Wait, Wait, Wait... Sky's beating VM?!

[Toto]

Originally Posted by Losttheplot

The point i didn't make very well is that virgin seem to be sitting back and relying on its BB as the be all and end all solution.
At home I also have Sky BB. Upto 8 M and I get above 7.

7M is more than enough for me and more than enough for most people who only surf. So overall I think higher speeds will only appeal to the minority who need to download at the highest speed possible all the time.
I don't think BB is the most appealing thing to most Sky or virgin customers.

OK

[Gareth]

Originally Posted by Nedkelly

I live in small close some are on adsl and others are on cable .My friend across the road left cable and went to sky he is on the 16meg and because we live a long way from the exchange he is lucky if he gets 6 to 7 meg .My neighbour is on BT he gets about the same .Both have had BT out to check the line and the have confirmed this because they live to far from the exchange .I am on 20 meg and the worst i have got is 11 meg and the best after the reseg was 19 .There is always going to be the spilt who is faster my farther in law lives in the country on a farm and the best he can get is 512k if he is lucky and only bt will give him a service

6 to 7 Mb is faster than traffic shaped 20 Mb. I'm guessing they pay considerably less than £37 p/month too.

Originally Posted by Gareth

6 to 7 Mb is faster than traffic shaped 20 Mb. I'm guessing they pay considerably less than £37 p/month too.

Not everyone suffers from Traffic shaping, so this negates that guess.

But overall VM is faster than Sky - Broadbandchoice's speed league tells us so. Plus the Cable vs ADSL pros and cons thus cable being a far more reliable solution.

Don't quote me on it but I am pretty sure 20Mb is no longer £37 per month either.

I'm paying £18.50pm for 20mb

[Gareth]

Mine's £37 monthly

[Mick Fisher]

Originally Posted by Mick

Not everyone suffers from Traffic shaping, so this negates that guess.

But overall VM is faster than Sky - Broadbandchoice's speed league tells us so. Plus the Cable vs ADSL pros and cons thus cable being a far more reliable solution.

Don't quote me on it but I am pretty sure 20Mb is no longer £37 per month either.

£37.00 is what I get charged every month as an existing loyal customer.

[Tezcatlipoca]

Originally Posted by Mick

Sky broadband is not a better product at all. It might be cheaper as a standalone product, but that's because its crap anyway and I can verify that because I have tried it along with many people I know who also state they have had no end of trouble with their Sky broadband. It really is pants. But if you pay peanuts for such a product then you cannot really expect a good overall product.

It's not cheap because it's "pants", it's cheap because Sky subsidise it, plus as well as the subsidy I think offering LLU broadband costs them less than re-selling BTWholesale ADSLMax services (hence the re-sold BTWholesale "Sky BB Connect" costs people more than the LLU Sky BB).


I've had Sky Broadband for just over a year now, & it has been far from crap for me.

The only problem I had was due to the crappy phone wiring & extensions in my flat (since sorted). Not anything to do with Sky.

I can't get more than 8mbps, although I'm on the £10/month upto 16mbps "Max" service, but that's down to my line length. Still happy to pay the £10 charge though, for the higher upload & unlimited usage compared to "Base" & "Mid" (& the lack of STM on all of them is good).

I've never had to phone Sky BB CS about anything.


I had ntl cable broadband for about 5 years, before moving to a non-cabled area.

The service itself was usually solid with a consistent speed, but I did have to contact TS & CS a fair few times over various problems (couple of strange outages; a random case of my modem's MAC being unregistered; phone ping-pong between CS & TS when I was being billed for 2mbps yet only receiving 1mbps; etc....). Sometimes CS & TS were helpful, sometimes they were appallingly bad.


You could easily find many people here at CF, & elsewhere, who would emphatically claim that VM's broadband is crap, pants, etc. & who would say that they have had no end of trouble with their VM broadband.

That doesn't mean VM broadband is crap/pants for everyone, just as some people finding Sky BB to be crap/pants does not mean that it actually is for everyone.

