Sky Broadband Customers in North West England Suffer Outage UPDATE4
Customers of UK ISP Sky Broadband appear to be suffering from significant service disruption to their internet access and phone services in parts of North West England today (mostly around the Greater Manchester, Warrington and Lancashire areas), although oddly Sky’s Service Status page remains green for many of those affected.
The issue first started to be noticed after around 6am this morning, as people were waking up (we think it may have started even earlier, at around 1am), although it wasn’t until 10:16am that Sky formally acknowledged (via Twitter) that its network around Lancashire had suffered from a “Multiple Exchange Outage” affecting “Broadband, Talk and Fibre customers“.
We don’t tend to cover location specific outages, which are fairly common, unless they continue on for an unusually long amount of time and this one definitely qualifies. We’ve reached out to various sources and Sky for more information, but so far, no further information has been received, although Sky has already said they’re “sorry for any inconveniences caused“.
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So far as we can tell, this issue seems to be isolated to Sky’s own network, since customers on Openreach’s wider platform do not appear to have been impacted. This could suggest that one of Sky’s core fibre optic cables has suffered a major break, but we await their comment and will report back.
UPDATE 4:20pm
We’ve got a comment from Sky, although it doesn’t add much, and Sky seems to forget that a loss of broadband today can also impact IP based phone / voice services for some customers.
A Spokesperson for Sky told ISPreview.co.uk:
“We are aware of issues effecting Sky broadband customers in Lancashire. This is impacting broadband services only, voice and mobile data services remain unaffected. Our teams are working to resolve this as soon as possible and we apologise for any inconvenience caused.”
UPDATE 5:12pm
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The volume of complaints appears to be increasing since around 3pm and there’s just been a brief update from Sky on Twitter, which continues to be painfully vague: “Our teams are working hard to restore your broadband service as soon as possible. We thank you for your patience & apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
UPDATE 26th Oct 2022 @ 7:22am
The last update from Sky was posted at 8:48pm last night: “Our support teams continue to work this evening to restore service for all impacted customers. We thank you for your patience & apologise for the inconvenience caused.”
As of this morning, we’re seeing some people say that connectivity has returned, while others report that it has not. But the complaint volumes are currently significantly lower than they were this time yesterday, which suggests that Sky may have fixed most (if not all) of the issue.
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For those still offline, it might be worth switching off your router / Sky TV kit for 5 minutes and also trying a third-party DNS provider (OpenDNS, Google Public DNS etc.) to see if that helps. We hope to have a new update from Sky shortly.
UPDATE 26th Oct 2022 @ 8:50am
Sky has just this minute confirmed that the problem is resolved, albeit without providing any useful information on the cause: “Customers will now be able to go online & make/receive calls. We’re sorry for any inconvenience caused.”
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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Sky seems to have little resiliency in its network. My parents have had multiple outages over the years, some long. They’ve also had several outages reported widely and I don’t recall the same for other ISPs.
Absolutely awful resilience. That’s why I’d never recommend them.
It seems that someone can cut through one fibre cable, or turn off one rack/switch and half the network goes down!
The lack of status page info was a major cause of upset when we were a Sky BB customer (2015-2020), we had 2 major outages (12hrs+) during that time and the lack of info online and via the Help Twitter account was terrible, the twitter account was particularly annoying in trying to minimise the impact of the outage and point blank telling people impacted that all was fine.
Been monitoring this since early this morning. Sky seems to have pushed out an update around 1am and this has resulted in things going offline since about 6:05am. Whilst one person I know has had experienced a total outage all day, myself experienced no outages up until around 30 minutes ago (both in Lancashire) and it’s still ongoing.
Hopefully they can fix it soon.
Yes, I’ve noticed that the number of complaints has actually increased since around 3pm today.
We are in bury went off about 3pm not a word from sky
Got a text from Sky this morning saying they were working to restore my FTTP service as soon as possible, however it was all working fine.
Then at 4:30pm the internet dropped followed 15 mins later by my phone (IP) service.
Location : Preston, Lancashire
They made a network change in the south on the 19/10/22 which has increased my latency by 9ms even with the same IP address on FTTP
If you were using FTTC I’d say that sounds more like interleaving turning on at the DSLAM.
My latency to googles DNS (8.8.8.8) is 10ms (I’m a Sky FTTC customer atm) and my latency to the exit of Sky’s network (89.200.133.169) is 6ms.
Try running a tracert and seeing what hop 2 reports… anything below 4ms is expected… anything above is normally a form of interleaving applied.
