weren't getting a TV service so that might be different if you're getting TV anyway, but plusnet do offer higher speeds and less restrictions just using the standard BT infrastructure.
If you want to see what's available at your exchange, SamKnows (http://www.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search) is a good site to look up your exchange and see what unbundled services are available.

 

[SheepCow]

As someone said above, Sky do fibre too (using the BT fibres etc). I'm on BT for internet and have Sky for TV - but that's because Sky have historically been arsey with raising prices etc so I want to be able to cancel by TV on a whim

 

[Raven]

I'm not sure sky fibre will be available straight away in my area. The line goes live at the end of March. After 5 years on around 3mb I cannot wait for 70ish

 

[Shagrat]

I've got the BT Vision thing and have nothing but good things to say about their TV package.

I got upgraded to their unlimited thing for free. you get all the replay TV channels (4play, iplayer etc) and also a list of boxsets etc you can watch for free (so at the moment there's walking dead season 1 and 2, the whole life series from the bbc etc) and also other random tv series. theres a film thing with Sony/Miramax/4movies and a couple of others who put random chunks of their back catalog up for free and there is a box office option to stream current films to your TV for a price (also HD option if you want it).

The only thing that's missing is BBC HD at the moment, but the next gen boxes are supposed to be adding that soon.

 

[Bahumat]

We don't have Fibre with Sky but we never have problems. This is of course in South Essex so they might be awesome there, but shit where you live.

 

[Athan]

I'm not sure sky fibre will be available straight away in my area. The line goes live at the end of March. After 5 years on around 3mb I cannot wait for 70ish

Don't assume you WILL have it by end of March. BT do experience delays on the whole and specific cabinets can give them trouble. OfComm slapped BT recently for continuously moving due dates on 'stuck' cabinets, which is why mine in Salisbury now has a due date of 31-Mar-14 (yes fourteen), which is the current end of entire rollout date for FTTC, when previously it had been "Spring 2012, Autumn 2012, no 21st Sep 2012 really, wait maybe 31-Dec-12, no make it 31-Mar-13".

Also don't plan on it being 70meg, you might still be some distance, line-wise, from the FTTC cabinet and thus only get even as low as 20meg.

 

[Raven]

I am less than 50 metres from the box. A mate had a word with the engineer the other day who was working on it, he said it was finished and he was just clearing up. I know I probably won't get 70 meg and it is always a case of "up to" but I should come reasonably close. My line to the old box which this one will replace was looked at a couple of years ago and was found to be in good working order, the connection to my house was also replaced (after I kicked up a massive fuss about it being shit) I am supposed to get "up to" (according to my line) 1.5 atm but get 3.