Ultrafast to Gigafast

[tottenhamwin]

Recently moved from Ultrafast with speeds at 145mbps to Gigafast advertised as 900mbps with a minimum of 600 mbps guaranteed but I am currently only achieving 350-430. I am using the 'old' superfast router.

Why do Sky not mention that in order to achieve advertised speeds, you need to:

i) move to a new wi fi 6 router

ii) have a direct ethernet connection.

Is this misrepresentation by omission?

[jamesn123]

@tottenhamwin 

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@tottenhamwin wrote:

Is this misrepresentation by omission?

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No not at all. 

All these high speed broadband packages are the same, they are designed to provide many clients at once with UHD streaming speeds. They are not for you to connect a single WiFi client and run a speedtest of 1gbps because it just does not have any real world domestic use case.

Even if you connected via ethernet for a download and wanted to use the full 1gbps its very unlikely the server on the other end would serve it to you that fast. E.g. the latest consoles struggle to tip the 1gbps scale when downloading. 

If you want to see those shiny high numbers for literally no other reason at all other than to look good then you'd need to invest in a 3rd party WiFi 6 router along with a WiFi 6 client to use 

There is a great video released recently from a big YouTube channel that basically explains why you do not need that speed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwdDAZruMKk

[tottenhamwin]

Thanks for your response @jamesn123 

You certainly clear up some misconceptions. The Youtube link is particularly informative.

I wonder though, in the real world where most people do not have your level of knowledge, whether it is honest to sell speeds that are either impossible to achieve or would need additional/new infrastructure. 

It seems wrong that Sky sell Gigafast without saying the router will need upgrading to access the speed. Ultimately the cost to the consumer is higher in real terms .

Strangely enough I am satisfied with the speeds actually achieved as I can do everything that I need.

I just think  ISPs will/are causing customer dissatisfaction by not being clear with their marketing of this product.

[jamesn123 · Accepted solution]

@tottenhamwin 

I do agree with you the ISP world certainly leverages on the fact that the general consumer is not aware of what they actually need or the technology behind it.

Its probably partially dishonest in some ways but a lot of other businesses/sectors do similar practices.

[magustus]

I also recently had issues with my FTTP speeds dropping to 200-300mbps. the Sky engineer told me that the router I have is throttled to 500mbps max so i will never achieve the guarnteed minimum of 600mbps.

I called and compained and they sent the new router at no cost to me, and since upgrading I can now see on the website the speeds i get to my hub, forget to your device, SKY don't care about that, and I am still under 600mbps.

I will compain again, but it did take me 35mins waiting on the phone last night, which demonstrates that SKY CS team are probably a skelton crew in the evening, which is mad for a global org such as SKY.