Archived on 6/5/2022

Sky Broadband problems this week?

Kate8
4 Oct '20

Has anyone else had a few internet outages this week? We had at least one in the week and two yesterday (Saturday 3rd) - at least an hour at a time.

(We have Sky Fibre on Cabinet 15.)

hurljy
4 Oct '20

We use Talk Talk and our Internet this week has been very unreliable: slow connection, dropping in and out etc.

ChrisR
4 Oct '20

I’m on Talk Talk standard broadband in Sunderland Road and normally get a pretty stable 16Mb connection but a few times in the last week I had issues with buffering when streaming Eurosport Player on my laptop and when I did a speed test it was only 8Mb which is unusual.

BirdinHand
5 Oct '20

We’re in Bird-in-Hand Passage and have just lost our Sky Superfast (when it works!) broadband. At least the third outage since the weekend started.

Fran_487
5 Oct '20

Same! My Sky broadband connection just died. Mid client presentation. Excellent work.

Poppleoppledus
5 Oct '20

Mine too, also Sky Broadband

annmarie
5 Oct '20

Yep our Sky broadband dropped out about 30mins ago too

BirdinHand
5 Oct '20

Ours just came back, whilst we were logging our complaint with SkyHelp. Hopefully everyone else’s is coming back now.

BirdinHand
5 Oct '20

Might have spoke too soon. Gone again!

Kate8
5 Oct '20

Yes ours went out about half an hour ago - not back yet. I’m currently on the phone waiting to get through to Sky. I tried calling customer services directly but that just leads to a dead end referring back to the website. I had to use the Sky app and do a diagnostic and then it gave me a link to click to call, and now I’m on hold - been waiting 20 mins so far…!

BirdinHand
5 Oct '20

We are through and still talking to them. If you want to let us know your postcode/street we will tell them. Are your phones also on Sky as they may be affected?

BirdinHand
5 Oct '20

That goes for anyone else who wants us to tell sky while we’re speaking to them. DM me if you prefer.

Kate8
5 Oct '20

We are in SE23 3HJ

BirdinHand
5 Oct '20

Got it. Will pass it on.

BirdinHand
5 Oct '20

Stay on the phone as they say everyone needs to report it, despite our pointing out you and others can’t get through!

Kate8
5 Oct '20

Thanks - I have got through and am speaking to them now. I have let them know my neighbours are having the same problem at the same time.

Kate8
5 Oct '20

They say they are sending an Openreach engineer out tomorrow between 8am and 1pm to check the box and wires as I said that it was affecting the whole area (thanks to your replies here). Hopefully they will be able to identify and fix the problem - although perhaps we may experience a small outage while they are doing their testing so be prepared…

BirdinHand
5 Oct '20

Thanks. Seems to be coming back intermittently. An openreach engineer is booked for Wednesday. Ridiculous that we need to do duplication.

BirdinHand
5 Oct '20

As an FYI, it looks like only a fibre issue now as our landline - using sky broadband as distinct from superfast/fibre - is now working.

Kate8
6 Oct '20

Update: the openreach engineer came just now but refused to check the local wiring, looked at our socket, declared it “fixed” and left, despite us explaining the issue was affecting several properties. So no help there. I hope it doesn’t happen again but if it does I guess I have to phone Sky again and explain the Openreachengineer refused to investigate the problem we are having…

Kate8
6 Oct '20

And ours just dropped for a minute or two - back now but not sure if it’ll go again.

annmarie
6 Oct '20

How’s everyone’s connection this morning? Ours has just gone down again…

annmarie
6 Oct '20

Arh same post at same time! Although ours not back up yet

Kate8
6 Oct '20

Is everyone near Bird in Hand passage or further afield?

annmarie
6 Oct '20

We’re off Woolstone Road

Dood
6 Oct '20

Our sky broadband just went down for 10 minutes at the same time as yours. We are on Acorn Way so near Sydenham. I’m on the phone to them now

Kate8
6 Oct '20

Oh that’s the other side of the railway - so it must be quite a big area affected!

Kate8
6 Oct '20

Thanks - I think the only solution is for us all to call Sky whenever it happens. I have been calling 03337592361

Beige
6 Oct '20

I heard about an issue on Levendale road caused by engineering work. Close to there?

Kate8
6 Oct '20

I am on the other side of the railway from Levendale Road, off Bird in Hand Passage.

