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Sky Unlimited Throttled

I do not normally write reviews or post in forums but I felt that this time I really needed to alert users about some practices (not admitted) by Sky.
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). If I did not use 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. Same outcome every time. Clearly, the line was being throttled when Sky could figure out what I was doing (i.e. when VPN was not active).
Every time I contacted Sky I would be given the usual silly isp merry-go-round – you have a virus, it is your antivirus, you have more than 10 TCP/IP connections open, your computer may be too old, it is your modem (they sent me a Sky box to replace the O2 router - no difference), and so on. BTW, with the exception of a virus (which I did not have), none of these really matter. Even 10 year old computers can readily handle basic broadband speeds, and having 20 or more TCP/IP connections open is routine these days - in any case not all of them are active all the time.
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 also get a phone line with them, they would give me 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.
 
I have been with Sky Broadband for almost a year now, and would certainly consider myself a very heavy user (with 5 people including 3 kids constantly hammering Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, Steam, Xbox Live). My usage easily tops 500 GB every month, yet I seem to have a decent constant speed.

I'm not saying that Sky are NOT throttling you, but if they are covertly throttling people, I would definitely be a candidate.
 
dont get me wrong, it sounds like a weird issue.. but it doesnt really sound like throttling to me. more like the route without a VPN could be congested and when you use the VPN it takes a route around the issue. reason l say this is network level filtering is just that "network level" and no amount of VPNs when l had issues (with other ISPs) made any difference because the throttling happened before the internet level. that said lm no expert on ISPs only just passing along experiences.

in either case at present lve noticed no issues personally with my FTTC connection, and lm sure l pass significantly more than most here as l manage a couple of servers passing a good 100GB a week in backups which doesnt include other content l download for personal entertainment (youtube, netflix etc) and at present the only issues lve had are the occasions when there has been exchange work and temporary network issues, at most lve spent say 7 hours offline over the past 2 years (most of which was between midnight and 6am).
 
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Thanks for the input. Well, I thought about this - congestion, I mean, and the VPN re-routing and by-passing the problem. The only problem is that it is difficult to believe that congestion occurs at 4:30 am everyday, all week. It never failed!
Everyday, I would start at 13Mbs and within a few minutes we would be down to 1Mbs. It really did not matter what time of day or what day of the week. As I work form home I had the chance to test this almost round the clock. Congestion all the time? Difficult to believe. Incidentally, Sky never offered an explanation regarding why this was happening. Their approach was to blame all the factors I mentioned in my original posting. Nothing else, no congestion, no network issues, nothing
You are right though It is weird particularly since other users have a much higher bandwidth footprint than myself.
Any way, I am happy I do not have this problem now. :nod:
 
There could be a case of preferential throttling based on available capacity in a given area. So, if the network in an area cannot quite support many heavy users and there is still a need to keep other customers happy, the former are "quietly" throttled. Of course, when using VPN the ISP cannot detect what data is transmitted and, for this reason, speed is not reduced. Where area network capacity allows it, then heavy users are also left alone.
 
hmm that is strange, even more so for throttling at that time of day. every service l have been with that has publicly had some sort of FUP that is known to throttle users (AOL, Virgin, etc) has only ever done it at peak times which are usually between approximately 4pm and midnight never, lve never known issues to be outside those times unless it was a weekend, which lm pretty sure has a more extended peak time usage set.

that said l just whois'd your IP address (l help moderate a couple of forums here) and it leads to Telefonica network (some ISPs lease third party connections through them and other similar services when they dont have their own hardware at the exchange as sky likes using their own hardware where possible) and if memory serves lve had connections in the past that werent exactly great at times that used connections through the Telefonica network.. that said some one else might be able to help better than myself who is more knowledgeable, lm just passing along my personal experiences.
 
Timeless, I fear my IP address has changed since I moved from Sky. So, although it appears your effort was in vain, I thank you for taking the trouble to help. However, I need to point out the obvious. Even if there was some issue along the lines you suggest, Sky ought to resolve it. They were my ISP, they ought to sort out the problem no matter who else might have been involved. This they, clearly, did not do. So much for customer service then. Cheers.
 
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I dont think sky are bad for a big provider. I have always spoke to UK based support who do listen to you, they also do act on what I have asked for and spoke to the higher levels of support if I have needed it.

Do you have the diags you did saved to show the performance differences and do you know if your on a LLU exchange?

I have seen this problem once before and i never fully found out how it was sorted.
 
l just did a little research, dont quote me, in fact you can thank ManOfMeans for bringing it to mind. going by your IP (and outdated one) it did lead to a whois which labelled it as leading to Sky, however it also noted Telefonica which l believe was owned by O2, now if memory serves O2 did have some sort of network management which may have still been active, however if my assumption is correct you may not have been on the Sky network but on the network Sky acquired when they bought out O2. tho l am speculating.
 
Timeless, that would be correct. O2 is the UK name of Telefonica (parent company, also known as Wind in other parts of Europe) and it is what Sky acquired. Naturally, I would have been on this network. It should be noted though that I was with O2 since 2009 and, although O2 had some traffic management, this only applied to P2P which has nothing to do with what I described. I never had the issues I described above with O2. Hence, something did change!

ManofMeans I am on an LLU exchange. Unfortunately, I have not kept the diags from the numerous tests I did. My concern then was to have the issue fixed not to prove anything. I was never asked by Sky to produce anything either. All they kept saying was that the line was showing a steady 17Mbs connection to the exchange and that was all they were interested in quoting -which is fine but, as everyone knows, traffic management happens after that point. The fact that they did not really bother to resolve the issue, instead resorting to inducements to keep me with them, told me all I needed to know.
You say that you "don't think sky are bad for a big provider". That may be so (or not) but, allow me to say, that it is immaterial when the user cannot do what he/she wants.