I think it’s been more than one ISP.
I walked into a local Argos today and all there stores were completely offline, a customer behind was complaining of no WhatsApp and that tallied up with another news story I read.
Everyone’s experience has been varied – a friend who works in Germany saw issues all over networks in Germany – both fixed and mobile so internet has had a bad day today.
Could be possible, before I lost my Sky FTTP connection at about 4:30pm, I was working from home doing a remote training course, at about 4pm all attendees lost connectivity to the remote resources / lab setups we were all using.
Probably the Russians at it again 😉
This issue with sky broadband is affecting parts of north wales too. The lack of updates is frustrating especially when some of us are working from home
Openreach are trying to resolve it. Sky don’t have play by play updates. Shut your laptop and enjoy your day off
18:10pm – My FTTP service has just returned, phone (IP) is still down.
Really useful set of updates thankyou – both myself and my wife work from home and the lack of direct updates from sky has been disappointing … (not even mentioning that we just moved to sky glass!) … Thanks…apart to whoever said close your laptops and enjoy your day off – thankyou oh wise sage …
My broadband came back on for an hour 6-7 and now its gone again I wonder what the issue is
Same thing happened to me, I’m with now and after waiting for 20 mins got through to a teccy and he said there’s outages all over the country, that was 4.30pm, had a kip, was back on at 6pm and gone again by 7pm
Down in Accrington since about 3pm. Came back on at about 6.30 for about 15 minutes. Down again.
Mine went off at 11:30pm last night. Called them first thing this morning and they said on a video call that I had the ethernet cable from the ONT in the wrong port of the hub… she had no idea what she was talking about as it was plugged into the correct WAN port.
What a total waist of time sky are this issue has been going on since last night around 12 am and been off all day and still off now .what are sky going to do to compensate people who have lost money today they like to but up bills but give nothing back maybe it time they should
To be fair, if you’re losing money because your residential internet service has gone down (suggesting that the internet service is a key requirement for generating income) then that’s sort of on you for not having implemented your own contingency service, whether that another fixed line based service or via 4/5G, etc.
It does make me raise my eyebrows somewhat when people claim that they’re losing business/money when their residential service has an outage and they’ve not considered any form of backup themselves…
It is annoying when your internet service goes down but for the most part residential users in the UK pay pretty cheap rates, outages tend to be infrequent and usually resolved fairly quickly.
If you have a business service then you may have some enhanced SLA credits that you can claim.
Comments like this make me LOL
Mate, Get a proper connection.
I have a leased line and my ISP had a 15 minute MSO where they did some work on their and I was right at the end of a 390GB upload and I had to start again – now considering I pay 10x the cost of your Sky connection and considering I have SLA’s I got nothing – so why should you?
Why are sky not giving customers a proper update no internet needs explaining to customers what is the ETA for service to resume
Had a text 15 mins ago saying some time this evening no time given
Just been looking around people in Wales had similar issues there’s were off for a week what’s going on?
Surprised sky haven’t blamed in on the war in Ukraine or putin nothing but lies in my eyes no help or information what so every changing broadband supplier ASAP
YEP NO UPDATES SKY OF SINCE 3PM.DO A CHECK ITS ALL GREEN ALL GO YET HAVE NOTHING.NIT ONE BIT OF INNFO FROM SKY.GETTING IT ALL OF HERE..WARRINGTON.
Anyone know when this will be sorted live in M26 area had no communication from sky whatsoever
We have the sky glass tv so no tv all day – we noticed at 5.45am and still off now – 8.05pm! Found my first drawback to what otherwise is a great streaming tv. Had we kept our old tv we would be able to revert back to Freeview.
Sky Glass has a Freeview aerial port on the back for this very reason, it only works when you don’t have a broadband connection.
See here: https://www.sky.com/help/articles/freeview-app-on-sky-glass
Have not had Internet in chorley for a good few hours
I’m in Bury, was fine all day and went off around 4:10pm and has been off since. Very frustrating, the lack of communication is rubbish also “our team of engineers are on site and hope to have it back online soon :)” give us some real information not this trash, ETAs would be great so we can actually plan around as 1000s of people now work from home
Still awaiting service to come back. TV, Phone and Internet with my Mum and Dad are down (its like living in teh dark ages for them) the only things they had was TV and Internet.
I myself thankfully have Virginmedia (not saying their great) they have their issue’s too. But hopefully they will (along with every one else affected) receive compensation for total loss of services.
