Are sky offering G-fast?

[Kieran821]

Hi,

are sky offering G-fast broadband, not Gigafast as I don't have FTTP where I live but I do have G-fast. I know I have G-fast as I work for openreach and was on the intitial trial before it was fully released. I can switch to talk talk and get G-fast but not with sky for some reason. My contract it up in a couple of months and FTTP won't be where I live for at least a year so if sky cannot offer me better speeds then I may reluctantly have to change provider. On the internet I see that I could get 145mbps when I used my neighbours flat number instead of mine as when I use mine it just links to my account. But on mine it just says I'm on the fastest available which is strange as I live in a flat with 1 feed. I tried calling to confirm but don't think the lady I spoke to knew the difference between G-fast and gigafast. Any help appreciated 

[TimmyBGood]

@Kieran821 

Sky has previously supplied Ultrafast 1 (150Mbs) over G.fast in exchange areas where the appropriate Openreach infrastructure has been deployed, but not the 300Mbs version. Given that G.fast is being deprecated in favour of FTTP I guess it's possible they aren't doing so now.

[Kieran821]

Thanks for the reply, it's a shame as flats with internal distribution points don't get FTTP till around a year after fibre is in the rest of the area. On comparison sites it shows that I can get it, but as soon as I sign into sky it says I can't. Very strange but if I can't I'll be switching 

[prescol]

I don't know that it's gonna be a help, but I've just signed up to Sky from Talk Talk, annoying G.fast as I would have it installed by an openreached. And yes, Sky are providing G.fast as I have another callout for open Reach to make sure it's all up and running..

Best to call at the Call Centre as they have access to more information than the online portals.

[Elbitrevnoc]

I too am expecting an Open Reach engineer to instal and set me up for Ultrafast.. I'm an existing customer, upgrading from a previous package and was upsold to Ultrafast when I originally spoke to Sky a couple of weeks back. I was a doubtful as to how this could work, because I know I don't have FTTP in my area, but Sky assure me that the promised Ultrafst speeds are available via G.Fast which is apparantly available here.

I hope so!

[Elbitrevnoc]

Just thought I'd post a quick follow-up for anyone interested. My G.Fast connection went live yesterday and after, initially, being underwhelmed by it (Openreach engineer couldnt get more than 35MBps to start with), it seemed to sort itself out and by the time the engineer left, I was getting around 120MBPS. A day later that seems pretty constant.

On the downside, I'm not convinced that the wifi power of the router is significantly better than the old one. It is better, but I still see quite a drop-off in speed as I move further away from the router. Having said that, the higher starting speed does make this less of an issue than it was before. 

Time will tell how this works - it took me a while yesterday to get everthing hooked back up to the network, so I havent had any chance to really stress test it yet. One thing I will try is to temporarily kill the separate Unifi Access Point I set up and connect everything directly to the SKY SSID. I originally set this up, because I found that the old router couldnt cope with much more than the SKY Q system - once we started using ipads/ laptops/ALexa, etc., we'd start getting blue screens, with Q boxes dropping connection. That solution did cure it, but I want to see if the new router and faster speed will now cope with this.

If all goes well I may yet add booster point/s, to boost th signal in the farther parts of the house, but lets see how we go first!

By the way, the engineer from Openreach, was brilliant. Really helpful and keen to make sure that all was ok before he left me. He made a couple of calls to Sky whilst sorting the initial speed problem (second time because he wasnt impressed with the first person he'd spoken to!) and also changed the wiring coming in the outside of the house to make sure it wasn't too old/tarnished (it was). 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Elbitrevnoc wrote:

 and also changed the wiring coming in the outside of the house to make sure it wasn't too old/tarnished (it was). 

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That's another reason why G.fast won't be rolled out into any more geographical locations: it's not particularly efficient to have Openreach personnel renew copper wiring to get 100Mbs when the same individual effort could provision (multi) gigabit FTTP to an address.

[Elbitrevnoc]

You're right of course, and I hope I'll have access to FTTP by the time this 18 month deal ends, although it would be more accurate of me to say that he only changed the corroded connector blocks rather than the actual wiring. 

[Kieran821]

Gfast does not need to have copper wires renewed but it needs to be close to the cabinet, also it's not 100mbps the max capacity of Gfast is 330mbps. It isn't being rolled out to new locations because they are now going with a full fibre roll out instead. My original question was why I couldn't get it with sky when I can with other providers when I can get it where I live however I cannot get full fibre yet. Anyway I have since changed to talk talk and I'm on gfast

[TimmyBGood]

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@Kieran821 wrote:

Gfast does not need to have copper wires renewed but it needs to be close to the cabinet, also it's not 100mbps 

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100Mbs is the 'guaranteed minimum' which Sky offers on their 'up to' 150Mbs G.fast 1 product: they do not resell G.fast 2.  Openreach attends each address to ensure this minimum speed can be delivered and carries out remediation work as required.

[Elbitrevnoc]

Hi Kieran, I just re-read your initial post and I had a similar frustration. The Sky online checker is absolutely useless if you're an existing customer, as it won't tell you what the best package could be. I too was told I was already on the best deal.

When I first spoke to Sky I was told the same, but I then called back and spoke to a different operator that said I could get Ultrafast, although he was giving the impression it was a FTTP deal, which I knew wasn't possible. It was only on a third call to check that I wasn't paying for something I couldn't get that I spoke to someone who understood the difference and explained that it was a G.Fast arrangement, given my short distance from cabinet, etc.

Fibre is currently being installed in my area for providers such as Talk Talk and Vodafone, so I hope availability will be good by the time my new contract expires. If G.Fast delivers the improved speeds I've seen over the last 24-hrs, I'll be happy enough with that for now.

[Kieran821]

I am an existing customer, I knew it was available because I was on the initial trial for it so I know it's available but both calling and on the sky app they said it wasn't. Very frustrating but I have changed supplier and I'm getting double the speed cheaper compared to SKY.

also if openreach are putting fibre in your area  then you will be able to get it so that's a plus 😊