cable or satellite

severnside gull said:

I'm about to switch from Virgin because they keep edging up their prices and are now more expensive than the opposition. Haven't decided yet between BT and SKY so any advice anyone has.......

Also switching my mobile from Orange because their tariffs do me no favours as I am abroad for three months a year. Want to keep a Samsung handset because I have loads of photos stored (and object to paying a tender a month to Dropbox) plus if I go to an iPhone I have to pay to download music which on android I can get free. Reckoning EE have the better fixed price tariff so I can budget effectively but again if anyone knows different........

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GOM said:

On price, quite simply Sky is cheapest for Sky channels, particularly HD sports. BT cheapest for BT channels, etc etc. Depends on what you want.

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Westdene Seagull said:

Would never go back to Sky - utterly horrendous customer service. Love VM - even with price rise wiped out after complaining bad got a third Tivo box for free.

Since when have talk talk done cable ?

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glasfryn said:

we have had no end of trouble lately with cable (internet constantly dropping out) and talk-talk doing **** all about it we decided to go over to sky and they suggested a dish rather than cable.
has anyone else had trouble with cable ( particularly in the Eastbourne area BT seem to be constantly working on it just lately)

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glasfryn said:

about 18 months in Eastbourne but all controlled by BT and they never inform talktalk about any breaks
the best way of getting BT off the job is satellite they can't **** that up

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vegster said:

Are you on genuine cable or is it just a phone socket ? I'm on what was the old Nynex cable system, now Virgin, and that usually works very well. I can't offer any thoughts on plug in phone internet as I have not had that for years.

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glasfryn said:

everywhere you go there are BT engineers looking at boxes or down holes in Eastbourne
and yep the telephone line will now supply my broadband as it has once before and tv supplied by satellite dish
the trouble with cable is one break in your area and it all goes off , we had this in Brighton with Nynex someone took exception to them and took out one of their boxes at the bottom of the avenue in Bevendean and we lost it for a month, otherwise the old Nynex was a good system.
whatever it must be better than what we have now BT, talktalk and all the others arguing over faults, Bt only have to maintain the telephone line and Sky does the rest

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Westdene Seagull said:

But your main complaint in your first post was the internet dropping out. Unless it was the router rather than the copper line you'll have exactly the same problem with Sky.

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glasfryn said:

the black box shut off completely no light at all including the light marked fibre the router seems OK but I will never know as they (talktalk) have said they have checked it all from their end thats all my internal gubbins and they think its something wrong with the cable (fibre)and what seems also strange is Sky did not want to use cable (even the old girl next door has just changed for the same reasons as us and she has now got a dish) so my assumption was that there is something wrong with the cable system here

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Westdene Seagull said:

Firstly, love the word 'gubbins', great word - not used often enough nowadays.

So, a very high level of how home internet connections work. There are four normal ways people connect at home to the internet :

1. Via copper cable
2. Via fibre cable
3. Via moblie
4. Via satellite

Let's ignore options 3 and 4 for now as you're unlikely to be using them. So with Talk Talk, normal BT internet, Orange, PlusNet, Daisy etc it will be down a copper telephone 'cable'. Generally works OK and you'll get a decent 'ish' speed if the connection from the street box back to the exchange is fibre and not over subscribed ( i.e. you're not sharing it with too many people ). Problem is that many copper telephone cables have been in years and exposed to the elements, animals and daft householders who do stupid things with them. When you switch internet supplier they don't change this copper cable into your house, they don't even change the connection from the street box to the exchange. You may be lucky enough to have a supplier with their own kit in the exchange ( know us exchange unbundaling ) but to all intents and purposes your are still reliant on that copper cable and BT Openreach.

The other main option is fibre - currently only offered by Virgin and BT Infinity ( although if you're in Hull KCOM are offering a limited fibre service ). They replace the copper cable with a fibre cable. This makes the internet super fast and, if installed properly, reliable. You still have the sharing issue though.

So, moving to Sky will indeed give you a nice dish and TV signal ( assuming no storms ) but it won't change how poor your internet service is as they will use the same crappy piece of copper cable. The only ways to improve that are to go fibre with Virgin or BT Infinity or pay BT to replace your landline copper cable.

By all means go with Sky if that is your preference but please don't get your hopes up this will fix your issue.

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