I agree that sky really do need to put up more information to customers, not just we are aware of issues and will get it back ASAP and thats it, nothing else from them at all. Would be nice to have some sort of ETA (which can easily just be updated) but nope nothing
Our Internet is down in leigh too. Useless!!!
no issues in the Wirral area as I’m with sky
Back on now near Blackburn
Off in horwich all day
Complete shower. Lost a days earnings today thanks to these clowns
Genuine question, if you rely on the service for generating income then why don’t you have a backup? 4/5G backup options are very cheap these days (granted there will be some areas that can’t receive service but the vast majority can).
For business critical connectivity you can also elect to take resilient services or a service that offers enhanced SLA credits etc.
This is not a dig, but this is a common comment in these scenarios and it’s very surprising that people don’t seem to have any contingency options in place for something that is critical for them to earn money.
Still off in North Wales its been off here since 10.46am called Now (part of sky) they were not interested in compensating anyone and blamed it on Openreach saying all BT lines were down what a lie!!
Bang out of order sky.. Compensation for workers working from home.lack of trust you promise this and that yet do nothing give us more information plx
We haven’t had any sky TV or Internet since 11pm on the 24th oct. We are in blackburn lancashire. Its an absolute shambles. They soon quick to want their money though. Its expensive enough without having to go well over 24 hours for something you cannot use, and its vital for our business at home.
So angry
We haven’t had any sky TV or Internet since 11pm on the 24th oct. We are in blackburn lancashire. Its an absolute shambles. They soon quick to want their money though. Its expensive enough without having to go well over 24 hours for something you cannot use, and its vital for our business at home.
So angry and we are sorry for the inconvenience isnt enough
Sky aren’t interested in anybody but them selves only got to look how much money they take of us all for what look at all the info they have given NOT load of rubbish always blame somebody else but not them selves we need answers.
Sorry for the inconvenience is not enough when you rely on Internet for business. Its constantly slow when it is on, and going off from time to time. Time to change provider I think.
It is now 21.19 and we are still without internet and no explanation
Engineers continue to work hard to restore your broadband with service expected to return this evening. We’re sorry for the continued inconvenience.this message was of sky at 7.15 this evening lies lies lies
Altrincham been on and off all day using hotspot from smarty
Tv fine, don’t use the phone, but the internet has been patchy and finally stopped around 4pm. In Hale.
Internet in Leigh Lancashire is down since yesterday . Worst part unfortunately is that we not only have a half term going on but weather dictate staying at home also . I’m a NOW TV / Broadband customer which makes me automatically Sky customer and let me tell you guys this is not an isolated incident . Lots of people just don’t report what is happening . Lots of services / apps is off including banks etc . Bad times ahead . This is just the beginning .
I’m in Altrincham – internet been patchy all day. It went down at approx 9.30 until 10am, 3.45 until 4.30 and then just gone down again at 9pm – still waiting for it to come back on. Fingers crossed fixed soon!
Sky has been down in Preston since 1pm for me
Time for a new provider. This is not acceptable. Lost a day’s work and Now TV website initially said everything was fine! Since then no eta or meaningful update. Will they cover our losses? Doubt it. They’ll be overwhelmed with claims which will be ignored.
Still off longridge, been off since 1.30 this morning.
No internet since 11 this morning , no updates either from sky
Sky advisor tried saying it was a dodge cable and we needed a sky engineer that want available until late Nov . M29 area
Down in Carrington all day. Resumed briefly for an hour or so then off again. I’ve been a sky customer for over 15 years and have never experienced anything like this before.
not just England North Wales too
All these comments is what me hates about social media.
This thread is why I won’t ever use Sky – they have outages all the time, BT however – 15 months so far on FTTP without a blip
You won’t get much downtime from BT, they have the most resilient core of any provider. That’s easy when you own thousands of exchange buildings around the country.
We are a DIA customer on a sky tail in North Wales and have been offline for in excess of 13 hours now.
It seems even their leased line networks are routes over their domestic stuff
This isn’t the first 12 hour outage that affected this circuit. We had issues in February this year as well .
The comments on here about not being able to WFH/not being to run a business/loss of earnings/demanding compensation etc are totally OTT. I assume that those complaining are likely on one of Sky’s RESIDENTIAL broadband packages? If your broadband at home really is so business critical, then at least ensure that you are on a business broadband package & also have some form of backup service (or backup plan)
Fortunately, I have not been impacted today (despite living in Cheshire). To put things into perspective, in my 12 years of using Sky Broadband, the only ‘major’ outage I have experienced, was around a 3hr outage (on a Sunday morning, a few years back)
I work from home at least three times a week. Had my broadband been down today, my backup plan would have been to get in the car & drive to my employers office (sure many of those impacted today could have done the same)
Yes, but no.
