Will BT Internet or Sky let me cancel a new fibre-optic contract if the speeds are as low at 3mbps - 5mbps?

[366]

I am considering upgrading to a fibre-optic connection. I just need to know if BT Internet or Sky will compensate in one way or another if the internet speeds are much lower than promised (for e.g. if speeds are slow as 3mbps-5mbps - which is the speed I get from my current Sky broadband connection.

Any guidance would be appreciated. If you have dealt with either of the aforementioned companies in the past please advise what would be the best course of action other than downgrading.

Thank you.
What about this:

http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gadgets/bt-infin...-50010340/

[Tony Mac]

if they promised you way higher and your acheiving nowhere near that, then you should give them the opportunity to get what your paying for.
if that still doesnt work, then yes, you can cancel!

[stebburn]

no ..... they only give you the expected speed

speed is determined by a few factors ... one is the line ..get a line test done ..the provider will do this for you or get it done by an independent or speak to neighbours

secondly the distance you are from the exchange ....

my advise would be stay away from BT , they have a fair use policy , SKY does not

a fair use policy means during peak times the company will throttle you ie: reduce your bandwidth ...... i have been with every internet provider ..and none of them are as good as SKY

i run at full speed all day... everyday ..with the odd disconnection ( which is understandable )


EDIT : sorry tony mac information is wrong ....... in all small print there is a fair-use policy as i have mentioned above ... this in effect gives them reason NOT to give you what you are paying for at peak times, when you sign up for the service you are agreeing to these terms and conditions .... if you were to question the speeds , the service provider would try and improve the speeds .... but if you wished to cancel and it all went pear shaped , they could in essence pull your Internet traffic and if you have been downloading or streaming dubious content ( torrents , files hosts , illegal streams ) this would be enough to keep you quite ...YOU WOULD INCUR LARGE cancellation fee's at the very least



TRAFFIC SHAPING:

i would be dubious of BT's claims on this .... i myself download torrents and i know that bt throttle them ... i own 2 houses , and have a bt infinity connection in a house i rent out ...saying this , i have not checked the BT bandwidth in about 4 months ... 4 months ago , they throttled torrent traffic , which is a certain type of data transfer ( data packets and considered illegal ) ... going by the artical has this changed ? i don't know ...... all's i do know is , the fair use policy is how they get you to buy bigger tariffs ...generally BT own all the trunk lines and charge other providers to use them hence the need for a fair use policy as data transfer during peak times 10am -22:00pm bt charged a premium .... sky i think have created the own lines ...and recently the government broke the monopoly BT had on the exchanges ( line rentals etc etc ) ....when a company has a monopoly usually there not allowed to out shine the competitors for economic growth purposes .... in Ireland were i live our state electricity company is not allowed to sell electricity for cheaper than private companies .... the same rules have applied to BT in the past

[Southpaw]

Well, first you have to find out if fibre to the cabinet is available in your area, so use BTs postcode checker;
http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/where-and-when/
Sky do not own any network infrastructure, the hire it from BT them rent it on to their customers for a profit, so it is the same apart from the router / modem.
BT have accurately calculated the upload and download speeds that you will receive when connected with an Ethernet cable, for WiFi you will be lucky to get half of that speed as it can be affected by distance from the router to your PC, and radio interference problems from nearby devices transmitting on or near the same frequency.
You will get the speed predicted if you connect with an Ethernet cable, it is science not guesswork, so in the unlikely event that there are any speed problems after installation you do have a good case to cancel, as ISP providers do not like bad publicity.
I have BT Infinity and get 39 Mbps down and 8 Mbps upload speeds using a cable, only 19 download speed though with WiFi.
The main advantage of it is that you can connect more devices to the router without losing speed, as there is more of it available.
The main disadvantage is that some websites as yet work at a much slower speed so you won`t see much improvement.
Due to the fast speed of optical fibre cables these days compared with ADSL copper wired connections it is not as necessary to throttle your internet speed as it was previously so that your neighbours could still get a decent service whilst you were abusing it.
I don`t think that you have much to worry about, you will get the speed advertised if you use an Ethernet cable between the router and your PC, regards, Bob.