• My Download Speed Dropped Dramatically

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Hello all, I have had Sky Broadband (up to 8mb/s) service without any problems for the last few years. Speeds have always been about 6mb down and 1mb up. I am a former O2broadband customer who was transferred across to Sky when Sky bought O2 home internet. Therefore, I have been using my own router and was never sent a Sky Hub (which I don't want anyway), and as we were transferred to Sky via a merger, I am not required to have Sky landline services. About a week ago I noticed multiple connection drops on my internet.

When it did connect, the speed was normal, but there were multiple drops. I replaced all the filters, disconnected all home phones, had the modem plugged into the master socket, etc. In the end I changed my router and the problem was solved. Now, for the last couple of days, I have noticed very slow internet - youtube videos taking ages to load even on lowest setting, even web pages are slow to load. My router is connecting at 7mb/s down and 1mb/s up, but when I do a speed test it tells me my download speed is around only a paltry 0.6 - 1.5 mb/s down. The upload speed seems unaffected. This is on a wired connection to the router with no background downloading going on and no other devices connected.

Let me reiterate that nothing has changed on the hardware side - I've tried different routers just in case, but still my speed is stuck at the kind of speeds I used to get about 15 years ago!!! I called Sky support last night, and after waiting over 30 mins on hold AND sending a picture of my router to them via their special website (ridiculous!), the man told me that my broadband profile was set at 8mb/s (the maximum possible) and that the only thing he could suggest was for them to send me a SkyHub as I was never sent one. I told him that I don't want any Sky Hub because it is clearly nothing to do with the modem/router being used. I've had no issues with my own router for the past 5 or more years on Sky and 7 years before that on O2. I also read somewhere that if Sky sends you a SkyHub then you automatically get enrolled into a new 18 month contract, which is something I definitely don't want to get entangled in. Sky are adamant that customers use their own silly hardware for some reason.

I was earlier tempted to move up to fibre broadband but seeing that they specifically state in their terms and conditions that customers CANNOT use their own routers, when I do decide to switch to fibre, it will NOT be with them. My question for the forum is - is there anything I can do to get my speeds back up to where they were just a few days ago? On doing the speed tests the graph displayed initially jumps up to 3mb/s but then quickly falls down to around 1.5mb/s - it looks like an artificial cap has been placed on my download speed, but the Sky helpline man said there was no such restriction. At the moment my internet is basically unuseable for the requirements of 2017 with 4 users in the house. We were managing fine with around 6mb/s download, but if Sky are trying to put this cap on to encourage us to take their fibre service, we will most definitely be moving to a different provider! Displayname665 wrote: Hello all, I have had Sky Broadband (up to 8mb/s) service without any problems for the last few years.

My Download Speed Dropped Dramatically

Speeds have always been about 6mb down and 1mb up. I am a former O2broadband customer who was transferred across to Sky when Sky bought O2 home internet. Therefore, I have been using my own router and was never sent a Sky Hub (which I don't want anyway), and as we were transferred to Sky via a merger, I am not required to have Sky landline services. About a week ago I noticed multiple connection drops on my internet. When it did connect, the speed was normal, but there were multiple drops.

I replaced all the filters, disconnected all home phones, had the modem plugged into the master socket, etc. In the end I changed my router and the problem was solved.

Now, for the last couple of days, I have noticed very slow internet - youtube videos taking ages to load even on lowest setting, even web pages are slow to load. My router is connecting at 7mb/s down and 1mb/s up, but when I do a speed test it tells me my download speed is around only a paltry 0.6 - 1.5 mb/s down. The upload speed seems unaffected. This is on a wired connection to the router with no background downloading going on and no other devices connected. Let me reiterate that nothing has changed on the hardware side - I've tried different routers just in case, but still my speed is stuck at the kind of speeds I used to get about 15 years ago!!!

I called Sky support last night, and after waiting over 30 mins on hold AND sending a picture of my router to them via their special website (ridiculous!), the man told me that my broadband profile was set at 8mb/s (the maximum possible) and that the only thing he could suggest was for them to send me a SkyHub as I was never sent one. I told him that I don't want any Sky Hub because it is clearly nothing to do with the modem/router being used. I've had no issues with my own router for the past 5 or more years on Sky and 7 years before that on O2. I also read somewhere that if Sky sends you a SkyHub then you automatically get enrolled into a new 18 month contract, which is something I definitely don't want to get entangled in. Sky are adamant that customers use their own silly hardware for some reason. I was earlier tempted to move up to fibre broadband but seeing that they specifically state in their terms and conditions that customers CANNOT use their own routers, when I do decide to switch to fibre, it will NOT be with them. My question for the forum is - is there anything I can do to get my speeds back up to where they were just a few days ago?

On doing the speed tests the graph displayed initially jumps up to 3mb/s but then quickly falls down to around 1.5mb/s - it looks like an artificial cap has been placed on my download speed, but the Sky helpline man said there was no such restriction. At the moment my internet is basically unuseable for the requirements of 2017 with 4 users in the house.

We were managing fine with around 6mb/s download, but if Sky are trying to put this cap on to encourage us to take their fibre service, we will most definitely be moving to a different provider! Hi If you post your router stats then someone can take a look for you. It needs to show the download speed, upload speed, noise margins etc. This shows you what you need on a sky router but obviously it might be different as you are using a different router.

