So...who is wrong, BT or Sky?

[BeardedBlunder]

Let me preface this with a few positive notes. My broadband experience, over the last decade and a half with Sky has been very much a positive one. My connection - for the most part - has been rock solid and reliable. My few issues have been addressed quickly and resolved positively so overall, for me, Sky Broadband delivers what it promises.....

or at least....it did.

So I moved house, after 20 years of being at the same property and my new place I have been told - several times now - should be giving me better speeds. And it's not. I thought I'd give it time to settle and see if it improved but I've been moved nearly 3 months now and it remains the same.

Stable, solid, but not what I am supposed to be getting. So I escalated and for some reason, got a Sky Wifi engineer at my property today, despite clarifying that my connection was fine, my wifi was fine, I just need someone to look at the line. He has stated he believes my connection cannot be improved. Sky line check disagrees, as does BT. Who is right?

Some data:

So, my gut feeling is that really, Openreach need to come take a gander at the Cabinet, and report back, which is what I asked for but Sky Customer Service apparently had their own take on this which I feel was not right. What do you all think?

Is the data wrong, am I capped at 46 Mb/s, or, can a brave and mighty BT engineer venture deep into the Cabinet innards, and find the fabled 64 Mb/s of the promised land?

[BeardedBlunder]

Might have missed this bit in case it's needed:

[Chrisee]

@BeardedBlunder there appears to be an issue between what the Openreach database holds for your line and how it performs in practice. Why that is so is unclear but if the line has not been used for FTTC bedore the figures are predictions.

On the surface your line has a fairly normal noise margin of 6.3dB which is probably why the Sky engineer made the comment as where there is a fault that figure is normally higher however it is higher than you would hope for (on a good line it can go down to 3DB allowing faster speeds) but even that does not explain the curent shortfall.

Your current speeds are below the guaranteed minmum and If Sky and Openreach cannot correct that they will release you from contract leaving you free to buy from another isp but the problem is that if that company uses the same Openreach line the speed they deliver will not change. Any predicted speeds they give will be based on the database figure so dont take those too,literally. What happens in practice is Openreach will change the database to reflect the actual performance of the line but that takes time.

You are best advised to go back to Sky to get the issue escalated but I would also run a few of your neighbour's addresses through the checker to see if you get different results. Its not impossible for your home to be connected to a different cabinet than others in your street but its unusual.

.

[jamesn123]

@BeardedBlunder 

Your line attenuation suggests you should be getting the full 80mbps and this is backed up by the fact you are almost getting the full upload speed but only half the download. So I'd say the prediction by Openreach is correct and Sky are the ones to blame for not engaging Openreach to look at the line. 

[BeardedBlunder]

@jamesn123 @Chrisee  thank you both very much for your input, your comments mirror my thoughts on this and whilst I can appreciate the figures are a guide, and may be incorrect I agree it's worth going back to Sky to get an Openreach Engineer out to give me a definitive answer.

[BeardedBlunder]

Actually - just to ask for a last bit of advice, despite the fact I explained this the first time, I still ended up with a Wifi Engineer visit rather than BT, is there any guidance you can offer to ensure I get the correct result this time?

[Chrisee]

@BeardedBlunder Sky often send out their own engineers who are trained on Broadband systems as well as wifi issues and who are authorised to do limited work on the Openreach network to exclude several factors such as faults in the customers home which say fitting a new master socket will sort. When those factors are excluded then the issue should be escalated to Openreach.

[BeardedBlunder]

@Chrisee  Ah now that is a very useful bit of information, and corrects my own misconception, thank you. I now have a better understanding of the process.