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True to their word, Sky have activated me on the right day After reading about all the issues others were having with getting connected, I was fully expecting to have to wait for some time to get my connection up and running. However, at 8am today when I crawled out of bed, my connection was online and working.

It’s currently connected at around 12.5Mb and seems pretty stable. The download speed for Usenet sites at a very impressive 1.38Mb/s, so I’m certainly a happy camper….

I’ll let the connection settle in a little for a few days before I do any more speedtests and post my full stats.

Unpacked the router last night & plugged it in hoping against all the odds that I’d been activated early… No such luck. I now have the router on the desk facing me so I can stare longingly at it until the fabled DSL light pops into action. Still on course for the 29th…

Well, almost. Parcel Line dropped a card for me today and I’m not expecting any other deliveries, so it must be the Sky router. I also got my letters from Sky with an activation date of 29/09, so I have 4 more days to wait. Let’s hope it all goes smoothly…

I haven’t received anything in the post from SkyBB yet, so I thought I’d give them a call first thing this morning to check out the order status. I called at about 8:45, even though the lines don’t open until 9am

I was only on hold for 11 minutes before someone answered the phone. He sounded like he was still asleep to be honest. Anyhow, he checked the status of my order and could see that my router order had definitely gone through on the 20th and I should expect to get it in the next couple of days.

Then I asked if I had an activation date on the system… Apparently my date is set for the 29th. Let’s see if that actually happens shall we

After the abrupt cutting of while waiting on hold for what seemed like an eternity, I finally got through to a nice Scottish lass who was to say the least, incredibly stressed! Seems like Sky have been sending out far too many BAND codes and their poor call center staff are over-run!

I started to explain how I wasn’t able to order SkyBB last week because there was an LLU service on my account, but everything should be fine now because both Bulldog & UKOnline websites said my line was free. She then told me that she couldn’t go ahead with the order because of the LLU account still being attached & started to explain that it would take several business days to free up from the line before she could place the order.

At this point I think she sensed my horror as I started to think of the consequences of being without a proper internet connection for much longer than I’d like, because she promptly stopped & told me she was winding me up! I like that she still has a sense of humor, despite being so ridiculously busy

So, my order is placed and my router should apparently be with me in the next 3-4 days via Parcel Line (I think that’s who she said). Couldn’t give me an activation date though, that will apparently follow in the post…

Seems to be a lot harder this week than it was last time I called them

Firstly I tried the 0800 number to sign up & sat in the queue for 20 minutes. When someone finally picked up the phone she told me I couldn’t place the order on that line and had to call the 0870 number instead. Ok fair enough, I’ll give them a try…

So, called the 0870 number & sat in the queue for 23 minutes, only to hear the following message : We’re sorry, all our agents are currently busy with other callers, please call back later” *click*. They have got to be kidding right? Keeping people on hold for nearly half an hour then just cutting them off?

I wasn’t too bothered about the first call to the 0800 number as it was free, but to cut someone off intentionally after 23 minutes & making them call back it just plain out of order…

I’m on hold again now, currently waiting for 13 minutes and counting. Let’s see how it goes this time.

Well, Plusnet seem to have done something right this time… My ADSL has died this morning, so I checked out my line availability by looking at the checkers on a couple of different ISPs. Both Bulldog and UKOnline say my line can take their services now but didn’t while my Plusnet was still on. I’m assuming that means I can get Sky to sign me up now.

Just before I get disconnected from Plusnet on Wednesday, I thought I should probably run some peak time speed tests on this connection so I can compare it to the new one. I know it’s not exactly an apples for apples kind of test as I’m going from 8Mb ADSL to 16Mb ADSL2+, but hey, I can only do the test with what I have right? =) I’d like to post my line stats as they are now, but unfortunately my router doesn’t give them….

BBMax gave me 6003kbps down, with no test for upload

ADSLGuide gave 5951kbps down, 511.3 kbps up

The BTOpenworld download page gave me an average of 747 kb/s

Numion.com says I have a download speed of 3.2 Mbps and uplaod of 500 kbps

Newsleecher running with 4 processes connected to Astraweb runs with a very variable speed when using port 119 (normal Usenet port) fluctuating from 350-500 kb/s. When running on port 8080 (http port) it sits at a very constant 740-750 kb/s. This is because of Plusnet’s “Bandwith Shaping” and applies for most of the time during peak and off-peak hours.

All these tests were run between 20:30-21:00.

 

Well, my phone is now back with BT. No problems here at all, no hassle, no messing about with online tickets or slow response times. Why did I ever change my phone to Plusnet in the first place?

One small gripe though, I’ve not received anything in the post from BT at all yet, so I don’t know my account number. I tried to call them today to get it, but apparently they can’t give it to me over the phone. This means I can’t add my account to my BT web login, which is a bit of a pain for now.

Well, I finally got a date for my line cease from Plusnet :

Dear Mr Mitchell,

We have now raised a cease on your line due for completion on: 20.09.06


TC Reference:674023CSE

Regards,
(name removed)

To administer your account and for all your help and support requirements visit http://portal.plus.net/index_nlp.html

My wireless USB dongle arrived yesterday too, so I’m all set up to use the wireless connection while I wait for Sky to be connected. Roll on the 20th!