Sky Broadband Adds Free Anytime UK Calls and Discounts Prices
UK ISP Sky Broadband has added a further discount to the monthly price of their “Superfast” (average download of 59Mbps) and “Ultrafast” (145Mbps) broadband packages for new customers. On top of that they’ve also re-added the Free Anytime Talk (calls) plan to these at no extra cost.
Customers will also receive unlimited usage, a wireless broadband router, Sky Talk, access to WiFi hotspots from The Cloud, Sky Shield (Parental Controls and Anti-Malware), Sky Talk Shield (nuisance call blocking) and a Speed Guarantee (i.e. if performance drops below the Guaranteed Minimum Download Speed then you may get some or all of your money back within a specific period).
Customers can optionally also add the £5 Sky Broadband Wi-Fi Guarantee add-on, which among other things will help you to get WiFi in every room (or your money back). The boost also runs daily health checks on your line, gives you more internet filtering controls for family access to the internet (Sky Buddy) and includes an extra 2GB of data for Sky Mobile (if you have that).
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Sky Broadband Essential (ADSL2+)
* Average download speed 11Mbps (1Mbps upload)PRICE: £25 a month for 18 months (£27 thereafter) + £19.95 setup
Sky Broadband Superfast (FTTC / FTTP)
* Average download speed 59Mbps (18Mbps upload)PRICE:
£27£25 a month for 18 months (£32 thereafter) + £19.95 setupSky Broadband Ultrafast 1 (G.fast / FTTP)
* Average download speed 145Mbps (27Mbps upload)PRICE:
£35£33 a month for 18 months (£44 thereafter) + £19.95 setup
Sky states that the new promotion will be available to take until 7th January 2021.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Wish I could warm to Sky but I really can’t, on my list of top 10 companies I dislike the most.
I’m with Sky ‘superfast’ broadband. I get 8 mbps download speed.
Have you had Sky get Openreach to investigate? What was your guaranteed minimum download speed?
Great. I’m with Plusnet up to 40Mbps, but I get 20Mbps…
It’s not related to the ISP, but the distance to the cabinet. Would assume this is the case with yourself also.
I am with Sky Superfast – I get 80/20 and I have paid £25 a month for the past 5 years – you deffo have a fault!
You should really get Sky/OR to investigate that. My Ultrafast dropped from 110Mbps down to circa 40; following OR looking at it (after Sky did their investigation) I am not up at 140 (ish) and it has been around there for the past few months.
I’m pretty sure last time I checked, Sly didn’t provide DSL password to enable you to use your own router, is this still the case?
It’s easily obtained now
Sky use DHCP client protocol instead of PPPoE on VDSL (mer on some routers), with the username and password in the clientID string. A made up username and password will work perfectly well, or you can just omit clientID, that has been the case for a few years.
You can also capture the password from the sky router’s clientID string using a packet sniffer, there are still guides online, but as I say that’s not been necessary for a few years.
For their ADSL services you can use their install@o2broadband.co.uk username with install as a password (in fact, I think anything will work as a password).
Has Sky done this because their other brand, NowTV broadband, was priced cheaper?
Very reasonable deal for a FTTP install, especially if you’re looking for Anytime. However, not using FTTP to the max means Virgin look better on bandwidth (even if latency might be better, and few can actually use that speed).
I ran the numbers, and with the £50 discount for New Year’s Eve and the value of two £50 referral bonuses it ended up being Sky 145/27Mbps: £34.11/mo. vs Virgin 216/20 £35.59 – the latter bundle including a 5GB 4G SIM and Mix TV, with its own box. Sky might have worked out better if it had its own referral, though.
As a practical matter, we upped to 362/36 for another £6/month, which Sky doesn’t even offer. If you can use the upload, it’s Virgin sweet spot – the next step on that side is 41Mbps, and that only at M600, which needs Ultimate Oomph right now. Plus, avoiding FTTP for now means one less new box on (and hole in) the wall. But it’s still great for competition to have the option at a reasonable price.
Speeds mostly depend on distance from exchange,but sometimes there are bad cable areas,BT put all faults on computer systems and when they identify worst areas they deal asap,but lots to do and takes time and a lot of money,ex post office /open reach engineer,46 years