Sky punts 'truly unlimited' 20Mb/s broadband

Sky is set to become the first broadband provider to offer free internet access for all customers at speeds of up to 20Mb/s, the satellite TV broadcaster claimed today. There's a catch: to qualify for the free package, called Sky Everyday Lite, users must be Sky TV subscribers and signed up to the firm's Sky Talk phone service …

[lansalot]

awww

Pity they're not totally over-subscribed at my exchange then. Youtube before 11.30 pm? Forget it.

In the space of an hour, I'd see speeds ranging from dialup (yes, I know) to 700k/s. Evenings were a joke, webpages are fine - but forget anything apart from that.

Waste of time here, I'm afraid! And all the speedy-carrots in the world won't make me change back.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're lucky!

Count yourself lucky! I am on sky and I am supposed to be getting 6MB/s, most days I am lucky to break 150kb/s tops! Seriously thinking about goin over to Beardy's Boys and getting a fibre line.

[David Taylor 1]

Who screwed up - Sky or thereg?

"No caps, traffic shaping or fair use policy, says ISP"

and

"And downloads are capped at 2GB a month."

They can't both be right!

[The BigYin]

Agreed

It's either unlimited or limited. Binary choice.

Personally I find my (actual) 4mpbs (capped, shaped and limited) is good enough for my needs just now. Why pay more?

[BigRedS]

You might want to reread the article...

The free one's capped, the unlimited one isn't.

[The Original Ash]

Lern2reed

Different products, me ol' chum! Downloads capped at 2GB per month is Sky Everyday Lite. The "truly free" package is Sky Unlimited.

[Chris007]

Re-Read the post

and I'll wait for the "D'oh" sound soon

[Colin Miller]

RTFA

and you'd see there is

Scheme 1 - free (as long as you are are a triple-play customer), 2GB/month cap

and

Scheme 2 - £7.50/month - no cap.

How they can provide the backhaul at the stated prices is a different matter...

[Adam Foxton]

It's a loss-leader

or we're being shafted by everyone else.

The loss leader's actually pretty likely- if they're a great ISP you'll stick with them. Which means keeping Sky TV, which means they can keep all of their advertisers confident of a good long term market.

Sounds like a very good package if anyone's about to sign up to Sky- you get good, unlimited internet at the expense of... well, nothing. You just have to watch adverts- and if you Sky+ your shows you can just fast forward through them.

[Richard 31]

percentages!

These companies need to be smacked very hard about the head with a dictionary. Unlimited but capped at 2GB, most of us could use 2GB of traffic in minutes.

I think they should be made to advertise these services as a % of the time in a month in which you can download data at the maximum advertised rate. at 20Mb/sec it would take 13 mins 39 seconds to download 2GB. And in a 30 day month there are 2592000 seconds. Therefore you can download things for 0.0316 % of the month.

So instead of advertising it as unlimited they should advertise this package as a 0.0316% service.

[Marcus 8]

Re Read Carefully...

The "free" is capped at 2GB, while the £7.50 is "unlimited".

Fair dues to Sky for doing a fully unlimited. We will see how long it lasts.

[Robin]

re: percentages!

Real world figures - I like your thinking.

Such as, how long it takes to download 3 minutes of 'streaming media'.

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 for percentages

I totally agree with the % method of advertising the real facts about the service. I understand the argument that most of the usage happens between 9-5 for businesses and between 6 to midnight for home use but the fact remains that you can use up the "capped" limits in a very very short time.

In the mobile phone market we know how many minutes we are going to get on a contract, but for the average user calculating how long 2GB will last them is not practical.

We need a regulation over the adertising of internet connections like there is for credit cards where promotional percentages for a few months or variable rates can't be the only figures advertised. Credit card companies have to advertise the APR % too. Similarly the percentage of time that an internet connection will last at full advertised speed should also be published along with the "up to" speed rating. The better informed the average user is, the quicker the industry will have to respond to better services for all consumers.

[noboard]

And downloads are capped at 2GB a month.

So an incredibly restricted unlimited service.

Woop

[Oz]

Downloads capped

The Fail is you, my friend. Sky offers two packages, one capped and one unlimited - read the article again!

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the catch?

Ah contention... there's the catch.

The article refers to two packages - 'free' as in not really free but a bundled extra with a 2GB/Mnth download cap and unlimited at £7.50/Mnth

Paris is looking over the small print, pouring over the detail - she will report her expert findings when she is damn well ready...

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

pouring over?

Do you really think she's *that* excited? It's only a broadband offering!

[LinkOfHyrule]

ewwww

Thanks, I need a new keyboard now, this ones covered in my own vomit.

[Robin]

Read More?

Is it just me that read the 'Read More' links as...

Sky Broadband 2 - Virgin Media 3

One more point for a draw, Sky!

[Simon Grierson]

Virgin do to!

Virgin's 50meg broadband is unilimted, uncapped and un-shaped. (Unlike their other offerings).

As far as i know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Traffic Shaping on VM?

Virgin don't traffic shape at all. They do cap after a certain amount has downloded in the peak times but not traffic shape. *Why* do people always get this mixed up?

