back to article Sky confirms UK Online closure

Sky has confirmed it will completely shut down UK Online, its second string ISP brand, in January. The expected move follows the sale of Easynet, which originally bought UK Online to sell consumer access via its well-regarded network. A Sky spokesman said: "Since 2005 Sky has operated two residential broadband services, Sky …

COMMENTS

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  1. Nigel Brown
    Pint

    Sad to see them go

    Apart from Nildram, UKO were the best provider I ever had. The only reason I left them was due to the inadequate cap (for my needs) on their service. For speed and reliability they were first rate, but since Sky got their claws into them I daresay it's degraded somewhat.

  2. Ed 16

    Another reason to dislike Sky

    I had the 24mb llu service (16-19 due to my distance from exchange). I can honestly say its the best service I had from a uk provider. Apart from a couple of scheduled outages (at 2-3am so I'll forgive them) and some router issues the service didnt hiccough even under high load (I develop web application service from home and often have to pull down little ditties like windows 7 from MSDN)

    The technical support was uk based and first-rate every time unlike the medical waste that was Demon internet technical support by the time I left them in 2009.

    Sad, very sad, to see a quality service go and fall to the lowest common denominator / worst service for highest cost Sky empire. The staff were even honest enough to tell me that they wouldnt suggest reproviding when I moved recently in order to save me hassle changing over in the new place, first class support to the last.

    May I suggest for anyone trying to decide on Skys offer who doesnt want to line their pockets more, or register an Infinitesimal sign of disapproval, picks Be Broadband (if the LLU service is available in your area). Their support is yet to be proven but, so far, the connection seems stable and fast.

    Bye bye UK Online we'll miss you...

    1. candtalan
      Pint

      Great minds thinking alike?

      @Ed 16

      Although I am still a UKOnline customer (for a few more days yet) I was fascinated to see that you used to use Demon, as I did. Then I moved to UKOnline too. And, hey! I have just signed up with Be! I am a relatively low throughput user, and my ISP costs seem to be reducing not increasing.

  3. mrweekender
    Flame

    I rather hang...

    ...my balls in molten lava than use Sky for my broadband provider!

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Very sorry

    you would have to be fucking insane to believe that Sky have done this to "best serve" their customers.

    I can see only one gainer out of this.

  5. Fizzle
    Megaphone

    A bit of balance!

    Whilst I hate evil megalomaniacal firms as much as the next person, I have to say that there are 3 reasons why I recommend Sky - at least for me.

    1. I live in an area of piss-poor TV reception, but with my SKY box I get perfect pictures everytime and a built-in record facility to save faffing around with video etc (yes, I have still got a video).

    2. SKY broadband has proven to be ultra-reliable and considtent with good customer support (actually I only used it once and the girl at the other end knew what she was talking about)

    3. The SKY + Phone package costs peanuts compared to some

    4. The unlimited broadband option IS truly unlimited (handy for those pesky Linux distros)

    Yes I know that's 4 but who's counting?

    So say what you will about Murdoch - his firm delivers and, without it, I'd be kaboozled!

    Just my tuppen'orth.

    1. Bill Cumming
      Dead Vulture

      @Fizzle

      SKY Broadband and calls have nothing to do with SKYBroadband.

      Looks like you were one of the lucky few that actually got about the only person at SKY Broadband Support that knew what they talk about!

      But UKOnline's support started at Teir 2 (Teir 1 are general "support script readers") and who could actually tweek the ADSL setting while you were on the line with them,

      If you say; "I want to turn interleveing off on my line" to a SKY Broadband Support they would probably not know what you're talking about.

      Also looks like most of UKO's support team will not go over to SKY's Support (some are based in the same building), I think that's by choice!

      I'm sorry to see it go! Never had a major problem with them...

      I'm off to greener pastures!

    2. candtalan
      Unhappy

      There is always a compelling reason -

      @Fizzle

      ...to give up your freedom

      :-(

  6. Florence

    Do I read this right: Sky BB and Sky Talk without Sky TV?

    If that's really the case then that is good news, and I think I'll be going FreeSat next year! And I thought that would have been the catch, but instead that sounds like good news for Sky customers.

    I've had one poor experience with Sky BB support in the past , but no problem at all this year. I was actually surprised that a L1 tech was able to reset my sync speed, so issue was sorted in 5 min eg. The Easynet network was one of the reasons I went with Sky, and indeed their broadband service has been very good, problems very few and far between.

    Reliable network and now very competent tech support. If you want a better service, imo, you have to go separate and pay more, and I know I certainly wouldn't get a bundle from BT, Talk Talk or Orange.

  7. NoOnions
    Thumb Up

    Sky BB - my experience

    Dear All,

    I know, it's Sky - therefore it must be crap.

    But it is not - I left Nildram for Sky a few years ago, as Sky was much cheaper. Not only that, I doubled my download speed.

    The only outage I've had was when a remote firmware update broke my router. I called Sky, on a Sunday, and a new router was delivered on Tuesday.

    "If you say; "I want to turn interleveing off on my line" to a SKY Broadband Support they would probably not know what you're talking about." - 1st line support won't, but if you ask to speak to 3rd line support they can and will.

    All I can say is that Sky BB has been great for me so far.

    NoOnions

  8. Turbojerry

    Sad indead

    I've been with UK Online for a few years, and they have been excellent, I won't be moving to Sky, obviously, as I can't get Be where I am the only choice will be to move as they are the only decent equivalent if I stay in Britain. So much for all the OFCOM BS about getting better broadband services in this country, perhaps the Coalition might do us all a favour and give them a poke or better yet take the network away from BT altogether and let a thousand LLU services bloom.

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