ISP Reviews by nbell

I do not normally write reviews but I felt that this time I really needed to alert users on this site about some practices (not admitted) by Sky. The story:
I was with O2 and remained with Sky when the home broadband business was sold. I am a heavy user so Sky unlimited appealed to me. From end-December 2013 until mid-April 2014 life was OK. Then I noticed that a nominal 16Mbs speed was sometimes going down to 1Mbs, or less, during video streaming – naturally, the experience was terrible due to constant buffering. I alerted Sky who told me that there was nothing wrong with the line as far as they could see. I tested the situation using a couple of VPN services I have at my disposal. Sure enough when I used the VPN service the speed was rock steady at about 10Mbs (accounting for the extra routing). When I would not use the VPN the speed would initially be about 12-13Mbs and gradually would go down to about 1MBs or less. If I then stopped streaming the speed would return to normal after about 20 minutes or so. I could repeat this cycle endlessly any time of the day any day of the week with exactly the same results. I tested for about two weeks using different streaming and speed test sites and also different computers. Every time the same outcome. Clearly, the line was being throttled when Sky could figure out what I was doing (i.e. when VPN was not used).
Every time I contacted Sky I would be given the run around – you have a virus, is your antivirus, is your modem (they sent me a Sky box to replace the O2 router - same result), and so on. On April 30, I decided to cut my losses and ask for the MAC code. Next thing, I get an email saying that if I were to stay put and get a phone line with them, I would be given free line rental for a year (worth circa £180). Why add another service to an existing bad one? I asked myself and moved on to another ISP.
For those of you valuing your speed and thinking about joining Sky for broadband, I advise you to think again – seriously! Here is the extract from Sky’s own web page regarding their unlimited broadband service: “No traffic management policy for Sky Broadband Unlimited and Sky Fibre Unlimited in the home. External factors such as internet congestion can affect speed.”
These “external factors” obviously last – in my case they lasted at least two weeks until I decided enough was enough.