Sky don't deliberatrly cap any of their broadband products unless you're unfortunate enough to have the dreadful Connect package. If you post your router statistics we can look for any obvious problem. The figures needed are connection speed, line attenuation and noise margin, both upstream and downstream for all three. Sky don't mind you using your own router for ADSL, though they won't support you, if you do, as you've discovered.

As you rightly say, they insist on you using Sky provided router for Fibre. Thank you for your replies. I just tried calling Sky Helpline again to deal with my slow broadband. It took 40 minutes on hold listening to their stupid recording before finally getting through to someone. I concurrently had the LiveChat website open but that was busy for over 1 hour and I still haven't gotten through. This time the woman answering was the most arrogant person I have ever spoken to at a helpdesk for any company.

First when I explained that my internet is slow for the past day, she asked if there are any problems on the phone line. When I said no, she told me that she thought there was something wrong. So she's now an expert on my non-Sky landline.

Then she tried to tell me how broadband works - I explained I have dealt with broadband since 2002 and know very well that it uses the same wires as the telephone. She (and the man from yesterday also) tried to make a big deal out of the fact that our landline is from a different company - that is well within my rights as we came over from O2. Through the course of the conversation the following happened: She told me that we shouldn't even be able to use our own router (Netgear) to connect at all as their service is locked via MAC addresses but somehow we had managed to 'slip through' (her actual words) and connect to Sky internet. What utter gibberish. in fact when we were switched from O2, Sky told us clearly that we could keep our old routers - we haven't had any issues using 3rd party Netgear routers (used by companies and governments around the world) for the past 7+ years. she did not seem to know that 3rd party routers aren't locked to particular ISPs. the modem 'slipping through' could possibly be an issue for a VDSL fibre service, but even then there are plenty of people who use non-Sky routers (breaching the Sky Terms of service) to connect so there clearly is a lot of 'slipping' going on, isn't there?

She asked me to connect using an older modem/router, and then told me that this was connecting at 7mb, while the other modem was connecting at 3mb. This was nonsense because the statistics page of both modems showed connection at 7mb; and the man from yesterday also confirmed that the newer modem was syncing at 7mb download. again she was blaming the router saying that it was 7 or more years old, when actually I have a brand new router which also syncs at 7mb but only gives me 1.5mb download speed. she told me this was an O2 router, without asking me what it was, when actually it was a Netgear - she did not have an explanation as to why things suddenly deteriorated overnight after years without issues. When I told her for the second time that the issue is NOT sync speed but actual useable speed with Youtube videos being very slow to load (even gifs don't load for crying out loud!), and with low results on speedtest websites, she told me that this was because I was doing speedtests via a wireless connection. she had no response when I told her that actually it was a wired PC that I was using for speedtests, and that at least the man yesterday had the courtesy to ask me first whether I was using a wired or wireless connection to test speeds, whereas she was telling me what setup I had, and she was WRONG.

She again told me that she wants to send me a crappy SkyHub router to check the connection. I told her that I have no interest in this as Sky were clear that we don't need to use their hardware when we came over to Sky.

Our speed is below 2mb/s download which breaches Ofcom's standards of service for a 'broadband' product. I mentioned this as well. But she wasn't interested in responding to my concerns. She was not interested in requesting a BT Openreach visit despite me asking, making no reply about this. All they do is parrot a script given to them by the higher-ups after making you wait 40 minutes on hold. They could at least provide an 0800 number, but no.

I tried calling from my mobile (as they advise on their own website) only to be told by the robot to call from the actual home landline affected before it disconnected me!! And what happens when the SkyHub (which I do not want) also gives me low speed - am I supposed to call them and hang on for 40 minutes again to hear the same script again from some other parrot? She refused to pass my call to her manager or senior, or level2 tech support, saying that all the staff are trained the same way.

When I said I want to complain about the service and the interaction with her, and asked to know her name, she gave me her username but refused to tell me how I can actually complain. First she said she would check and asked for me to hold on, then a few seconds later she said she will activate the complaint herself. She literally told me that I directly wasn't allowed to complain, and that she would be the one to create the complaint and send it on my behalf. Dictatorial nonsense.

I am totally disgusted. What a nightmare. 5 years of paying these nincompoops hard earned money every single month and this is the thanks you get when something goes wrong. At least my instinct of not to change landline provider over to them was proven correct. Sky are an utter disgrace of a company. They are just one giant gimmick with a useless website help section that doesn't give you any real help, a livechat that you cannot connect to, a forum without participation from Sky staff (except to censor messages), and a call centre you have to wait ages to connect to only to find it is full of arrogant people who can't be bothered to respond to customer concerns, who are happy to parrot a script, who don't know anything, but who think they know everything about a home internet set up without asking.

Just like their advertising campaigns, Sky has basically become one big cartoon. A key point you state in your OP is that you had dropped connections.

And that you solved the issue by replacing the ADSL router. Clearly from those points:- 1. It's either a noisy line in the high frequency spectrum and that's causing throughput issues, but originally it caused line drops.

The router that you replaced it with is faulty. I think is unlikely, 1. Is more likely and as the line is provided by another provider it's their service that's faulty and therefore you should contact them about looking at the quality of the line, even though the router statistics seem okay.