Sky Broadband - yes or no?

Sky Broadband as just become available in my area (I'm currently with BT
Broadband paying around £27 per month) I was looking at Sky's Mid product,
up to 8Mb speed, 40GB download per month, free router etc at £5 per month.
Should I go for it?

or......

I know there is no such thing as a 'free lunch' so am I missing something
here - are there any downsides to Sky Broadband?

Thanks - Steve B.

"steveybar" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Sky Broadband as just become available in my area (I'm currently with BT
> Broadband paying around £27 per month) I was looking at Sky's Mid product,
> up to 8Mb speed, 40GB download per month, free router etc at £5 per month.
> Should I go for it?
>
> or......
>
> I know there is no such thing as a 'free lunch' so am I missing something
> here - are there any downsides to Sky Broadband?

Its Sky.

I struggle to get more than 1Mbyte/sec downloads from any one site.

You have to use their Netgear router (its not that bad though).

They don't offer news (http://www.news.astraweb.com/ ?).

Support.. whets that? (There are some numbers listed on www.skyuser.co.uk )

Other than that it works OK.

steveybar wrote:
> Sky Broadband as just become available in my area (I'm currently with BT
> Broadband paying around £27 per month) I was looking at Sky's Mid product,
> up to 8Mb speed, 40GB download per month, free router etc at £5 per month.
> Should I go for it?
>
> or......
>
> I know there is no such thing as a 'free lunch' so am I missing something
> here - are there any downsides to Sky Broadband?
>
> Thanks - Steve B.

Their service has been excellent so far, i pay £10 a month for the max
service, and have observed no throttling, or speed reduction. I had one
cause to contact Sky, to change my service from the basic free service to
the max, it took less then a few minutes to get through, and about a minute
to see my upload speed double and and my download speed increase by an extra
mb.

Remember though, the quoted speeds are 'up to', it depends how close you are
to the exchange.

Gaz

Gaz wrote:
> steveybar wrote:
> > Sky Broadband as just become available in my area (I'm currently with BT
> > Broadband paying around £27 per month) I was looking at Sky's Mid product,
> > up to 8Mb speed, 40GB download per month, free router etc at £5 per month.
> > Should I go for it?
> >

Getting a great service here also. Used to get 1 meg on standard ADSL
zen at £29.99 a month. Moved over to SKY 2 weeks ago and now getting
a 6 meg line for only £10.00

It did go down the weekend just gone all day Sunday - but did see the
news where there was a break in in some BT building that killed phone
lines and internet for 250,000 users in the midlands. Suppose not
really Sky's fault.

Go for it.

The routers fine also - don't like the SKY logo though on it.

Rich

"Rich" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...

Gaz wrote:
> steveybar wrote:
> > Sky Broadband as just become available in my area (I'm currently with BT
> > Broadband paying around £27 per month) I was looking at Sky's Mid
> > product,
> > up to 8Mb speed, 40GB download per month, free router etc at £5 per
> > month.
> > Should I go for it?
> >

Getting a great service here also. Used to get 1 meg on standard ADSL
zen at £29.99 a month. Moved over to SKY 2 weeks ago and now getting
a 6 meg line for only £10.00

It did go down the weekend just gone all day Sunday - but did see the
news where there was a break in in some BT building that killed phone
lines and internet for 250,000 users in the midlands. Suppose not
really Sky's fault.

Go for it.

The routers fine also - don't like the SKY logo though on it.

Rich

Concur- I used to have BY 10meb, when u can get 10meg that is for £35 pm, I
now get sky, with any any noticeable loss of speed, fine stable service for
£10,

BY at £35 pm is a ripoff compared to what else is now availble, as stated no
newsgroups, however you can get free text groups and u can pick newsgroups
for around £5 upwards.

GO for it,

"The Inquisitor" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:Jv12h.95782$(E-Mail Removed). uk...
>
> "Rich" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed) oups.com...
>
> Gaz wrote:
>> steveybar wrote:
>> > Sky Broadband as just become available in my area (I'm currently with
>> > BT
>> > Broadband paying around £27 per month) I was looking at Sky's Mid
>> > product,
>> > up to 8Mb speed, 40GB download per month, free router etc at £5 per
>> > month.
>> > Should I go for it?
>> >
>
> Getting a great service here also. Used to get 1 meg on standard ADSL
> zen at £29.99 a month. Moved over to SKY 2 weeks ago and now getting
> a 6 meg line for only £10.00
>
> It did go down the weekend just gone all day Sunday - but did see the
> news where there was a break in in some BT building that killed phone
> lines and internet for 250,000 users in the midlands. Suppose not
> really Sky's fault.
>
> Go for it.
>
> The routers fine also - don't like the SKY logo though on it.
>
> Rich
>
> Concur- I used to have BY 10meb, when u can get 10meg that is for £35 pm,
> I
> now get sky, with any any noticeable loss of speed, fine stable service
> for
> £10,
>
> BY at £35 pm is a ripoff compared to what else is now availble, as stated
> no
> newsgroups, however you can get free text groups and u can pick newsgroups
> for around £5 upwards.
>
> GO for it,
>
>


Even adding the cost of the cheapest Sky package at around £15 (?) this
seems tempting. Personally, my concern is when things will go wrong, I have
ditched Sky TV recently as my 1st year came to an end because of the
continuing difficulties in getting hold of them on the phone when required
and the complete lack of interest demonstrated by their customer services
department when you eventually get hold of them, and yes if they need to
visit you, that means a day off work if you are lucky. If you are not and
customer service gives the wrong phone number to the engineer, that means a
lot of headaches and more time off work to rearrange a visit. Now, when I
want to see a recent"ish" movie, I get a DVD !
Reading the other posts however, it is apparent that their broadband support
seems ok so far (?), let's hope it lasts, but me, I have been put right off
Sky altogether !

On Thu, 2 Nov 2006 17:15:56 -0000, "Nildram news" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>Reading the other posts however, it is apparent that their broadband support
>seems ok so far (?), let's hope it lasts, but me, I have been put right off
>Sky altogether !
>

Not so sure how great the broadband support is. Rang up last night
asking what the email settings were. Took the person on the phone
about 5 minutes flicking though her book to find them.

And then kept going on about Outlook Express - didn't seem to
understand what I meant when I said i used thunderbird.

PS : Free phone 08000512595 for SKY customer services / internet
customer services. Don't mind waiting - although did get through in
less than 30 seconds - was 11:15pm mind you.

Rich

Rich wrote:
>
> PS : Free phone 08000512595 for SKY customer services / internet
> customer services. Don't mind waiting - although did get through in
> less than 30 seconds - was 11:15pm mind you.

also look at www.skyuser.co.uk as this answers such questions

Jon

On Thu, 2 Nov 2006 21:31:22 -0000, "Jonathan Pearson"
<(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

>
>also look at www.skyuser.co.uk as this answers such questions
>
>Jon
>

Yeah but its more fun asking on the phone and asking questions which
you know they don't have a clue about. Hold on while I;ll ask my
supervisor LOL

RIch