SAYNOTO0870.COM - Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage

4PetesSake

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Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage
Feb 16^th, 2007 at 1:29am

Sky recently informed us that our exchange now has LLU and as a Sky TV Customer we can have their 2 mbps Broadband free of charge or their 8mbps broadband for £5.00 per month. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has tried either of these Sky Broadband package and whether you would recommend them, or not.

We currently have 2 mbps broadband with NTL/Virgin and pay £10 per month. (Reduced from £18 because we threatened to leave for Sky) Line Rental with BT - £11 and Skytalk -£5. Total £26.00

If we leave NTL/Virgin we will save the £10 we currently pay to NTL/Virgin and our monthly costs for Line Rental/Broadband and phone will be £16 (£11 to BT for line rental, £5 for Skytalk - Unlimited Geo Calls and Free 2 mbps Broadband)

Alternatively we could cancel our BT Line Rental and Skytalk saving us £16 and Remain with NTL/Virgin for Cable Broadband and subscribe to Vonage for £7.99 a month for our unlimited Geo VOIP Calls. Total cost £17.99 (providing I can keep getting the £10 reduced cost broadband).

Whichever I do I am going to save money, either £8.01 or £10.00, but which is the better option????????

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« Last Edit: Feb 16^th, 2007 at 1:31am by 4PetesSake »

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trubster

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Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage
Reply #1 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 2:00am

4PetesSake wrote on Feb 16^th, 2007 at 1:29am:

Sky recently informed us that our exchange now has LLU and as a Sky TV Customer we can have their 2 mbps Broadband free of charge or their 8mbps broadband for £5.00 per month. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has tried either of these Sky Broadband package and whether you would recommend them, or not.

We currently have 2 mbps broadband with NTL/Virgin and pay £10 per month. (Reduced from £18 because we threatened to leave for Sky) Line Rental with BT - £11 and Skytalk -£5. Total £26.00

If we leave NTL/Virgin we will save the £10 we currently pay to NTL/Virgin and our monthly costs for Line Rental/Broadband and phone will be £16 (£11 to BT for line rental, £5 for Skytalk - Unlimited Geo Calls and Free 2 mbps Broadband)

Alternatively we could cancel our BT Line Rental and Skytalk saving us £16 and Remain with NTL/Virgin for Cable Broadband and subscribe to Vonage for £7.99 a month for our unlimited Geo VOIP Calls. Total cost £17.99 (providing I can keep getting the £10 reduced cost broadband).

Whichever I do I am going to save money, either £8.01 or £10.00, but which is the better option????????

DONT LEAVE TELEWEST!!!

lol, I would personally recommend staying with TW/VM, I say that because PTSN (BT) lines are 150 years old and ADSL is too much for it in most areas, with ADSL your connection is seriously affected by other users and traffic going through the exchange, OTOH TW/VM is Fibre Optic Cables and 100% digital to the exchange and a cable to the house, If you have 2meg broadband, you will get 2 meg broadband... I have 10 Meg and I always hit the full 10 meg on usenext.

I used to have ADSL until the connection was dropping for hours at a time and we just went for cable, I can not fault it at all, and as they say, if it is not broke, DONT FIX IT!!!

Also, Sky charge you a one off activation fee of £40 for there "FREE" Broadband or £20 for the 8meg (Prob max of 3.4mbps)

Personal Recommendation:

Cancel BT Line: £11 Per Month Saved
Cancel SKYTalk: £5 Per Month Saved
Cancel SKY TV: £xx Per Month Saved (Optional)
Get Starter TV from Telewest: FREE
Get Vonage: £7.99 Per Month +20.00 for box

When you cancel sky, you will have your sky box still and you will still have access to over 100 free channels (See Freesat from sky) and Telewest free TV to existing customers (or at least did)

Really it depends if it is worth paying what you do for sky, and if you threaten to cancel, they normally throw a load of stupid offers your way too :-D

Hope this helps you.

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trubster Full Member Offline 10 Meg Broadband Rocks... Posts: 147 Sheffield Gender:	Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage Reply #2 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 2:02am sorry, scratch what i said about telewest TV, it is only valid for free when taken with phone line...
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4PetesSake Junior Member Offline Why Pay More? Posts: 98 Northamptonshire Gender:	Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage Reply #3 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 2:44am That was very informative, thanks for the recommendations.
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trubster Full Member Offline 10 Meg Broadband Rocks... Posts: 147 Sheffield Gender:	Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage Reply #4 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 3:03am Anytime matey, I guess several other members will have other ideas, best to wait for more than 1 persons opinion, but I will not believe anyone who says PTSN is anywhere as fast OR reliable as cable. Quote: Cable, If you can, You should!
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NGMsGhost

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Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage
Reply #5 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 10:25am

trubster wrote on Feb 16^th, 2007 at 2:00am:

lol, I would personally recommend staying with TW/VM, I say that because PTSN (BT) lines are 150 years old and ADSL is too much for it in most areas, with ADSL your connection is seriously affected by other users and traffic going through the exchange, OTOH TW/VM is Fibre Optic Cables and 100% digital to the exchange and a cable to the house, If you have 2meg broadband, you will get 2 meg broadband... I have 10 Meg and I always hit the full 10 meg on usenext.

