Sky to BT

I've switched a couple of times not from Sky but between other providers no problems experienced I just had to connect up the new router as supplied wait till it was up up running the just log in with the the passwords as required.

To be truthful I was suprised how easy it was.

fathings cat posted:

hi folks, if I switch from Sky to BT will it cause me any pain in terms of my uniti serve/ NAS set up and if so is it easy to get round?

In nutshell I pay c£80 for sky and for by and large for the same service I can get it from BT for c£44 (bt hub included.) 

i like the Sky interface but in reality I don't watch too much tv but with BT I do get better football package which I would watch. Also on the face of it the internet speed looks marginally better with BT. 

Any comments on the pain of switching or anyone that has moved from Sky would be appreciated. 

Gary

No - just keep your router/home hub and connected devices  on DHCP and you should be laughing.. the chances are that if Sky uses Openreach access to provide their broadband then the broadband sync speeds will be approximately similar - however there may be more difference in the back haul networks - this is the bit that is not often advertised. Last time I was discussing such things with people in the  know the BT backhaul network capacity had generally loads of head room.

S

Gary,

havent made the switch but I'm sure it will be as easy as others say. I have been with BT for about 18 months and have been very happy indeed, very robust and reliable using HH5. For £10 a note the BT TV sport package is pretty good too. Streaming football in 4K. Very happy with it. Good luck...

paul 

I'm with BT and can't wait to get away. Their speed, reliability and service has been dreadful. IMHO Sky are much more customer focused than BT (who still have the monopoly mentality). You might want to consider buying your own router.

PeterJ posted:

...IMHO Sky are much more customer focused than BT .... 

... absolutely not in my experience -  horses for courses - but I don't take Sky's broadband products as Sky for the most part overlays on BT access.

fathings cat posted:

hi folks, if I switch from Sky to BT will it cause me any pain in terms of my uniti serve/ NAS set up and if so is it easy to get round?

In nutshell I pay c£80 for sky and for by and large for the same service I can get it from BT for c£44 (bt hub included.) 

i like the Sky interface but in reality I don't watch too much tv but with BT I do get better football package which I would watch. Also on the face of it the internet speed looks marginally better with BT. 

Any comments on the pain of switching or anyone that has moved from Sky would be appreciated. 

Gary

Where internet access is concerned, be wary of believing anything about speed !

And if marginal  advertised speeds are convincing you, you need to take a cold shower followed by a large drink and look again... the only factor worth considering is the price.  After all, both suppliers are coming down the same copper pair or fibre supply to your place.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

 

... absolutely not in my experience -  horses for courses - but I don't take Sky's broadband products as Sky for the most part overlays on BT access.

I have not (and would not) take Sky's broadband as they just use BT's lines. Maybe I am biased but we were with BT for years without problems but the last two years have been awful: phone number being cancelled because they screwed up a new contract, poor speed getting worse, lots of connection failures, dreadful service whenever we contact BT about an issue, loads of BT sales people ringing to offer a better service but then never responding and BT wanting £1000 a month to provide a decent broadband service. We are on an exchange which has fibre but are just too far from the cabinet to get better speed on BT Infinity. Gigaclear are putting fibre in our village and we will move to them as soon as possible.

Fair enough - it does sound you have had a bad time of it... you are lucky you have a small sounding company investing access in fibre to your village - I assume it has won a contact with your county council to get government subsidy funding? BT won the contract for our part of the county and village parish - and we are expecting VDSL deployment in March 2018 now - until then its good old ADSL. I guess I can't complain too much - if you live off the beaten track infrastructure takes time... we are not even on mains sewage here...

i just switched from sky to bt and had an absolute nightmare. bt promised to keep number and they lost it. they did offer compensation and accepted liability for mis-selling. the tv aerial installation was competed by bt sub contactor cowboys who refused to put the aerial where it belonged (on the chimney) so put it on a wall and tried to charge for signal boosters to get a decent signal. i refused. bt failed to inform me the tv ultra hd box required a wired connection to the router to operate properly. i informed the so called engineer (a clueless sub contractor tv box installler) that i did not want an ethernet cable running from one end of the house (where the router is) to the other (where the tv is) nor did i want powerline adaptors. he said nothing else was possible and walked away stealing my tv box. bt could not get the box back and had to send me a new one. bt tech support clueless said it was not possible to use wireless extender to connect tv box to router. i checked, they were wrong, you can. bt customer support horrific - i struggled to understand the indian accents, they were clueless, cut me off multiple times, wait times of over 30 mins.

what do i think of bt? guess. one of the worse companies i had ever experienced. sky on the other hand i have always found to be faultless.

I have had all of them into my house at some point: BT, Sky and Virgin. Currently I have Sky and Virgin feeds directly into the house so I can switch between the two as and when the deals are better. Currently have Sky everything and just awaiting Sky Q to be installed in about 10 days. I have already installed the new Sky Q router which appears to offer no more than the old router except a couple less Ethernet connections so a switch is almost obligatory. Speed, which should be 40 Mbps, is currently 35 Mbps. No real complaints.

should say now i have managed to get bt services up and running its very good. the tv box works well and the router is excellent (better than sky router). no degradation of internet service.

Thanks for replies, much appreciated - the primary reason for changing is price and which ever way I cut it none of the suppliers value my custom and all rely on apathy to retaining their customer base. I can save £45 a month, not big bucks but it's the bloody principle that they think it's ok to take advantage of loyal customers -  rant over! 