[Steve 130]

Easily done

It's just their 16mb service rebranded to 20mb. They'll provision an adsl service for you which will give you max 8meg then when you complain they'll tell you it's "upto 20meg".

Same service different name.

[Steve Evans]

LMAO!

2GB limit, I hope they print that nice and large... If (and I know it's a big if) you did really get 20Mb/s download rate you'd murder that 2GB limit in under 15 minutes!

Too funny!

That's like owning a Ferrari with a 1 gallon fuel tank, and a time lock on the filler cap!

[Steve Mason]

Only major ISP...

"maintains its commitment to being the only major ISP not to... ‘traffic shape’ speeds on any of its network products"

Pardon me if I'm wrong, but Be* have been doing this ever since I joined them about 2 years ago.

[david bates]

Ditto O2....

....as one would expect.

£7.00 since I have mobile with them and not a sniff of shaping or limits, and speeds of up to 6gb - it does me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Be

Indeed. I've also used Be for some time now. No complaints at all. I guess they don't count as "major". ;)

Same old tired bullshit.

[LinkOfHyrule]

So is "Be" any good then?

I'm with plusnet but they've become s*** since they joined the evil BT empire, I need an ISP which can cope with heavy youtube, lolcat and porn usage*, would "Be" be a good choice?

By the way, was joking about the heavy lolcat usage.

[Scott Mckenzie]

Be..

Yes, very much worth getting still.

Sign up via Quidco for a better deal too :)

I've been with them for a couple of years also, the basic router I received was a bit poor, but i think the new one is better - i have replaced mine anyway. It's only ever been down unexpectedly once since i've had it, maintenance is scheduled sensibly, the support staff - based in Eastern Europe - are very friendly, knowledgeable, helpful, polite etc.... you really couldn't ask for more.

Despite being bought by O2, the service hasn't altered, no caps, traffic shaping etc - i've downloaded over a terabyte of data on several months and not heard anything from them! I also, almost get the full published 24Mbps.

[Andrew 63]

BE user

I'm a be user with sky telly, at least my internet is always 24mbps without a hitch, filtering, shaping or capping.

Sky's gonna do another Car Phone Warehouse.

[Andy Tunnah]

a love letter

did nobody read it properly ? it states 2 packages

i have sky and absolutely adore them, if they asked i would probably let em take my brown cherry for the service i get - i'm connected at 14.4mbit, and my downloads are never slow, i regularly download 2tb+ a month..oo i'm all tingly

[F'tangF'tang]

Not 2 Unlimited

Although Sky broadband is still relatively cheap, it peeesed me off when they changed the monthly download limit from 40GB to 10GB.

The official explanation of: "To bring the usage allowance on our Sky Broadband Everyday service in line with what the majority of our customers actually use, we’re reducing the monthly Usage Cap from 40GB to 10GB." is such a load of poo.

Only a matter of time before they change the T's and C's on these new packages once you've been with them long enough.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah...2 Unlimited!

All together now..."Techno! Techno! Techno! Techno!"...dun dun dun dunna nah nah, "There's no limits!".,..oh shoot yes there is...2GB!

[Anonymous Coward]

Confusion over capped and uncapped

I think the confusion arises not because of the packages but because the article, especially that paragraph, is written so badly. Frankly it's a fucking train wreck. Does the author also translate assembly instructions into English for toys imported from China?

And one more thing; never start a sentence with 'and'.

[Stiggy]

I can talk proper, me

Reminds me of something my English language teacher once said to me:

"Never start a sentence with a conjunction. Until you understand why you shouldn't."

[david wilson]

Hmmm.

>>"Sky "maintains its commitment to being the only major ISP not to... ‘traffic shape’ speeds on any of its network products, giving its customers consistent, reliable broadband anytime of day", it said."

Would that be 'consistent' in the sense of 'depends on how loads of other people are using *their* net connection'?

[blackworx]

Rewrite the article Reg

Going by the rest of the comments I'm not the only one who had to re-read the first couple of paragraphs to grok that you're talking about two different packages (despite the headline only mentioning one).

[steve 9]

the catch is.

with the DEB bill in action there's nothing you can use it on legally.

[Andy Tunnah]

o reginald, i disagree!

*hugs the creator of AUTH TLS*

[Florence]

Truly unlimited

Should have added to my previous post, but AFAIK their Max package has never had hidden caps or traffic shaping etc. Until Dec. last year they didn't even bother checking whether users on the Mid package exceeded their 40GB (and then 10GB) allowance. They only started to check so they would move users onto the Max package.

I don't like Sky's tactics, or the prices of the TV packages (that's the catch, no TV: no broadband), but their broadband service is good indeed.

[Anonymous Coward]

So Free for ALL sky customers? hmmmm

Only if your on sky's network then

I meet all the criteria for the packages Sky Talk, Sky TV.

So i'll have my unlimited unrestricted Broadband Please

Oh hold on I'm not on sky network, therefore we will charge you twice as much for a lesser restricted product with issues at peak times.

hmmmmmmmmmm

[rastansaga]

Remembering the 90's

Those rightfully feeling restricted by a 2GB a month broadband limit might want to consider going 'retro', and returning to a 56kbit modem dialup running off an 0800 number. AOL offer this for £4.99 (for first 3 months) with absolutely no traffic shaping, limits or restrictions - and you could reasonably grab ~14GB a month if you keep it running 24/7

[elpee]

Don't they already do the uncapped??

