LG John

I'm moving to a new area where there isn't an option for Virgin Media. We will be getting a Sky TV package and so it would make sense to get the 20mb broadband as well. However, I just wanted to double check that BT broadband wasn't vastly superior before I sign up for 12 months with sky.

TBH, I'm not too bothered with speed because I rarely do big downloads. The key thing for me is reliabilty as it can cost me a fortune at the poker tables if my connection drops out regularly. Virgin has been rock solid in the last 2 years - I can't remember the last time I timed out of a hand because of my connection.

Input appreciated.

brendy76

iTrader: (6)

I moved from BT to sky last year for two reasons, promises of extra speed (and they delivered (2mb with bt who swore that was the fastest I could have, to 10mb, circa 1000yds from the exchange)
Secondly it worked out cheaper to have my tv subs, phone and Bb all with the one provider.

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Sky all the way. £5 or something for the mid level service. Totally reliable and way way way cheaper than BT.

Been with sky broadband for a good 2 years now. Only had a couple of days where the service was down, but was usually working again in a few hours or so.

urban

iTrader: (1)

I too have sky.
It does cost me £5 per month for up to 10Mb

However I believe it only costs me £5 because I also have skytalk and is £10 per month without skytalk

Gear Head

iTrader: (2)

Line rental is cheaper from sky as well. only by £2 or so but that £24 a year.

LG John

My local exchange says it has Sky/Eastnet enabled as of 2006. Not sure if that was what I was supposed to find out or not

Thanks for the comments so far. I'm encouraged to see that other users have been enjoying a reliable service. I'd probably be going for some tricked out HDTV, phone, line rental, 20mb broadband (and dirty movies) package As I said, the most important thing is that it doesn't drop the connection several times a day for a few minutes at a time - that would cost me a fortune!

r32

I moved to BT, as I had some problems and the provider, who insisted it wasnt their problem when it clearly was.
So I thought get Broadband with BT then its their service and their line, up to now they have provided an excellent service and been very responsive.

RB5201

Been on sky for about a year now, pay the extra £5 for mid level speed, never had a problem and play a fair bit of poker myself online and never lost connection whilst playing. Never had an issue whilst online with xbox or ps3 either. Not sure about doenload speeds etc as only really use broadband for online gaming and internet.

M4RKG

iTrader: (22)

Used to work for BT... possibly the worst company for tech support and sh*t connection speeds when the promise loads.

I dont have Sky, but i'd defo prefer it.

baldfox

iTrader: (1)

I went with simplify digital - who gave me free installation (via a 3mth cheque back) of HD sky, also I got them to pay my BT line rental for 12mths (offer at the time), so for me, mid boradband (£5), Sky 2 pack (£16), HD progs (£9) = around £30. I was paying BT rental of £11 and broadband at £15 = £26, so was a no brainer... not sure if they're still doing deals like that. Sky broadband has been fine, no probs at all... Think BT broadband is too expensive for what you get.

LG John

Ok, new issue... just been onto Sky and they say the maximum speed we can get in our area is 1MB broadband. That is obviously utterly sh*te compared to the 20MB I've been used to with Virgin (not available in new area).

Sky say that BT will be able to offer no faster a service. My question is this: are there any other options? Is there any way to get faster internet than 1MB?

gallois

try BT Broadband – Unlimited UK broadband internet connection for less to see how fast BT will be on your line.

M4RKG

iTrader: (22)

If the area is upto 1mb then all you'll get is 1mb, its all to do with how far you are away from the local exchange. Only way to get a faster connection...

... move closer to the exchange

LG John

Sick

This is quite a life beat...going from 20mb to 1mb.

Spoon

Handy site that. I never knew it existed. I've just found out BT are due in Q2 2010 to add some extra wires to possibly bring our village up to speeds Fred and Barney would be proud of. Nobody else is willing to have a go though!

AllenJ

Sky all the way.

I've moved my calls from BT to Sky and I will be moving my line rental to Sky as well.

One thing to note: Sky's call centre is routed to India, if there is an issue it might not get resolved straight away, instead of calling help desk, send an email and you'll get a quicker response.

My reason for moving from BT:
1: Higher call charges compared to Sky
2: Charges for paper billing
3: Charges for not paying by Direct Debit
4: Higher line rental

With Sky:
1: £5 discount a month for broadband (max)
2: Lower call charges
3: Higher bandwidth than BT and Unlimited for £10 (for 3.5 years, no complain).
4: Free evening / weekend calls

Disadvantage using Sky:
1: 0845/0870 numbers are not free

hail-hail

I moved to Sky as well. the mid range £5 per month. It has never let me down.
Bit Torrent runs about 20 times faster then my previous ISP (pipex=sh1te). XBOK live runs fine.

I recently downloaded some tv shows and broke my data allowance. Got a nice mail telling me that I have gone over my limit, but not to worry, they won't do anything this time.
However if I broke it again they would up me to the £10 unlimited package.
Quite fair, I thought.

scoobyhoobydoo

BT are ok, but are more than anyone else in cost terms. The other options are be broadband who have up to 40 gb for £7.49 if you are in there area and SKY who are pretty good had them for 4 years (via UKonline/Easynet). When you are long distance away you will have more issues than people who are close to the exchange as it took 4 weeks to get me to 1mb as 2mb would fail due to the distance and line quality.

ScoobaSteve

iTrader: (2)

Been with Virgin for a few years now,the 20mb service,and would like to join sky as got tv with them,and to bring costs down too and try to keep it all in one place,when i called virgin to explain the situation and mentioned sky they said the max i could get on their network is 3mb regardless of how far you live from the exchange,and the fact that sky use bt phone lines and not fibre optic cables.
Sounds like crap to me as why would sky say you could get upto 20mb lol
At the moment,i dont have a BT line in the house,but dont really want to get one in on a contract if all i can get is well below the advertised speed.