I commented about 5 minutes ago that we are a leased line customer on a sky tail, not even in Lancashire (where sky claims the issues reside) yet I am still offline for over 13 hours.
I get that residential peeps have unrealistic expectations, however at some point one has to call into question the technical viability of sky’s network and how exchange issues in Lancashire affect DIA circuits in North wales who are routed through Slough.
It is quite odd and a common comment that appears during outages. 4/5G backup options are very cheap these days which would cover most people who WFH doing general admin type roles on a temporary basis. Even if that’s just tethering via your mobile phone for the day.
Alternatively there are many cafes/bars/co-working spaces around that could be used if you’re really pushed and have no other way of connecting at home.
If you rely on an internet connection to generate income or do your job then you do have a responsibility yourself to give yourself contingency options when the primary service you have chosen to use is a standard residential product.
Understood Mush. My comment was not directed at you (was likely composing my post whilst you posted earlier). Just that my gut feeling is that many of the complaints are from those on regular residential packages. Sorry to hear that you have been off-line for 13hrs and fully acknowledge that must be frustrating, especially given that you have a dedicated connection. Hope all those impacted have a full service restored ASAP
This morning 26th October in Preston my Sky Q box is still not connected to the internet despite the router showing it has connection. Sky website still saying there is an outage. Just to top it off Vodaphone has mobile internet has been dodgy all week and then decides to go down at the same time as Sky. They either share the same network or someone has tampered with the system….like the Russians
They might use the same fibre optic cable somewhere along the line or have the cables very close to each other under the ground but other than that there’s no system.
Vodafone didn’t drop nationally, neither did Sky, so fibre optic cable getting cut seems a reasonable bet.
A more concerning thought is that either through intentional sabotage or a series of unfortunate events resilient fibre routes may have been lost.
I’m in Leigh (WN7) area, my broadband has been down for over 24 hours now. I’m stuck in today waiting for visitors with a toddler who is obsessed with YouTube, send help! Haha. I am rather enjoying the peace and quiet for a change.
Disappointed with the lack of transparency from Sky during this outage.
Welcome to what is classed as ‘customer service’ and an excuse for a service provided by most if not all corporates these days!!
Probably not related but Netia (a major ISP in Poland) also had a major outage lasting well over 12 hours.
Under the current circumstances one wonder if there was a cyberattack of some description….
Indeed probably not related. ISPs have outages. As a general rule people in the UK don’t care about outages in Germany or Poland.
ISPs do have outages, but major outages from major ISPs affecting millions of people for over 12 hours is not so common.
As to whether people in the UK care about it or not is kinda neither here nor there, I just found it an interesting coincidence.
I suspect ‘someone’ is determined to grind the British public into the dust…
HAHA! to all those businesses that decided to refuse CASH payments – can you now see how hopelessly vulnerable it makes you..?
Surprised no one yet has blamed Brexit for causing it.
Sky talk has been off since morning of 25th October, and still not running, constant message ‘line busy. Concerning when you are on a Care line system. Poor communication on updates!!
What’s really odd is that I’m in Lancashire with Now TV (Sky) and my issues literally started 24 hours AFTER the main issues and seemingly were resolved 24 hours after the main issues were resolved as well
Something fishy going on with Sky, especially with their lack of communication about the whole Issue
Whenever I spoke to them they just kept saying it was an openrewch issue
We have the same situation in Nottingham no telephone and broadband for six weeks now. There has to be a bigger problem going on somewhere that we the customers are not privy too. Hoping by the 31st October just over six weeks we finally are able to get back to normal.
What the he’ll mine just wen of about a hour ago I’m from South wales and this is doing my utter heading I never had issues with sky wait till the morning nw I’ll be going mad on them this shouldn’t be happening at all like utterly appalling with the service
08/11/2022 Sky down completely since early this morning (PE7 area), was intermittent since yesterday early evening as well. Lots of folk kicking off on mobile data, nothing at all from Sky. Wife has had to go into office now as they still have connectivity back up…
No internet tv or phone for 4 weeks still been charged £90 for service awful no contact rubbish service unable to work from home now awaiting a engineer