I havent done done anything yet but will peruse the BT option

cheers 

Gary

fathings cat posted:

...the primary reason for changing is price...

Gary, don't change just on price. Decent broadband service is now an essential commodity. Look for who will give you the best service. Poor broadband will cripple you.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Fair enough - it does sound you have had a bad time of it... you are lucky you have a small sounding company investing access in fibre to your village - I assume it has won a contact with your county council to get government subsidy funding? BT won the contract for our part of the county and village parish - and we are expecting VDSL deployment in March 2018 now - until then its good old ADSL. I guess I can't complain too much - if you live off the beaten track infrastructure takes time... we are not even on mains sewage here...

Yes, Gigaclear have a contract in West Berkshire. However, if BT had put in a tiny bit of investment we would have all been OK with them. I hate BT, they are scum; sorry for the rant.

Ok, you might not like BT, but without BT and Virgin we would have next to no infrastructure in the U.K. which other companies piggy back on... thank goodness those two companies do invest in the UK infrastructure and see it as a company commitment and something to be proud of... just wish companies like  Sky and Talktalk amongst others did the same...that would really help..but no these parasite companies just sit on the back of others and moan and cream the profits  ... sorry rant over but I am disgusted by the actions and lobbying of some of these parasite  companies... 

On the back of Virgin and BT, the UK has, I understand, the fastest genereal broadband access speeds in Europe apart from in Poland.. and no I don't know why Poland leads the list...

I can understand Peterj's dislike of BT. I had the worst experience I've ever had with a company at the hands of BT, just horrendous, and I also solemnly vowed never to touch them again with a very long bargepole.

Against all odds, BT have put in a high-speed fibre line down our remote country cul-de-sac. They started in May and we've yet to be offered connection to what will be FTTP, so it looks like I'll have no alternative but to deal with them again. Before getting our current local microwave system we were with Sky, and I did find their service to be excellent.

Tony, intrigued by your FTTP offer, I assume BT has contacted you about this future FTTP On Demand capability  (your not on the Bawdsey peninsula by any chance?) whilst they deploy FTTC? ..most rural setups are fibre to a little cabinet (FTTC), from where it's twisted copper pair to the house. For  some rural not spots, a new method of daisy chaining a fibre from the nearest VDSL enabled cabinet say in the nearest town or larger village  and then long lining the fibre to the remote distribution cabinet (FTTC)  where again it's twisted copper pair to the house.... no I I don't know whether FTTP On Demand is possible on this option... one for Monday to find out.. I understand from SCC that it is this latter method Suffolk are investing with  BT to connect most of my village parish... I am told it's cheaper and quicker to deploy..... we will have to wait and see on that one..

Hi Simon, we're in the wilds between Stowmarket & Wattisham. Definitely FTTP. The last group of workmen who were responsible for the final installation to a new pole they've put up next to our house confirmed this. There's a unit at the top of this pole from where the fibre will go directly to the four properties in our little hamlet. The fibre cable then descends the pole into a cable buried in the ground, which has seven plastic tubes inside its outer sheath. This then heads off down to the lane to the three isolated properties further down. The guys weren't amused because when this cable was initially laid it was strapped to the pole pointing upwards and consequently filled with rainwater, so they had to re-lay the whole thing. The engineer told me this was all complete and that BT will now take over.

Sorry to hijack this thread - Simon, just to pick your brains a bit please. Here are a couple of  photos of the new pole, showing the installation. The fibre cable comes in at the top, where there's a black connector of some description, then down to a green box & into the ground, to go off down the lane. I was told that the old pole carrying the existing phone cabling was to be removed. So does this tally with FTTP or FTTC? 

Hi Tony - not totally sure - as i don't work for Openreach - but it looks like it could be a TPON set up (Telephony over Passive Optical Network) - and traditionally the TPON splitter breaks out the telephony to 8, 16 or 32 copper twisted pairs I believe ...

Now depending on the where the fibre is routed to exchange/cabinet wise then potentially I see that FTTP could be possible by a new fibre being layed directly your house from the splice point - such as this pole - but other than that I can't say.

But if I have this correct - it will be copper to your house - so to lay a fibre from this pole to your house is not going to be cheap.....

I assume you don't superfast broadband now? (via the twisted copper pair telephone line)

Simon

Thanks Simon. It's very confusing - my neighbours have had different tales from differnt workmen. I suppose in the end it doesn't matter, it'll still be faster than the current 1Mb over the existing phone lines. I don't use these myself, on the local microwave system at 24 Mb and Vonage phone. We're all pretty fed up down here because no one has the courtesy to give us any information whatsoever, even to alert us to the fact they were going to shut our lane whilst they did some of the work.

Tony, I would get onto your Parish council... they should get all notices of road closures and then hopefully circulate / announce it if required. And they should have or can enquire after any additional details.. but normally a utility provider does provide such info if the road is definitely being closed.

Out of interest if you have a 24Mbps microwave system, how is it, who is provides it, and how does it work at peak times?

Sorry to the OP for the thread detour .. I'm sure normal service will be restored shortly...

Hi Simon, we use Superhero Broadband. It's run by a local in Combs and transmits from the church in Great  Finborough, which is line of sight from the top of one of our chimneys. The service is superb, just pick up the 'phone & you're on to the technician. Not that we've had any...I'm a relay station for the other neighbours for the signal.

They  guarantee 24Mb, and even at peak time that's more or less what we get. Just fast enough to stream Netflix 4K video. Although the fibre offering might be faster & cheaper, I'm sorely tempted to stick with Superhero!