I know Sky have had a pretty bad reputation in the past for their Sky Broadband but has it got any better? Reason I ask is that I had the chance of free broadband with them as i have sky t.v, which would save me £18 a month. However, I need a reliable connection as I do college work online. So is Sky Broadband worth me saving the £18 a month?

As with all the other times this question has been raised, expect an equal number of yes and no answers and no conclusion to whether they are good.

My response is that I have been with them from day one and have found the connection to be fantstic with extremely rare drop-out, great download rates, and no issues whatsoever. I am on the £5 per month plan with them. I also know of a few work mates who switched to Sky and haven't looked back since as they have found it ideal. Only 1 of my work mates had bad experience when he began with them, which Sky couldn't fix - turns out once he left and moved to BT that the line needed replacing (which BT would not sort out when Sky looked into it, but as soon as he signed up for BT broadband they sent someone out to replace it).

If you use anything other than the supplied Sky branded router, it's fine, but the Sky branded router's a piece of crap IMO, my Dad's on the free Sky package in Stannington, and on the supplied router, it blew, hard IMO, slow as hell, timed out a lot, everything that could go wrong with it, did do. However, on a different router, the connection is reasonably fast (it's only 512k after all) and stable.

If you use anything other than the supplied Sky branded router, it's fine, but the Sky branded router's a piece of crap IMO,

Again, no issue with the supplied Netgear DG834GT router here (sky branded, but still a good Netgear router), and amazing download rates and connection.

Again, no issue with the supplied Netgear DG834GT router here (sky branded, but still a good Netgear router), and amazing download rates and connection.

The one my Dad had was crap, granted he lives a long way from the exchange at Wadsley, and therefore the service wouldn't be up to full par anyway, but I still considered the supplied router to be a piece of arse.

I know Sky have had a pretty bad reputation in the past for their Sky Broadband but has it got any better? Reason I ask is that I had the chance of free broadband with them as i have sky t.v, which would save me £18 a month. However, I need a reliable connection as I do college work online. So is Sky Broadband worth me saving the £18 a month?


Yes, yes and yes!

Been a customer for two years now, just had one outage, and that was only for about an hour.

The router is good, the service good. The ONLY drawback I've found, is their customer support is now in India, and it's pot luck if you get a support officer who you can understand (and who can understand YOU!), but again, I've only had to ring them twice in two years.

I have the £10 SKY broadband package (unlimited downloads, 16MB etc) and have had no problems at all. If I need to download big files, eg. films etc, I just do it overnight.

The signal is stable and connects to various computers and laptops we have or have had very well. I work from home so can't afford to have an inconsistent and unreliable service.

The router is neat enough and has been reliable even though our area is supposedly very poor overall.

I have had no problems with SKY, have saved money on my broadband and would thoroughly recommend them.

If you use anything other than the supplied Sky branded router, it's fine, but the Sky branded router's a piece of crap IMO, my Dad's on the free Sky package in Stannington, and on the supplied router, it blew, hard IMO, slow as hell, timed out a lot, everything that could go wrong with it, did do. However, on a different router, the connection is reasonably fast (it's only 512k after all) and stable.

The last few hundred times this question has been asked you always tell us how bad the Netgear router is, just because your dad had problems. This is despite everyone else telling you the supplied netgear router is one of the best 'free with package' ones you can get. I really am getting fed up with your 'I've had a thought, therefore it must be fact' posts. 'IMO' only gets you so much leeway!

However - to chip in my reply, Sky seemed to have quite a lot of problems at first, but now seem to have got their act together as an ISP. You will still get the odd problem now and then, but seem ok in general. I have several customers and friends / relatives using SKY, who mostly seem happy. I use BT, but if they dont stop sending me bleeding home hubs I may think about changing.
There's a piece of crap for you to moan about Rich!

Does anyone know how long it would take to switch from AOL to SKY broadband?
Would there be any downtime between switching from one to the other?
Is SKY broadband stable enough for online gaming?

My only problem with my mother's supplied broadband router, was that I was unable to set it up by hand. Whilst I was able to log into the router's settings page, most of the usual options seemed to have been removed.

So I was forced to use the ISP's disk, which I always dislike having to do.

Does anyone know how long it would take to switch from AOL to SKY broadband?
Would there be any downtime between switching from one to the other?
Is SKY broadband stable enough for online gaming?

i use sky for my broadband and havent had a problem. I play online alot with the pc and I will be with the ps3 when i get it but I havent had any problems as of yet.

the router I got was dead easy to set up. Plugged it in, used the supplied network key on my wireless search and I was on the net within 3 min of plugging it into the mains! I didnt use any of the discs provided, just windows own wireless network search thingy. :thumbsup:

the router I got was dead easy to set up. Plugged it in, used the supplied network key on my wireless search and I was on the net within 3 min of plugging it into the mains! I didnt use any of the discs provided, just windows own wireless network search thingy. :thumbsup:

I've set up several just like this - i felt ashamed charging for it! Still not sure why those people had trouble, it practically sets itself up.

Nice one. Thx for the replies folks. It's something that needs considering being as i am still paying £25 a month for AOL.

Just to add another opinion. I pay £5 a month for "unlimited" (not sure of the FUP limit but I have never had trouble) and the service is fine. Usually get the full 8mb they advertise. Don't notice too much slow down at peak times. This may change as they get more customers though.

Nice one. Thx for the replies folks. It's something that needs considering being as i am still paying £25 a month for AOL.

Ouch, I was paying £30 until I phoned them and complained. They knocked it down to £17.99 and gave me two months free broadband.

i am with sky, i have got the sky max which is up to 16meg, its ok with my pc, and i can download things in no time. if i have a problem sky are straight on the case.