Sky BB testimonial and info
 

This post is compile from a mixture of personal experience and information sourced from Sky User support forum (not and official sky support forum)

Personal Background

My direct family have been cable customers for many years through the incarnations of NYNEX, cable and wireless, NTLand now virgin media. The last internet package we had with them was the 4mb (which has started off as the 512Kb if I recall correctly).

The change came around since a decision to renovate my step-father's house and move into that. He was using zen internet at the time (512KB @£24/month) and is not in a cable area.

Choosing ADSL ISP
Although zen are highly reliable, have excellent support, their packages are relatively expensive and have enforced caps. Also have yet to have unbundled my exchange or support ADSL2+.

Investigating the sky website showed I could get 16mb BB and a basic TV package for a price comparable to what zen had still been charging for 512KB (as you can imagine I'm a bit ****ed they didn't offer an upgrade or at least lower the price).

Being relatively close to the exchange and having some technical knowledge and support forum help;) I decided go try sky.

The router/modem

Sky provide you with a free wireless Netgear DG834GT. They do NOT provide you with your PPoA login name or password. This is hard coded into their modem they send you. Their terms and conditions state you must use their modem/router.

The router has custom sky firmware installed which hides your PPoA details but allows configuration to the wireless network, DHCP, UPnP etc.

The router is set to sync at a minimum noise margin of about 7db. The connection tends to be lost or drop out at 6db. The minimum can be altered (see hacking the router).

The UPnP feature has been reported to cause problems with different aspects of the router when active. Although I have no evidence for this I disabled it anyway.

Testing the wireless connection transferring a large file from a wired tower to a wirelessly connected laptop within a few metres of the router resulting in about 50% of the 54Mbps connection being utilised (I have no idea if this is good could someone please post).

"Hacking the router"
By means of special utilities provided by users at Sky User support forum you can extract your PPPoA details and use another modem on your sky connection. This however is a violation of the T&C.

The routers connection stats can also be extracted and the target noise margin can be altered Mognut’s Utility
Accessing and interpreting stats

Initial problems - ADSL2+ and noise sensitivity
The router would sync between 11Mbps and 14Mbps despite having good enough attenuation for the full 16Mps
The connection was fine for a few weeks but would sometimes drop to terribly low speeds. Upon inspection the noise margin was dropping at night and the connection was getting significant error spikes.

At the advice of Matt D I installed a XTE-2005 face plate on my master socket and disconnected the ring wire on my extension.

The setup looks as follows

(ROUTER) == unfiltered extension == (XTE-2005 master socket) ----filtered extension --- (phone)

The difference was significant, it now syncs at the full 16Mbps with a noise margin from 8 to 10. The line remains virtually error free during the day. There remain significant error spikes at night suggesting interference from an electrical device however I currently believe it must be something outside of my control.

Pings and latency
Its my understanding that ADSL can operate in "fast track" mode or interleave. Fast track providing lower pings and interleave providing greater stability.

Based on sources from the skyuser forum it seems sky's policy is to use interleave and will NOT change you if you request it.

I happen to be on fast track for whatever reason and get pings ranging from 39ms to 55ms. (Compared to 15-25ms on zen) Using traceroutes suggests most of the latency is on 1st hop after the router.

People report pings on interleave mode to be 70+. Some report that they managed to get sky to lower it, other report that sky find it acceptable and won't fix it.

Sky's DNS server
Sky's DNS servers are quite laggy and sometimes report false negatives. I've switched to Open DNS which is a large improvement.

Email reliability
Sky offer multiple pop3 email address. I set mine up no problem manually (i refuse to use BB installers whenever possible).

The outgoing SMTP has dropped out a few times, had no problems with the incoming as far as I know.

My conclusions
The connection is now in a state where I'm happy with it. Considering the alterations and the fact I am close to the exchange, I can only imagine the problems people further from the exchange are having who lack the knowledge or contacts.

I believe ADSL2+ is quite a flawed 'product' to present to the consumer given current network limitations in comparison to cable. And they should probably install filtered faceplates on extended lines as standard since the difference can be so significant.