Phone service only actually arrived in most UK households between the 1930s and 1960s and the network and their exchange structure mainly dates from the 1920s to 1950s and not quite 150 years ago. The phone was only invented just over 100 years ago.

Most of the cabling is renewed ever 30 years or so as it eventually breaks down and the current BT System X and System Y exchange equipment dates from early 1980s but the DSLAMs that support broadband are all under 7 years old.

I have ADSL Max broadband with a good provider (www.newnet.co.uk) and get no issues with disconnections, drop outs or poor speeds. Its only if you go for TalkTalk, Tiscali, AOL etc that you get a rubbish service.

see www.dslzoneuk.net for more info on different ADSL providers.

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trubster

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Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage
Reply #6 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 10:30am

Sure NGM, but you can not compare ADSL with Cable, Cable is a far more faster and reliable system than PTSN.

through 1 small coax cable I have 4 TV Signals (1xTV Box + 1 PVR with 3 tuners), 10 Meg Broadband and a phoneline... could you do that with a PTSN line without the wooded shed burning down (or at least thats what my old local exchange was in)

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NGMsGhost

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Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage
Reply #7 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 10:42am

trubster wrote on Feb 16^th, 2007 at 10:30am:

Sure NGM, but you can not compare ADSL with Cable, Cable is a far more faster and reliable system than PTSN.

through 1 small coax cable I have 4 TV Signals (1xTV Box + 1 PVR with 3 tuners), 10 Meg Broadband and a phoneline... could you do that with a PTSN line without the wooded shed burning down (or at least thats what my old local exchange was in)

If its so advanced it seems strange they don't offer 100Mbps broadband then rather than something only marginally ahead of ADSL Max.

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trubster Full Member Offline 10 Meg Broadband Rocks... Posts: 147 Sheffield Gender:	Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage Reply #8 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 10:45am They can do it, there is a trial taking place right now for it (or has been done recently) http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/236/ntl-in-secret-100mbps-trials ;
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NGMsGhost

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Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage
Reply #9 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 10:47am

trubster wrote on Feb 16^th, 2007 at 10:45am:

They can do it, there is a trial taking place right now for it (or has been done recently)

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/236/ntl-in-secret-100mbps-trials ; Cool

But then so can BT with their old copper wires to the home as long as they roll out Fibre to the Cabinet. Wink

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trubster Full Member Offline 10 Meg Broadband Rocks... Posts: 147 Sheffield Gender:	Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage Reply #10 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 10:52am Oh yeah, i can see a big fat guy diggin up the road to put the cables in now...... oh no, he is fixin a gas leak...
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NGMsGhost

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Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage
Reply #11 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 11:17am

trubster wrote on Feb 16^th, 2007 at 10:52am:

Oh yeah, i can see a big fat guy diggin up the road to put the cables in now......

They just dug up the road to put in fibre optic main cables to load of village exchanges that didn't have them so they could be be enabled for broadband.

If they don't dig up the road they risk being wiped out by equal speeds from WiMax broadband without having to pay BT line rental.

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trubster

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Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage
Reply #12 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 1:04pm

NGMsGhost wrote on Feb 16^th, 2007 at 11:17am:

trubster wrote on Feb 16^th, 2007 at 10:52am:

Oh yeah, i can see a big fat guy diggin up the road to put the cables in now......

If they don't dig up the road they risk being wiped out by equal speeds from WiMax broadband without having to pay BT line rental.

Talking of wimax, there is a community wide free broadband service in our area, many people use it, and all because BT rushed the broadband switch on in this area and the cables are not suitable

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NGMsGhost

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Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage
Reply #13 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 2:16pm

trubster wrote on Feb 16^th, 2007 at 1:04pm:

Talking of wimax, there is a community wide free broadband service in our area, many people use it, and all because BT rushed the broadband switch on in this area and the cables are not suitable

You mean the BT exchange has a large amount of TPON cabling in your area and so requires a copper overlay in order to support ADSL at the affected addresses?

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« Last Edit: Feb 16^th, 2007 at 2:16pm by NGMsGhost »

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4PetesSake

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Re: Sky Broadband & Skytalk or Cable and Vonage
Reply #14 - Feb 16^th, 2007 at 2:38pm

You guys are baffling me with some of these technical terms. :questionI always thought PSTN was an abreviation for Police Station, I'm guessing that Wimax is something to do with WIFI at Maximum capability and I wouldn't really want to guess what TPON might be (Clearly its nothing to do with the American for a full stop). Shocked

I'm probably going to stay with NTL/Virgin for the time being but would still be interested in hearing a review from anyone who has tried Sky Broadband.

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