Sky Broadband vs O2 Broadband

[daneoni]

So i've now decided to leave Tiscali having been procrastinating the decision for a while. I was thinking of joining O2's 20mb broadband (already placed an order but can still cancel) and planned on getting Sky TV as a discrete package later on

However my sister says i should just get the TV/Broadband package. The thing is Sky tops out at 16mb and i'm not sure how much of that i'll get. O2 promised to get me at least real world 19/20mb/s and 22mb/s theoretical according to computer's estimations because they use a different technology for their broadband plus it'll only cost me 5 pounds more compared to the 10 pounds 16mb sky package thanks to subscriber discount

I also heard sky charges for support calls whilst O2 give free customer support 24/7

Anyhue i wanted to ask which you guys think i should go with? for those that have experience of both providers

 

[Shadow]

My uncle has Sky broadband and he says it drops out all the time and he wants to cancel it. We were going to go with it until dad read the reviews about it, they say its crap. However, I have friends with it and they say its fine. If it was me, I'd go with O2.

 

[JD92]

So i've now decided to leave Tiscali having been procrastinating the decision for a while. I was thinking of joining O2's 20mb broadband (already placed an order but can still cancel) and planned on getting Sky TV as a discrete package later on

However my sister says i should just get the TV/Broadband package. The thing is Sky tops out at 16mb and i'm not sure how much of that i'll get. O2 promised to get me at least real world 19/20mb/s and 22mb/s theoretical according to computer's estimations because they use a different technology for their broadband plus it'll only cost me 5 pounds compared to the 10 pounds 16mb sky package thanks to subscriber discount

I also heard sky charges for support calls whilst O2 give free customer support 24/7

Anyhue i wanted to ask which you guys think i should go with? for those that have experience of both providers

I've never used Sky's broadband but I'm an O2 Broadband customer and I couldn't be happier! I'm on the 16mbps package and I get around 13mbps which is pretty kick ass. Customer service is excellent on O2, it's free and based in Glasgow.

The thing with Sky is I've been a Sky TV customer for like 6 years but I've begun to switch my TVs over to Freesat. I too was considering Sky Broadband, but I'm not sure what would have happened to my connection if I cancelled my TV package like I'm planning to do. Just something you might want to consider, incase you think someday you might cancel your Sky TV package.

Also, as for Sky and O2 using different technology, as far as I'm aware they both use ADSL2+, the only reason for Sky offering only up to 16mbps is because they just don't want to offer 24mbps, even though they probably could.

So, in conclusion I'd recommend O2. There's a reason that everyone on the internet seems to recommend O2 and Be* these days, it's because they're the best ISP out there currently

 

[Kardashian]

I've been with Sky for 14 months.

Until a week ago they were flawless.

I only get 1.5MB in my area, as I'm so far from the exchange.

However, last week, they capped my downspeed to 60KB.

Yes. KB.

My upload speed is still near 500KB, but download is basically snappy dial-up.

It's taken me 2 weeks of constant phoning to get them to sort it - and at first - they wouldn't even admit it. Until we threatened as customer of over 15 years, that we could immediately cancel our telephone and TV service with them (Over £130 a month for just those 2 services).

I've apparently got to wait 48 hours, which takes us to Monday with the weekend and all.

O2.

 

[daneoni]

Looks like 3 for 3 for O2.

60KB?!...thats just cruel

 

[ayzee]

Id say O2 would be more happy to please and would offer better customer service as their Mobile Phone customer service is top notch. I have Sky, and TBH I cant wait to get rid of it, I hardly watch it anymore but only keep it because my Girlfriend still watches it.
A combination of freesat and internet/DL shows would be more beneficial for me and cheaper!

 

[neiltc13]

Both O2 and Sky's faster and less expensive services have extremely limited availability. My town of 5000 people does not have access to any of them, and we are stuck with O2's (reasonably good) £22.50 per month up to 8mbit service.

 

[sreedy]

I've got the 'Free' Sky broadband and one the inital drop out stopped happening with the NetGear Wireless router all is good. My Dad switched recently and he got a different router and his has had no issues what-so-ever.

The only downside of the Sky is that they have locked the router our of port forwarding on 22 (SSH) which is a bit of a **** for me, I ended up changing which port SSH runs on my iMac so I can contact it on the move (I prefer cmd-line access to UI things like VNC or BackToMyMac).

 

[daneoni]

For those of you leaving sky i assume you watch sports so how will you get sports channels if you leave. Does Freesat offer sky sports and all?

 

[CBear]

For those of you leaving sky i assume you watch sports so how will you get sports channels if you leave. Does Freesat offer sky sports and all?

I believe you can just downgrade from the current package if you want to maintain the channels but drop the BB. To my knowledge Freesat doesn't do much in the way of sport at all, i'd advise setanta if you wanted to move away from Sky

 

[MattZani]

If i could get O2's service, believe me i would (A Town of 100,000 people, but with terrible internet, ahwell, Olympics will change that in 2012) but i wouldnt go with Sky as theyve been bad mouthed.

 

[meck]

recent switcher from Sky to O2 bband

Hi there - just a quick one from me.

Was actually a pretty happy Sky BB sub on the £16mb package, but after deciding to switch from Sky (no attempts to keep me - I was an original analogue customer and still have a BSB Squarial on the house - which made me even more determined!) went to O2 bband and freesat.

The customer service and rock solid 15ish Mb on the 16 mb O2 product is superb. Also find Back to My Mac and Slingbox work every time now which was not the case with the Sky product.

Only problem with O2 is the outbound mail server issue (lots of other threads) - only really a niggle if you have a laptop.

 

[daneoni]

Hi there - just a quick one from me.

Was actually a pretty happy Sky BB sub on the £16mb package, but after deciding to switch from Sky (no attempts to keep me - I was an original analogue customer and still have a BSB Squarial on the house - which made me even more determined!) went to O2 bband and freesat.

The customer service and rock solid 15ish Mb on the 16 mb O2 product is superb. Also find Back to My Mac and Slingbox work every time now which was not the case with the Sky product.

Only problem with O2 is the outbound mail server issue (lots of other threads) - only really a niggle if you have a laptop.

This is good to know...thanks

 

[omarjk]

Hi, this is a bit late but may help out others reading this in the future.

I changed to o2 recently. Now that the service has been up and running for a few days it has been close to perfect. No outages, fast d/l and u/l speeds, although I can echo outgoing mail server issues.

The phone line and broadband were down for two weeks between expected connection date and last week and suffice to say I will be negotiating a compensation package.

For those two weeks BT engineers on commission by o2 were running around like headless chickens in Baghdad trying to find out what they had wrong and if you encounter any similar problems PM me and I'll give you some suggestions to prompt the o2 advisers with. If they had identified my problem correctly in the first instance (different port mapping instructions in the hands of BT to o2) I would have been saved from taking out temporary measures to have a home internet connection.

In the end I had a subscription to an o2 mobile broadband package that I cancelled the moment my home connection was up and running. FYI I would not even recommend mobile broadband to someone with money to burn.