29 March 2014

Sky high fibre broadband pricing!

Just been surveying the price of VDSL2 fibre broadband service, from what I consider to be the four leading mass-market providers in the UK, as I'm looking to maximise the value for money. Current provider is Sky on their "40/10" product.

I have ignored the cost of call packages and any one-off joining discounts, and I have assumed that both voice & data services will both be switched to the new provider (giving free activation in all cases, except BT Infinity 1 Unlimited which is £30).

First of all, the annualised cost of an "80/20" product:


VDSL2 “80/20”
Sky
BT
PlusNet
TalkTalk
Line Rental
£184.80
£141.00
£131.88
£141.00
Broadband
£360.00
£312.00
£239.88
£222.00
TOTAL
£544.80
£453.00
£371.76
£363.00

* No Upfront LR




And the annualised cost of a "40/10" product:

VDSL2 “40/10”
Sky
BT
PlusNet
TalkTalk
Line Rental
£184.80
£141.00
£131.88
£141.00
Broadband
£240.00
£276.00
£191.88
£162.00
TOTAL
£424.80
£417.00
£323.76
£303.00

* No Upfront LR


* BB is “40/2”

In both cases, there's quite a big cost difference between my current provider and the cheapest mass-market provider.

If I wanted to stay on a "40/10" product, I would from £100 to £120 a year just by switching to another provider.

If I move up from the "40/10" product to the "80/20" product with Sky, it will cost me £120 a year more than it does now.

But if I switch to another provider's "80/20" product, it will save me at least £53 a year over the cost of my "40/10" product from Sky - and I will get higher throughput speed!

Sky high fibre broadband pricing!

24 March 2014

Year 1 of Fibre Broadband Performance Measurement

Here are the results of the first year's performance measurement using a SamKnows "Whitebox"on a Sky Fibre Unlimited VDSL2 (FTTC) broadband connection.



Analysis of the Monthly Report Card results from SamKnows gives the average download throughput as 37.67Mbps.




















Analysis of the Monthly Report Card results from SamKnows gives the average upload throughput as 9.12Mbps.