Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

I am currently on 200mb with VM and am looking to change to Sky for TV. 200mb is far too much for what I use the internet for but, bizarrely, it costs more to reduce it!

The minimum that Sky offer for BB costs £14 per month and these are the details:

Sky Broadband Essential
Your speeds (Mb/s)

6.9-13
estimated download

5.1 minimum guaranteed speed

0.7-1 upload speed

Would this be enough for surfing the internet, sending emails etc and watching YouTube?

They do offer a faster service for £18 per month:

Sky Broadband Superfast
Your speeds (Mb/s)


32-37
estimated download

27 minimum guaranteed speed

6.6-9.5 upload speed

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

Yes

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

You will need a BT line for Sky (don't you??) If you don't have that already is there still a line rental to them as well?

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

Incorrect. Sky will get Openreach to install the line. Rental is included in broadband contract cost.

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

I wouldn't go for the cheapest with only an upload of 0.7-1mbit!

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

The upload is enough for what Richards says he wishes to do.

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

Good luck with that, when my parents had that speed the internet was useless if more than 2-3 people wanted to browse. :D

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

Until June I was stuck with ADSL with download of 13Mb/s, and upload of 0.8.

It coped remarkably well with 2 teenage daughters home schooling, me working from home, and the other half on Facebook.
Then in the evenings lots of YouTube, TikTok and other streaming.

Only real issue for me working was the upload speed publishing up software changes to our the servers at work.

If your parents connection was useless if 3 people were merely browsing it would point to other issues possibly?

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

But he only needs it for himself for browsing, emails and you tube. Why pay for what you don't need?

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

If you're getting Sky TV I'd recommend a faster speed as On Demand is mostly downloaded to the set top box, rather than streamed. Even though you don't need to have downloaded the whole programme before you can start watching, it's not instaneous playback. However, I thought you'd just renewed your contract with VM?

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

Thanks for the advice everybody. I am in contract with VM, but am researching alternatives for when this expires or they try to force me onto the V360 software. I've been advised that this should count as a change significant enough to warrant my entitlement to cease the TV contract early.

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

Always keeping the legal teams busy, I hope its all free.

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

Completely free.

There's a package that Sky don't tend to publicise that much called 'Sky Essentials'. It has the ADSL BB, free landline and mobile calls and Sky+ for the free channels. It's £26 per month, guaranteed not to rise for 3 years, with an 18 month contract.

I think that's very reasonable indeed, however, from what I can gather it only has two tuners and a 500g hard drive.

I suppose I could source my own 1 or 2 TB box and have the card re-paired. How easy is it to replace the HDD with a bigger one and how much would a 2TB HDD cost?

I've been told that this minimum broadband can be slow at loading things and things like the iPlayer can buffer. Does anyone know if I can try out Sky Essentials & upgrade to Sky Q if it doesn't meet my needs whilst still in the minimum 18 month contract?

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

Two tuners is perfectly fine.

You can watch one thing while recording something else at the same time, or just record two things at the same time.

Loads of tuners is over rated IMO, you really dont need 6/8/10/whatever.

Replacing the HDD is possible, but will void the warrenty.

Re: Will Sky broadband be enough?
 

So basically they're palming off one of their old technology Sky+ boxes on to the unsuspecting by bundling it with an unlimited old technology internet connection and a call package. You'll no doubt find the box will have less channels than a standard freesat box. There is no Sky TV package included in the £26/month and to add insult to injury, you'll probably have the added frustration of the full Sky EPG with everything but the few freeview channels greyed out.

So if you jump ship and it turns out to be rubbish you can't say you haven't been warned!