topic Sky Intentionally Throttling Internet 7pm-9pm in Broadband

Sky Intentionally Throttling Internet 7pm-9pm

MarinersAve — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 19:32:39 GMT

I'm based in Dublin and have noticed the past week my speed being reduced in the evenings to unusable levels.

I'm getting around 600mb in the day time and then getting speeds around 2-5mb from about 7-9pm each night.

Has anyone else noticed this?

And have any ideas what can be done?

Re: Sky Intentionally Throttling Internet 7pm-9pm

GD1 — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 19:34:46 GMT

@MarinersAve How are you measuring the speeds? Over wifi or ethernet?

Re: Sky Intentionally Throttling Internet 7pm-9pm

SeanD4 — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 20:07:08 GMT

This exact thing has been happening to me from like 7/8pm onwards, very noticeable when watching streams or gaming. It has only been happening the last 4/5 days for me. It needs to be fixed asap

Re: Sky Intentionally Throttling Internet 7pm-9pm

SeanD4 — Sun, 05 Jan 2025 21:20:34 GMT

Also experiencing the same thing our near Rush area in Dublin. Happens in the evenings usually. Makes it impossible to stream or game.

Re: Sky Intentionally Throttling Internet 7pm-9pm

Chrisee — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 07:50:45 GMT

@SeanD4 & @MarinersAve apart from being quite technically difficult for an isp to throttle speeds there is no evidence Sky do - not sure of Ireland but in the UK the various speed test would quickly notice any such activity and it would be big news - as there is no gain to them by doing so.

However there are several other causes of speed issues. The first is contention which is caused by the link to the exchange being shared by multiple customers all of whom are using the capacity while actually pretty rare it is possible on full fibre connections as in the most common full fibre system (GPON) up to 32 customers share 2.48Gb/s download from the exchange. In Ireland Sky use multiple network providers including EIR, Virgin Media and SIRO these issues are local.

However by far the most common issue is wifi signal level in the customer's home being affected by factors like interference from neighbours' networks which is often worse during peak times. Improving WiFi signal levels either by being closer tomthe hub or by getting additional equipment.

Re: Sky Intentionally Throttling Internet 7pm-9pm

SeanD4 — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 21:09:48 GMT

I've never had issues before, the past week gaming is impossible, especially noticeable in the evenings. Lag spikes are ridiculous.

Re: Sky Intentionally Throttling Internet 7pm-9pm

Chrisee — Tue, 07 Jan 2025 07:13:06 GMT

@SeanD4 call Sky Ireland and report the issue to see what they say.