Beige
6 Oct '20

sorry, wrong person. I meant to address to @annmarie

annmarie
6 Oct '20

Yeah we’re the next street so that would be consistent. I can’t get through to anyone at Sky they keep pushing me to online help which is very frustrating.

Kate8
6 Oct '20

I can’t get through to anyone at Sky they keep pushing me to online help which is very frustrating.

What number are you calling? I got the number 03337592361 after I ran through troubleshooting via the “my Sky” app. The numbers I found online just kept pushing me back to the website too…

Dood
6 Oct '20

I can confirm I got through to a real person using that 361 number. Just kept saying “no” to the autobot asking if i wanted to go online.
Annoyingly my internet turned back on so the call switched to wifi call then I got disconnected when talking to them when it decided to cut out again! I’m on hold again now (on my reliable 4G!).

Watershed
6 Oct '20

Yeah mine went down too last night and has been rubbish on and off all week. I’m also down Bird in Hand Passage and just on rubbish non fibre (NOW broadband) so it’s definitely something at some local hub.

Laura_McDonald
6 Oct '20

Yep! Our Now TV broadband has literally just packed in! My poor girlfriend has had to go into her work’s office, as unable to WFH. We’re in Devonshire Road.

Terri_Wade
6 Oct '20

Yes! I have Sky Broadband and been having issues for about four / five days. Got notifications on my TV to say not connected properly, laptop keeps dropping signal, kitchen lost all signal and when WiFi drops on my phone only getting 3G not 4G. sky saying there are no issues…

BirdinHand
6 Oct '20

We’ve lost ours again for the past hour. Disappointing to hear that Openreach aren’t doing the obvious thing and checking the external connections. We are talking to Sky and explaining (again) that this is a wider problem.

Terri_Wade
6 Oct '20

I’m a bit further down from you - SE23 2AB so it feels like it’s a large area that’s being impacted

BirdinHand
6 Oct '20

We’re back up - for now.

Dood
6 Oct '20

I just got off the phone to Sky and they agree with @Kate8. We all need to call and report the issues when they happen, then they might do something.

The outcome from my call was an Openreach engineer will contact me within 72 hours… so we will see!

TomPringle
6 Oct '20

Sky too, Woolstone Road.
Down for 20 mins Sat evening.
45 mins yesterday early eve.
20 mins at half 10 this morning.
Apparently, according to the person I spoke to there yesterday, there are no problems. It may be a BT engineer working on the lines, which they Apparently don’t tell sky about. I’m sceptical.

Forestdan
6 Oct '20

Hi. Another suffering Sky customer - currently in Costa. Has the problem been sorted - love in Bird in Hand Mews area?

Sandinista
6 Oct '20

Mine went off about 10.30 too. There are Openreach engineers working at the cabinet on Waldenshaw Rd - not sure if that’s related but hopefully things will improve…

Watershed
6 Oct '20

Mine’s been fine this morning… fingers crossed!

Kate8
6 Oct '20

We all need to call and report the issues when they happen, then they might do something.

Yes it does seem to be the only way. I tried contacting Openreach on Twitter and they said “If there’s an issue in a wide area then this would be flagged up to us by residents/businesses reporting faults to their providers, as we’d have an accurate number of customers affected.” So we all just have to keep reporting it if it happens again.

Flora_Noris
6 Oct '20

Also been having problems just off Honor Oak Park. Was out for quite a while last night, not noticed any downtime today though since 9am.

Kate8
6 Oct '20

My internet went again at 16:22! I’m going to call them again I guess…!

Kate8
6 Oct '20

Back again after an hour… another Openreach engineer is coming tomorrow and hopefully will look at more than just my phone socket!

nikolarun
7 Oct '20

I’ve had issues with Sky ADSL over the last few days. I’ve been somewhat sucsessful with the MySky app in running the diagnostics and it resetting something in the exchange.
Tonight it has dropped again, but I cannot get it back up and running with the diagnostics with the app.
It looks like there is a fault in the exchange. I am on Devonshire RD, and the cabinet I am connected to is the one on the junction of tyson road.

