Sky broadband brings ADSL2+ to the masses

SKY LAUNCHED THE marketing of Sky broadband sometime ago as reported by the INQ upon the formal launch of the full product range.

There's a number of product offerings:

• Base: 2mb/s, 2gb cap, free monthly rental, £40 activation
• Mid: 8mb/s, 40gb cap, £5 monthly rental, £20 activation
• Connect: 8mb/s, 40gb cap, £17 monthly rental, £40 activation
• Max: 16mb/s, unlimited cap (with AUP), £10 monthly rental, free activation
• 
  The most interesting product is the LLU-based ADSL2+ offering called 'Max', which the INQUIRER has been trialing at this hack's home for the last few weeks.

Several days after signing up to Sky via telephone (the only way currently) with a recently acquired MAC address from my previous supplier, the free Sky ADSL wireless broadband router arrived. Sleekly packaged, and with a very intuitively presented installation program on the accompanying CD, the Sky-branded Netgear DG834GT 108MB/s 'super wireless' router was well received.

The connection became active about a week later, with minimal downtime and no fuss. The installation CD took care of setting up the router and connection, and I was immediately working happilyonline. However, when it came to port forwarding a few ports on the router, I quickly became stuck.

Nowhere in the documentation could I find the password for the router's admin application. A quick look on the net found the answer: admin/sky. I'm not sure why Sky aren't making this information easily accessible, because port forwarding is a necessary routine task for many users wishing to do more than a bit of web surfing with their internet connection.

The usual Netgear interface is used within the router, which uses a customised Sky firmware. Interestingly, no login details are necessary - the service seems to be authenticated via the device's pre-configured username and password, and you'll need to clone this if you wish to use your own router (see here) - something Sky's T&C's aren't too fond of. You'll also find the Telnet connection to the device has also been disabled.

The service was immediately operating faster than the MaxDSL product previously on the line, at around 8.5MB/s (up from 5.5MB/s), but after several weeks, speeds of up to 14MB/s have been consistently seen. For a good example of the real world application of this kind of speed, the Vista RC2 DVD with 4gb+ of data took under 15 minutes to download (the MS site didn't quite max the connection out). Obviously speeds are dependent on your line quality and distance from the exchange.

The connection had been liable to consistent disconnection, but seems a bit more stable in the last couple of weeks. Looking at online forums this seems to be a problem with a lot of users, and Sky were quick to announce they've been working on fixing any remaining technical glitches.

The Sky router is pre-setup with Wifi WPA-PSK encryption straight out of the box, and the Sky package comes with a small card with the SSID details and WPA key for you to immediately use with any Wifi device you wish to connect. A nice touch.

Overall we're pretty satisfied with the service. Its early days for Sky's broadband offering, and once the connection problems are sorted out, it certainly looks incredible value for money. Near 16MB/s speeds for a tenner a month can't be sniffed at. Sky just need to be a little more open with their policy on third party routers - not all of us want to be stuck with one specific device. µ

See also
Sky launches mobile music service
Sky will be a broadband heavyweight
Sky launches cheapo broadband service
Sky Plus goes mobile