Be careful - expected download speeds are not what you will receive!

[MD38]

I recently upgraded to Sky Full Fibre Gigafast expecting significantly faster speeds, but I’ve discovered that the "normally available speeds" stated in my contract are not what I actually receive—and Sky's explanation for this has been frustratingly inconsistent.

What My Contract Stated

• Normally available download speeds: 780 - 930 Mbps
• Normally available upload speeds: 85 - 100 Mbps
• Guaranteed minimum download speed: 600 Mbps

What I’m Actually Getting

• According to the My Sky service checker, I am receiving the correct speeds to my router (640 - 710 Mbps).
• However, when testing with third-party speed checkers that measure actual Wi-Fi speeds to my devices, I am seeing much lower speeds—well under 500 Mbps in some cases (yes I have several devices connected, but this was checked when nobody else was using the internet in my home).

Sky's Response

When I raised this issue, Sky told me:

1. The advertised speeds (780 - 930 Mbps) are just general for the product, not specific to my area.
2. My actual speed is determined by my local network conditions, which are lower.
3. WiFi Max is not available for my fibre type, meaning I was given the 4.2 Hub instead of the WiFi Max Hub, which offers better WiFi performance.
4. Even if I had the WiFi Max Hub, Sky says WiFi wouldn’t reach 600 Mbps anyway.

At no point before signing up was I told that my expected speeds would actually be lower than what was stated in my contract or that WiFi Max wasn’t an option for my connection.

My Advice to Others

• Be aware that the speeds listed in your contract may not reflect what you will actually get.
• Ask Sky in advance if WiFi Max is available for your fibre type—because if it isn’t, you may struggle to reach the speeds you expect.
• If you rely on WiFi, ask Sky what realistic speeds you’ll get, not just the router speed.
• If your speeds aren’t as expected, push for a WiFi booster, a better hub, or compensation.

I don’t want to leave Sky - in fact I can't becasue their download speedchecker gives much faster download speed results than real world (e.g.fast.com where I am actually just getting 490Mb/s when nobody else is using the internet in the house and this is 2 feet away from my hub. I just want to get what I was sold. But after going back and forth with customer service, it’s clear that Sky is not upfront about what speeds you’ll actually receive.

Has anyone else experienced this? How did you resolve it?

[FLC]

I'm afraid that ISPs in general don't make it clear that the advantage of a gigabit connection is that multiple users can stream/game/video call without degredation. It was never intended to deliver gigabit speeds to every device, & certainly not over WiFi. But in the real world, unless you are regularly moving huge amounts of data internally, the vast majority of devices couldn't make use of the speed anyway.

Having said that, some of the things you've been told are odd. Where abouts are you that makes your fibre type unsuitable for Max?

Again as with all the budget ISPs, the staff you talk to will all too often produce inaccurate statements of "fact".

[MD38]

Thanks for your reply. I completely understand that gigabit connections are designed to handle multiple users rather than delivering 900 Mbps to a single device. However, the issue here is how Sky markets and explains this at the point of sale.

I was never told that WiFi Max wasn’t available for my fibre type, nor was it explained that my real-world WiFi speeds would be significantly lower than the 780 - 930 Mbps "normally available speeds" stated in my contract. If I had known this upfront, I could have made a more informed decision.

For context, when I was on a 150 Mbps copper connection, I was consistently getting 145 - 150 Mbps download speeds. Now that I’m on a 900 Mbps full fibre package, I’m seeing WiFi download speeds between 245 - 250 Mbps on my Xbox Series X—so not even double the speed, let alone the 6x increase I was expecting. This is with the same number of connected devices as before.

To make things even more confusing, some of my friends with similar fibre packages from different providers are seeing 750 Mbps download speeds on their Xbox Series X, so I’m not sure why my speeds are so much lower.

As for my fibre type, I’m still not entirely sure why WiFi Max isn’t available to me, as Sky hasn't given a clear answer beyond saying "it’s not available for this service."

I think ISPs need to be a lot more transparent about what customers should actually expect—especially when they see "900 Mbps" advertised but may end up getting less than 500 Mbps over WiFi.

Has anyone else had issues with WiFi Max availability on certain fibre setups, or slow speeds on gaming consoles?

[Khs1970]

I have exactly the same problem. I moved from Bt, on the promise of reliability but since moving sky is far worse than Bt ever was. Tv buffers and wifi is unreliable 

[FLC]

You could potentially be sharing a 2.5Gb connection with up to 31 other users, although I believe Openreach generally don't make more that 30 connections. So if everyone was simultaneously caning it, there would only be around 80Mb each. Of course this never happens & when conducting a speedtest via ethernet, you should be getting the speed to pay for at that moment in time.

I would suggest that you both conduct speedtests using a device connected by ethernet to rule out WiFi issues.

[MD38]

Unfortunately my laptop doesn't have an ethernet port - that's why the Wi-Fi speed is important to me.

[MD38]

Interestingly the BT Openreach engineer said that on the day he was installing my full fibre, all homes connected with fibre have the ability to receive 56Gb/s speeds. Every home in the country that has it installed - it's gone way up from the 2.5Gb/s limit now. Of course, domestic users won't need this, but it's interesting to know if you get someone saying that this could be a bottleneck.

[Doc5907]

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@MD38 wrote:

Unfortunately my laptop doesn't have an ethernet port - that's why the Wi-Fi speed is important to me.

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@MD38  you could try something like This 

[TimmyBGood]

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@MD38 wrote:

all homes connected with fibre have the ability to receive 56Gb/s speeds. 

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That's presumably a theoretical throughput of the optical fibre itself.  It's frankly meaningless because absolutely none of the rest of the infrastructure involved could support more than a tiny fraction of such bandwidth, nor would there be any possible use for it.

[mormegil]

WiFi speed is dependant on the distance from the hub and wireless adaptor in the device

some phones and older laptops are technology locked at 500mbps or less

the black 4.2 hub has a max WiFi output of around 500mbps

in order to take advantage of the gig fast connection you would need a the white max hub and compatible connections

 

I get this next to my hub on my mobile

[mormegil]

 and this upstairs on my gaming pc due to the distance between devices

[FLC]

Openreach recently ran a trial with Nokia for 50Gb but that's a long way from it actually being available.

https://www.openreach.com/news/openreach-and-nokia-test-uks-first-live-hyper-fast-50gbps-fibre-broad...

Many of the earlier installed ONTs can't even support 1.6Gb & have to be replaced.

[TimmyBGood]

@MD38 

Real-world WiFi speeds are zero Mbs on the other side of a few walls.  Laptops can typically have gigabit ethernet through a USB adapter.

I don't understand why you were told WiFi Max wasn't available with a particular 'fibre type' because that's just not the case: the only product it's not offered on is G.fast.

[TimmyBGood]

@MD38 

Ah: you referred to previously being on a 150Mbs copper connection, so that was G.fast

I suspect it's a legacy of that somewhere in your account details which means WiFi Max is coming up as unavailable: the Max Hub doesn't have a G.fast modem and so users of that particular connection type cannot order Max.

[MD38]

this is what I was asking - why wasn't I offered it if I've had the 900Mb/s gigafast connection installed but the maximum download speed via Wi-Fi is going to be less than 500 Mb/s. The hardware itself is a limiting factor.