Kate8
8 Oct '20

Ours went last night too - will report it to Sky

BirdinHand
8 Oct '20

Ours was down pretty much all night until around 06.30 to is morning. Openreach engineer with us at the moment.

clausy
8 Oct '20

So is it a backbone issue (Openreach) or Sky? I’m confused - seems like everyone with issues has Sky at consumer level, do Openreach cabinets service all providers - maybe not otherwise others like BT would also have issues? I was thinking of tagging the topic title with [Sky Broadband] but will hold off if it’s not isolated to them

BirdinHand
8 Oct '20

My understanding is that Openreach has the monopoly on connecting/running the boxes, cables etc - a bit like Transco (now National Grid) did for the gas companies. Virgin’s an exception as they have their own wiring. So if it looks like a problem outside your property it’s more likely that Sky or whoever will get Openreach involved. For us at least, the jury’s still out on precisely where the fault lies.

clausy
8 Oct '20

Yes I get that, in the same way your gas comes through the same pipe via one wholesaler but your consumer brand sells it to you and handles all the retail client facing comms.

So my question was do Openreach have Sky cabinets and BT cabinets or does all BT and Sky go through one. The issue here seems limited only to Sky customers (and yes Virgin have their own cable network so are exempt)

BirdinHand
8 Oct '20

BT and Sky etc go through the same cabinets.

ForestHull
8 Oct '20

With the exception of Virgin, they all go through the same cabinets and physical infrastructure until the traffic streams are split out to each ISPs Point-of-Presence (POP) at which point it is upto the ISP to handle the traffic (routing, billing, peering etc…). The POP is in a data centre somewhere, likely co-located with the BT Openreach stuff, but often in a locked cage so other engineers cannot physically access each other’s servers.
.

clausy
8 Oct '20

Right so that would imply it’s a POP issue with Sky’s kit, so why are Openreach trying to fix it on site? I’m just curious, just my nature to debug things :slight_smile:

ForestHull
8 Oct '20

Configuration of one part relies on configuration of the other, there may be more than one fault, or one company just wants to blame the other!

Clearly Sky is the commonality here though :thinking:

BirdinHand
8 Oct '20

Update: following a long series of tests and adjustments so that we’re back up and running, it’s looking likely that the wider problems are a Sky issue centred around cabinet 15.

i_love_snacks
8 Oct '20

I’m very glad I checked on here, after Sky have been repeatedly telling me it’s my equipment at fault (conveniently a few days after the warranty expired so I’ve had to fork out for new router etc. knowing full well it won’t fix it!) Those sneaky snakes! Sky are less than helpful, but I suppose the call handlers can’t solve the problem. I’m midway up Dartmouth Road and my internet has never been particularly good over the last 4 years. Fingers crossed we’re all back online soon.

Kate8
8 Oct '20

Hmm my internet just vanished again…

Dood
8 Oct '20

Me too. It looks like the engineer I asked for on Tuesday is still to come. Let’s hope one of them can sort something out. I’m not sure what else we can do but continue to call Sky but that doesn’t seem to be working :frowning:

Kate8
8 Oct '20

Indeed - I have just booked the third Openreach engineer visit of the week for tomorrow. Monday’s engineer wasn’t helpful but Tuesday’s gave it a good go but declared our connection to be “perfect” and said he couldn’t do anything for the whole area unless everyone contacts Sky and eventually someone will have to put 2 and 2 together. He tried but he couldn’t do much other than test our line which was working fine at the time. I’m just going to keep calling Sky as I don’t know what else to do.

annmarie
8 Oct '20

Us too at 5ish and still down…

bigmacca1
8 Oct '20

I’ve been trying to report it to Sky since Monday ? Not having a lot of luck though.
Cant actually speak to anyone using the House phone, Just get told to go to Sky.com, but there’s no where on there to report the Outage ?? I thought Plusnet were bad but at least you could eventually report to someone.

BirdinHand
8 Oct '20

Back up about 10 mins ago…but who know for how long. Attempting to escalate it at Sky and mae them aware (again!) that this is a widespread issue.

annmarie
8 Oct '20

That’s exactly the issue I’ve been having too! Every number I try and every way I try to bypass the IVR i can’t get through to speak to any one. So frustrating.:rage:

Kate8
8 Oct '20

I think the way to get through is to get the My Sky mobile app and log into your account, then do the broadband test in the app. When if fails you might get an option to call a number - click that and you’ll bypass the automation and be ready to be on hold for 15 mins or more… but then you will speak to someone.

BirdinHand
8 Oct '20

We tried to speak to a manager at Sky and were informed that wasn’t possible as it’s a network problem! Been reading all these messages over to Sky. I’m sure we all know what GDPR is but it’s now regularly being recited to us as a corporate mantra about not being able to share ANY information.

Twitter
8 Oct '20
TomPringle
8 Oct '20

Yep, dowm again from around 4.45 to 6ish. Spoke to them eventually and they said I need an engineer. The next sky engineer is available on 20 October.