I'm pretty sure I've been on the unlimited for the last 18 months, download shitloads & always connect at 15Mb/s & last time I spoke to them I'm moving to their 20Mb/s network soon. I guess I'll have to ring them about the price drop (I pay a tenner)

Oh, and the number of people who can't read properly is astounding!

[Florence]

Not very surprising

First thing: the bundling with Sky Talk (which includes free Sky Talk Freetime) is nothing new.

As for the free package, it was always about very limited use, so speed doesn't make much difference. Probably easier for them to not have to deal with different speed caps?

Basically they are getting rid of their £5 Mid package - which they looked like they wanted to do since last year, when they upgraded speeds from up to 8 Meg to up to 10 Meg - but reduced the allowance to 10GB a month down from 40GB. If you check the skyuser forums you'll see quite a few people decided to move to O2 or Be then!

They started monitoring usage in Dec. and after 2 months exceeding 10GB they migrate users onto the £10 max/unlimited up to 20 Meg. This has also coincided with a promotion for 6 months free Max broadband (new 12mth contract) - so either Mid users moved to 6 months free Max broadband after receiving emails saying they are close to exceeding 10GB for a 2nd month, or they got moved to Max automatically but had to pay a tenner for it.

[Andy Tunnah]

measurements

sorry to double post but why is everyone so obsessed with working it all out as a percentage of something else ?

none of us would get a 2gb limit because we know whats out there and spend more of our time finding stuff rather than clicking links in emails

20mbit (or whatever) with a 2gb limit is excellent for the none-computer savvy home user who has no concept of internet slowdown (who here hasn't been asked to fix the computer because a website loads slow?) because at the end of the day all mine yours and everyone else's mum wants is the latest facebook pics to load instantly so she doesn't panic and wonder why shes got half a face

[Anonymous Coward]

I got this already?

We were on Sky broadband max - they put the price up to £15 not long ago. That was definitely unlimited - I pushed 300GB through it once!! Just checked the bill, and we are apparently now on Unlimited, still at £15. I wish we got 20Mbps though - usually we get about 5Mbps!

[Anonymous Coward]

2p

I have to say, I used my neighbors open wifi connection for a while. They were on an unlimited sky plan and I have to say that the speed of their network was light speeds ahead of our crappy BT broadband. Nonetheless, i've also had 'BE' 24mbit unlimited DSL before, which was excellent and most likely cheaper than sky.

[kevin king]

UK vs Europe

Dear UK ISP's this is what avg internet speeds look like in the rest of Europe. For 30 euros a month with TV package. Pull your fingers out http://bit.ly/bAkHmm

[DEAD4EVER]

sky 20mb unlimited

ive been with sky for about a year now after moving away from bt due to high costs and also been capped at certain times of the days and slow speed paying for 8mb broadband but paying over 20 pound a month which is crazy. i have to say i have had no problems with sky no letters of piracy problems or capping or slowing down speeds. everyone says they hate sky and are disapointed with speeds thats your opinion but for me im a happy sky customer as far as im concerned. il be with sky a good while longer unless they start capping or anything at all but i havent noticed any capping. the only thing i wish sky done was got a better router with gigabit lans that would of helped and also they should allow you to use your own router but they dont allow it in there t&c.

[Anonymous Coward]

BE and O2

Last time I checked BE had been purchased by O2 - they are one and the same - just different marketing names!

[Oz]

20Mb? How?

The Unlimited package is only £7.50 as a promo I believe, and as many others posters have already stated, 20Mb is great if you can get it. I get 4Mb tops - consistently.

[Mark Aggleton]

Unbundled

No small print about unbundled? I'll still be only offered Sky Broadband connect at £17/month. Oh well.

[Patrick 17]

O2

O2 only traffic shape their non-LLU customers - ie. those on BT exchanges that don't have the O2/Be equipment installed. Their account package is known as "O2 Access".

You can check whether an exchange is LLU for O2/Be here:

http://www.samknows.com/broadband/search.php?page=availability-exchange-search

[Anonymous Coward]

Shame

Sky's broadband service is fine, but the tech support sucks. So it's great until something goes wrong then you're on your own for all the use their helpdesk is. Basically they seem to be programmed to tell you that the fault lies with your equipment whatever the symptoms. My neighbours have Sky broadband and even when Sky were told their were three other Sky users in the village who couldn't connect the helpdesk still told my neighbour that the fault was on her PC. Epic fail.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not unlimited

And downloads are capped at 2GB a month....

So hardly fricking un-limited is it!

[Andrew James]

erm

My understanding was the free to all sky tv/phone customers is restricted.

The £7.50 per month broadband deal is unrestricted.

[Hoe]

Limited!

Sorry how is 2Gb per month unlimited.

Anyway Virgin media do not cap, shape or subject you to a fair usage policy on their max fibre lines.

Yes that is 50Mb truly unlimited!