Thank you both for taking the time to look at this. However, the only explanation that I could find and which would answer all suggestions -but one- put forward so far, is the one about preferential area traffic management owing to insufficient capacity where I am (near Edinburgh). The only question that remains is why this management was implemented 24/7. That is a mystery.
 
The only question that remains is why this management was implemented 24/7. That is a mystery.

The answer is usually "someone cocked up".
 
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lm not saying your points arent valid, but some times network management isnt always precise especially when one network is acquired by another and things change. for example l was with an ISP called Central Point which closed down (my first broadband connection), when they were bought out by Fast24 suddenly l went from a 512 connection to a 2meg one.

suffice to say it is possible someone messed up as well.
 
You say that you "don't think sky are bad for a big provider". That may be so (or not) but, allow me to say, that it is immaterial when the user cannot do what he/she wants.

Thank you both for taking the time to look at this. However, the only explanation that I could find and which would answer all suggestions -but one- put forward so far, is the one about preferential area traffic management owing to insufficient capacity where I am (near Edinburgh). The only question that remains is why this management was implemented 24/7. That is a mystery.

IT cant be a case of not enough capacity if your line would run at full speed when on a VPN, to me it sounds like a incorrect parameter set some where on the traffic management equipment they use. It could even of been after a firmware update on something on their network has caused a bug or something to be reset. I am only guessing but it is a well educated guess.

The answer is usually "someone cocked up".

Exactly what I was thinking and they are not aware of it yet.
 
An error or cock up is indeed quite possible, as you suggest. Just a point to clarify though. By low capacity I did not mean that there is not enough to provide a descent service to people. What I meant really is that there is not enough capacity to have many people, like me, hammering the system and, at the same time, provide a descent service to the other customers. If this happens to be the case in my area, then when I used the VPN my line would be running fine but the speed of someone else would probably not be acceptable.
 
Another possibility might be a peering problem, although it would depend upon who they peer with and where you're streaming from. I sometimes noticed on my old 16Mbps ADSL2+ line with Sky that the performance on iPlayer and YouTube (examples) would slow right down and during those occasions a tracerout would often hint at a peering problem with one of the content servers along the way. But in my case the issue was eventually fixed a few days later.

Like others here I'd class myself as a heavy user, not least since these days I stream most of my TV and Movies via NOW TV, Netflix and Amazon Prime Instant. Not to mention all the big game downloads from STEAM, such as Wolfenstine and Watch Dogs in the last couple of days (about 70GB right there alone). But so far Sky hasn't slowed me.
 
It would be interesting to know if sky have consolidated the networks some where and using the same peering and transit links for both networks.

But that would also cause its whole customer base problems which I haven't seen.
 
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Timeless, that would be correct. O2 is the UK name of Telefonica (parent company, also known as Wind in other parts of Europe) and it is what Sky acquired. Naturally, I would have been on this network. It should be noted though that I was with O2 since 2009 and, although O2 had some traffic management, this only applied to P2P which has nothing to do with what I described. I never had the issues I described above with O2. Hence, something did change!

ManofMeans I am on an LLU exchange. Unfortunately, I have not kept the diags from the numerous tests I did. My concern then was to have the issue fixed not to prove anything. I was never asked by Sky to produce anything either. All they kept saying was that the line was showing a steady 17Mbs connection to the exchange and that was all they were interested in quoting -which is fine but, as everyone knows, traffic management happens after that point. The fact that they did not really bother to resolve the issue, instead resorting to inducements to keep me with them, told me all I needed to know.
You say that you "don't think sky are bad for a big provider". That may be so (or not) but, allow me to say, that it is immaterial when the user cannot do what he/she wants.

Thank you both for taking the time to look at this. However, the only explanation that I could find and which would answer all suggestions -but one- put forward so far, is the one about preferential area traffic management owing to insufficient capacity where I am (near Edinburgh). The only question that remains is why this management was implemented 24/7. That is a mystery.

All this talk of throttling, What is most likely here is contention, Sky don't have enough resources at a local level to those affected (exchange to pop) before it hits the core network , all down to sky selling cheap and piling them high, As for the Telefonica uk, network that both o2/BE llu utilised , this certainly the core part of the network was retained by telefonica uk, for future use possibly for 3-4g services , the old exchange hardware, maybe was re used by sky at some locations, but the majority of their kit was old & outdated, as for the peering they used that was dire the amongst poorest that i have seen, and their peering capacity levels where far too low
 
Cyclope, I think you looked at this thread with just..one eye (excuse the pun, but could not resist it :nod:).
How much contention you think there could be at 4:30 in the morning, every morning for a week? Please read some previous parts of this thread. This should give you a better picture of the issue. Thanks for the input though some valid issues about old stock being used around.
 
You don't go from 13mb to 1mb or less at 4:30 in the morning. Now that is strange... I don't think they're throttling you. Sky's routing can be deplorable at times. Sky are just rubbish... their Easynet network or whatever it's called again. You're probably from Antarctica whenever these massive speed drops occur. Don't play video games online, they love the French too much...

I'm with BT (non LLU because we can't get that here), totally unlimited package and the connection only degrades during the peak hours 2, 1 & below... although I think that has something to do with the exchange because it's unpredictable (i.e, speeds can be 1 for 5 minutes but then go back to normal the next for the rest of the night).

Whenever an ISP deliberately throttles (or shapes I should say) things become a tad predictable... Say you were torrenting and being shaped at 30kbs or something... it will go something like 30, 28, 35, 31, 32, 30 etc no matter how many seeds there are.
 
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