I made it clear that this was not acceptable and we were considering leaving. An openreach engineer is due tomorrow.

They think it’s a problem with our equipment, but the 71 messages above would make that quite a coincidence.

Kate8
8 Oct '20

Maybe we’ll have the same engineer tomorrow. That will be another coincidence I am sure.

bigmacca1
8 Oct '20

Yes i agree with you there. 71+ is no coincidence , to be fair we haven’t had too many outages on Sky but this is APITA. Lets hope they find the problem it obviously not an individual problem i wouldn’t think. Can you let us know what your engineer has to offer??

Thanks

nikolarun
9 Oct '20

and we are down again.almost the same time as last night. I wonder if something is happening at FH exchange right at this time.

Indre
9 Oct '20

Exactly what i noticed!The same time at night🤦🏼‍♀️

nikolarun
9 Oct '20

I get this

Kate8
9 Oct '20

Yes ours went off overnight too - we have an engineer visit this morning so I’ll report back if he/she has any information…

TomPringle
9 Oct '20

Just spoke to the Openreach engineer (no Sky engineer is available until the 20th). He has found no problems with the supply to the house, but acknowledges that there is something going on with Sky customers, as he has 30 Sky call outs in the Forest Hill area today and there are clearly regular widespread outages.

Contrary to Sky’s position on the phone, he can’t check the Sky equipment (only the non-existent Sky engineers can do that). He will come in and check/posisbly replace the openreach socket.

They are continuing to investigate.

Kate8
9 Oct '20

Just had the engineer in - he says that our connection is good (no faults at our end). No surprise as that’s what the engineer on Tuesday said when he left. (We did have a small issue that might have slowed our speed but nothing that would cause an outage. This was fixed on Tuesday.)

The engineer thinks the problem must be some faulty Sky equipment somewhere in a box locally.

He said all he can do is attempt to escalate it, and he has reported the problem back to Sky with his diagnosis.

From my point of view, now the small line fault has been corrected, I don’t think that getting another Openreach engineer here will do anything.

The only thing we can do is wait for Sky to acknowledge there is a problem with their equipment locally and send someone to fix that. I think that can only be achieved if we keep reporting the problem to Sky if it happens again.

BirdinHand
9 Oct '20

Was there a response to the tweet from SkyHelp to the one sent by SE23Life on our behalf last night?

anon5422159
9 Oct '20

Not yet

BirdinHand
9 Oct '20

Thanks Chris. When we tried to make contact via Twitter we got back a standard response along the lines of ‘sorry to hear about your problem, why not head on over to our website and log the problem there?’ Fingers crossed, though.

Watershed
9 Oct '20

I had drop outs again like some of you last night and other times… I’m with Now broadband which is owned by Sky I’m pretty sure.

AlreadyThatTime
9 Oct '20

Yep, I have NowTv broadband and they are a sister company of Sky - have had all the same problems as listed above and have an Openreach technician in my living room as we speak !
We are Devonshire road side so I shall ask what cabinet we are… when I spoke to him about the outages and this thread he did say it sounds like a Sky issue - perhaps it’s the same poor guy that has been everywhere else this week !

AlreadyThatTime
9 Oct '20

I am cabinet 8.
No problems that Openreach can see here.
But I have had this issue on and off again , notably for the past 2 weeks.
It has to be an issue with the exchange in the wires somewhere between Sky - SE23 apparently, but my tech does not want to point fingers bless him.
The pics are off the wifi dropping approx 1am over the past couple of nights.
Do you think it has anything to do with the railway construction works going on during the early hours ?
Although mine also dropped in the early evening the other day around 5-6pm , same day as the thread blew up , as soon as I got off the phone to NowTv (within the same time it had come on again ) the broadband dropped. But the Trainline works were not taking place then as far as I know.
image|281x500

Hannah_nicolej
9 Oct '20

Hi all!

Myself and my neighbour both also having the same issue with connection dropping intermittently for last ~2 weeks. I called Sky and an Openreach guy came to me this morning. He said he had been inundated with calls in the area, checked my router/line, confirmed they were fine and as he suspected the issue was not with the network but with the Exchange in Forest Hill, and therefore a Sky system issue instead.
(I asked where the Exchange was and he said by the old Co-op.)
I then had a message from Sky saying my issue was ‘closed’ so have just made an irritated phone call to them. End result (after a lot of frustrated explaining), they have escalated and booked an engineer on Tuesday morning to have a look at the Exchange…

ForestHull
9 Oct '20

This sounds terrible! Can I ask, is it easy to switch broadband provider, or is Sky all tied in to the TV packages as well?