As for SKY BB. If you are a avid gamer you may want to stay clear as you good end up with bad pings and an uncooperative sky support.
These days with such high bandwidths I think the DNS lookups and latencies are going to be causing more overhead when viewing simple websites.

Sky's insistence on using there own router may offer a few problems for some people, some have reported getting better stability going against the rules and using their own router.

For the price the bandwidth is extremely tempting but you could find yourself working hard to get the most out it.

Re: Sky BB testimonial and info
 

I've been with Sky Broadband (the "Max" service, up to 16mbps) since early Feb.

Had Firefly ADSL (fixed 2mbps) for the preceding 12 months, & before that had ntl cable broadband for around 5 years (moved to a non-cable area Jan. 2006).


On switching to Sky, I initially only got around 4-5 mbps IIRC.

This was, however, due to factors unrelated to Sky which would've affected my connection regardless, had I been with any other ADSL ISP offering more than 2mbps via LLU or ADSLMax: Attenuation & Noise Margin.

Couldn't do anything about attenuation, obviously, but at the suggestion of Chrysalis I was able to improve the noise margin by removing the ring wire.

More here: Sky BB speed issues - improving a poor noise margin

This saw my speed jump to around 8mbps. I've since made further improvements (to stability & error levels, more so than speed) by fitting an ADSL Nation XTE-2005 filtered faceplate, & also rewiring the extension sockets.

I was initially connected using Sky's version of G.DMT, on Interleave mode, with a download speed cap of 8096kbps.

I've since had it changed to ADSL2+, Fast Path mode, with no speed cap.

Although my attenuation & noise mean I still don't tend to get any more speed than what I previously got on G.DMT, being on Fast Path rather than Interleave gives me better pings, which is good for my Xbox Live.


Like downquark1, I've found a lot of help & useful info at SkyUser.


Based upon posts at SkyUser, I've turned off UPnP on my Sky router, which seems to have sorted some initial disconnection issues.

I did still have some other router issues though at first... the router would automatically reboot itself quite regularly.. which was quite a pain.

After some playing around, I now have it sorted. Seems that, like many other routers, it can get a bit overwhelmed if you do a lot of P2P e.g. Torrenting.

Cutting the speed & connections in my bit torrent client have cured the reboot problem completely. It now stays up for days/weeks, rather than having a fit every hour or so.



Two very handy links regarding router stats, attenuation, noise margin, error levels:

Sky router stats (speed, noise, attenuation) explained

How to obtain detailed stats, & interpreting line errors


downquark1 has already mentioned "Mognut's" very useful "Sky Netgear DG834GT Utility".

I use an alternative app, which runs in the system tray, rather than being a web page like Mognut's utility.

mossywell's "Bounce Sky Router"

Bounce monitors the internet connection, & automatically sends a reboot command to the router if the connection goes.

It can also auto-reboot the router if the noise margin drops too low (to a user-defined value), & can be used to send custom commands to the router, such as to tell it to re-sync at a particular noise margin.

It also lets you view the detailed stats, & extract the ADSL username & password.






My main issue (noise) was nothing to do with Sky. The router was initially flaky, but is perfectly fine now. Pity they don't let you use other routers (well, you can, but it's against the Terms & Conditions), although I guess it helps simplify support if the CS/TS people know everyone should be using a specific router.

I'm happy with my connection, the speed, the stability, & especially the price.

Re: Sky BB testimonial and info
 

I guess I should update this:

The error spikes at night have been attributed to bitswapping errors Long technical thread and have been fixed in the latest firmware update from sky. My router can now stay online with no manual reboots (I have a good line - your mileage will vary), so I'm a very happy bunny.

Sky have changed their email system to a google mail type thing, you can set it up to forward it to your pop3 or IMAP client. Only cripe I have with it is spam doesn't get forwarded which sometimes ends up with you being unaware of important mail.

The sky DNS problems have also been fixed.

Re: Sky BB testimonial and info
 

I have been with sky now for like a year i get 13 meg out of the max 16. So not bad for £10 a month and no download caps ;). I have never had a problem with them up to now so i have nothing but good to say about them myself :D