[globalart4u]

well i do not like virgin as i have intermittent connection - when it was ntl every six months there was an outage then fine and i could use it at 4am in the morning no problem. with virgin 4am no connection how can that be? between 6pm and 9pm intermitten connection every single day. i refuse to phone anymore as the charges are horrendous and sorry am not made of money and they say it is nothing to do with virgin has to be my pc but i check it on my pc and my two laptops and still intermittent. then i just looked at the price of customer service calls so we have decided to call up and find out how long it will take bt to connect us and then we will cancel all three exntl lines and my business lines. virgin is crap and their customer service is so bloody expensive and useless. it is working just now but in 10 minutes time i will be kicked out. my neighbours who were going to take virgin will no longer consider it with all the broadband problems i have been having over the last months

[SnoopZ]

Originally Posted by Gareth

Mine's £37 monthly

Same here.

[tweetypie/8]

Originally Posted by TheBlueRaja

But they are not.

I get 13 and a half meg out of 16 for a tenner a month, its not traffic shaped and it does what it does no matter the time of day or day of the week or depending on how much i downloaded at 4am this morning, THAT'S why its better than Virgin.

Sky is simply a better product because its closer to the advertised speed most of the time, not to mention the fact is a SHEDLOAD cheaper.

had sky and thought it was total crap!!.

[skyblueheroes]

It all comes down to choice and what service you are prepared to accept and pay for.

For me its ADSL. Better, faster (in some cases), more flexible and much, much better customer service.

Had one problem with Pipex in about 4 or 5 years. Are you saying that I would have had that kind of service from VM ? Doubt it.

[PAYNEARDO]

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gareth
Mine's £37 monthly

Originally Posted by SnoopZ

Same here.

So was I but noticed if I get a phone line at £11 per month, I will then pay £20 a month for XL broaband. I didn't beleive it!! but after a couple of calls to customer service to check it and make sure it will stay like that, during the duration of the new 12 month contract I had had to sign. They said yeas, all I need to pay is £30 installation and then £31 a moth. £6 a month cheaper for XL broadband with a phoneline thrown in. They also said I get unlimted calls for what I was paying then £37.

And cable is better than ADSL !! - I did that check and all i could get was 4.5 MB which is is no where near my 20 MB I get. Ok sometimes it has "glitches" but more often than not I am well in to double figures with the speed thing.

Also noticed somebody said SKy is cheaper which I think is also wrong; £10 a month broadband + £16 a month for the very basic channel set + £11 (guessed this price but made it the same as VM's) BT line rental = £37 a month (but with TV, which I don't really need)

VM = £20 a month broadband (XL 20 MB) + £11 phone rental = £31 a month (OK no TV but what if I only want freeview and don't want all the repeat channels !! . also sure VM will do a basic package cheap.

[Perfect Choice]

For me it is an easy decision, ADSL can only provide me 3MB where I am based on the edge of Nottingham (BT speed tester result), even if cable doesn't quite hit its declared limit of 10MB, it will be significantly better than what I can achieve from ADSL. For those living reasonably close to an ADSL enabled exchange then there is a case to be made, however if VM really do get their act together in achieving 10MB with the 4 to 10MB upgrade programme, that will give them a distinct advantage over ther majority of broadband players until ADSL2+ (24MB) is widely available, and then VM will have the 50MB option avalable for those speed freaks out there!

[smeagoly1]

For me it's not who can provide the highest download speeds. It's consistency of pings, and service up time. There is nothing worse than in the middle of a game then pooooof you need to reset your modem! or no connection for 5 - 10 mins.

Both camps have their pro's and cons. For me constant 20meg was just a waste of time and money, I don't need 20Mbs 24/7 I'm either at work or asleep most of that time.

But a constant reliable connection and response is a must, not sure between the two who can get the greater percentage.

[Gareth]

Originally Posted by PAYNEARDO

Also noticed somebody said SKy is cheaper which I think is also wrong; £10 a month broadband + £16 a month for the very basic channel set + £11 (guessed this price but made it the same as VM's) BT line rental = £37 a month (but with TV, which I don't really need)

VM = £20 a month broadband (XL 20 MB) + £11 phone rental = £31 a month (OK no TV but what if I only want freeview and don't want all the repeat channels !! . also sure VM will do a basic package cheap.

You forgot to include the call charges to VM... you need to add on an extra tenner a month for calling their premium rate phone number