h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

When I got a letter from Sky yesterday, offering me their top broadband service for ten UK pounds per month. it occurred to me that my Pipex offering is a bit pricy at 25 pounds! Time to change, I think.

I download music, but not videos and the like, so I'm not a 'super-user'. Do all broadband vendors now operate a 'fair usage policy', and are they all as reticent as Sky about explaining what the limits on their 'unlimited' service are?

Is the best deal just the cheapest one, or is there more to it than that?

Sorry if this is the wrong forum for a question like this. I did look (briefly) for the AskH2g2AboutBroadband page, but couldn't find it.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Check the usage limit. If you do anything more demanding that simple web-browsing, you'll need at least a 5GB limit, probably closer to 10 or 15.

B

Would things like Skype phoning affect the usage limit significantly?

Very significantly if you use it a lot.

I think that pipex are oging to get the heave ho from me in all. Just cannot match the offer sky have just made.

I am a heavy user mind 70-100 gig a month so I do wonder what the fair usage policy entails. Having said that every ISP apart from telewest say they have a fair usage policy including pipex and they have never got funny with me.

I signed up for Talktalk recently. £21.99 per month. That includes your BT line rental, free local, national and international calls, and up to 8meg broadband with a 20gb download limit. Can't see myself needing more than 20gb.

What is the Sky deal? I probably wouldn't be tempted though, as Sky is 500 channels of rubbish!

I saw that Sky thingy and thought about it, but it says you have to have a BT line, my line is through telewest, but we have Sky and they use the telewest line to update the Sky digibox.

I will ring them and get some more info, i have a dial-up service from telewest for the web as they dont do digital in my area yet

Is the Sky connection through their satelite or through your phoneline? (I'm guessing the latter if they require a BT line). If its through satelite, be aware you'll get a minimum latency of a few tenths of a second because of the time it takes the signal to get to the satelight and back.

I am for sure no techie person, the connection goes from dish to digibox for the tv picture, plus there is also a telephone line going from phone socket to box as well, which always has to be connected so they can update the system at certain times, if i disconnect phone line from box i still get sky tv.

So not sure why with this new sky internet service i have to have a bt line connection, why cant they just use my exsisting phone connection

Thanks for the replies, people! What's the general consensus, then? Should I go with Sky, or does someone else offer a 'better' service?

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

I'm looking at getting broadband too. I've read this thread and I don't feel I have enough information to decide.

There's bound to be some useful comparison websites out there, if they're up to date that is.

From: http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article1185343.ece


SKY: Free 2Mbps broadband for TV subscribers. Speeds up to 16Mbps, with no usage limitations, for £10 a month. One-year contract, free router and security products. Activation fee of £40 on the free service, professional installation will cost £50.

BT: Tariffs from £17.99-£26.99 a month. Nationwide coverage. No security or activation charge.

CARPHONE WAREHOUSE: Free 8Mpbs broadband with £20.99-a-month voice calls package on an 18-month contract. Activation fee £29.99.

NTL: 12-month contract for £17.99-£34.99 a month. Basic package is 1Mbps. No activation fee, no security included.

Sky tell me the Max service, which you describe, has free installation and no activation fee. Hmmm.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Ok, I've done a little research:
Sky broadband is an ADSL connection coming through your phoneline. It is not a satelite connection. Be glad of this .

To get Sky broadband, you need to get or be getting Sky television as well. There is no stand alone package.

The advertised 16Mb/s speed will probably not be widely available. This is the same with all ADSL connections. The BT Wholesale postcode checker http://62.172.198.79/broadband1/checker/agreement.asp should tell you what speeds you can expect.

Nonetheless, at £10 a month sans usage limits, it looks like BSkyB is about to Win The Internet. Let's hope they have the infrastructure to cope.

Anyone know how to check what speed your broadband is running at?

If you hover your mouse over the icon in the bottom-left corner of the screen (I'm sure there's a technical term for this) it should tell you the current connection speed. I'm not sure how interactive this is - whether or how frequently it updates after initial connection.

Mine says 2272000 bps - which means (I think) 2 Megabytes per second.

I signed up to 1 MB/s when I first bought it a year or so ago, and got a free upgrade. But then, my puter is so old it runs on steam and valves, so I doubt upgrading the connection speed would have any noticeable effect.

RF

Think that measurement is simply what your modem is telling your computer. Lower case 'b' is bits, where 8b = 1B (8 bits is 1 byte).

An internet connection is usually one of the slowest things about a computer, whether you notice the difference most likely depends on what you're using it for rather than how up to date your computer is.

There are plenty of online measuring services. Search for 'broadband speed test'.