Kate8
9 Oct '20

This is great news - thanks!

Zoe_Webb
9 Oct '20

My sky connection has been the same, I’m on Church Vale, thankfully I have an O2 dongle which was supplied by work when I was in a nursing home in July and have been using that all week so I can continue working as due to mobility issues I’m unable to travel into my office.

Terri_Wade
9 Oct '20

I’ve gone down again about half an hour ago…

AlreadyThatTime
9 Oct '20

:crossed_fingers: Thanks Hannah

Terri_Wade
10 Oct '20

Hi - I phoned Sky today. All checks ok- no surprise. They then offered me (for free) a new router and a new booster package which guarantees daily checks, easy access to engineers etc for cheaper than I’m already paying. He then suggested I could get my tv package reduced at the same time.

Was switched to another person who said they could reduce my whole sky tv / broadband package by about £20 a month but then when she started reading out the broadband speeds I did a check on u switch and to be honest the speeds are rubbish in comparison to others so I’ve declined and think I may just look for a faster provider…

However - with regards to the overall SE23 issue the original person told me that he CANNOT escalate…

Terri_Wade
10 Oct '20

Me again - hopefully this photo appears. Ways to complain to Sky…

jonfrewin
10 Oct '20

I have a friend who works in a fairly senior position at Sky broadband and I’ve drawn his attention to this thread. He says there is already a ticket open concerning the problems people in this neighbourhood have been having, and I think has added a link to this thread to the ticket.

Kate8
10 Oct '20

Amazing - thank you!

Flora_Noris
11 Oct '20

Fantastic! Thank you for bringing it to your friend’s attention!

ChrisR
11 Oct '20

I’m beginning to wonder if the issue is with more than just Sky’s equipment at Forest Hill exchange as I’ve been getting an unusually large number of drop outs on Talk Talk broadband the last couple of weeks, that have been getting progressively worse the last few days. Luckily I have unlimited data on my current mobile phone package so can swop to using my phone as a mobile hotspot but it’s a bloody nuisance!

I remember a few years ago there was an issue with the broadband going completely for several days and it was eventually traced to something Virgin Media had done on their equipment at the exchange which had also affected Talk Talk.

clausy
11 Oct '20

BT here - touch wood but no recent issues…

Hannah_nicolej
13 Oct '20

He’s just finished working at the exchange. I asked if he found an issue and if it is now fixed and what the issue was and the response was ‘Yes I did. Network Problems’.

So hopefully it will be ok now but one to keep an eye on…

Kate8
13 Oct '20

Thank you!

azmadu
15 Oct '20

Yes we’ve had issues the past week and month with our broadband. I’m just off Stanstead Road and we lost our BB over a weekend last month and I contacted Sky and they arranged an engineer to attend but they didn’t need to as it was a fault in the area which they rectified late one Sunday night.

I’ve since upgraded to a SkyQ router and that started to drop connections last week for no reason. Again I contacted Sky over a couple of days after running all the checks online and again they arranged for an engineer to attend. As always things seem to resolve themselves and the engineer’s visit was postponed as things seem to be OK.

There are definitely gremlins gnawing at the line so we need to bash them out if we find them :slight_smile:

bigmacca1
15 Oct '20

Well things have settled down here as well, it makes sense if it was an exchange problem,

I spoke to a BT engineer on Kemble road last week about the Broadband going down and he

hadn’t heard of any mass dropout but did say in the past they had a problem with Rats chewing Fibre cables ? Wonder if that’s because the cables are underground as apposed Telegraph poles??

Sandinista
25 Oct '20

Has anyone else been having problems this weekend? We’ve been having frequent, short outages - reconnects after a few minutes but still pretty disruptive…

Fran_487
25 Oct '20

Yep. Maddening.

Fran_487
2 Nov '20

And here on Perry Vale, it’s down AGAIN. Anyone else?

Kate8
3 Nov '20

Not here - ours has been OK since Hannah_nicolej’s message.

Sandinista
3 Nov '20

I meant to update last week… we spoke to the help desk, and they changed the channel we are on. Apparently a lot of people are on the same channel which can cause problems. Touch wood it’s been ok since.

Swagger
4 Nov '20

I’m with BT and had no internet at all on Monday.