Our household has been on SkyBroadband for more than a month now. When we were still thinking about it, I had a difficult time looking for customer feedback on the internet. The only reviews I encountered were hundreds of negative feedback on the comments section of a popular Filipino tech blog. I doubted if the feedbacks were impartial and fair, I actually felt like they were paid trolls from rival ISP’s. I mean, it can’t be that bad for everyone. So here’s my contribution to the pool of reviews.
We are on Sky’s Plan 6mbps. It’s relatively expensive at P3,999 a month, which includes the internet connection, semi-premium cable TV subscription and 100 minutes of free calls to the US and Canada.
Here are the results of my SpeedTest tests. For impartial results, I selected test servers overseas. If you use test servers hosted by SkyBroadband, of course you’ll get impressive results since you’re testing with your own ISP. If you use other test servers in the Philippines, they’ll actually even be slower than overseas servers since they’re your ISP’s competition. Here are my results:
Hong Kong
Tokyo, Japan
San Jose, CA, USA
Dallas, TX, USA
New York, NY, USA
One disadvantage with SkyBroadband is that torrent downloads are capped. Total download bandwidth doesn’t go beyond 40 KB/s. It’s that slow. I tried employing ways to circumvent the bandwidth throttle, like encryption (or whatever it’s called, search the internet for it), but it was futile. It will work for a while until the ISP would detect it or something, because after an hour or so of 300 KB/s+ speed, it will return to its 40 KB/s cap.
If you know where to look, however, you can direct download any movie, music or software that you like. I just discovered this recently, and I’ve been downloading directly from sources ever since. My direct downloads on off-peak hours can reach up to 1.5 MB/s and sometimes more than 2 MB/s. On peak hours, speed may vary from 200-600 KB/s. It’s fair enough. I am able to download up to a dozen movies overnight. But then, because I download movies faster than I watch them, I have a backlog of over a hundred movies in my external hard drive (collected over the years, from when we were still with another cable ISP).
As for regular internet surfing, websites load faster than when we were on another ISP. It’s still subject to the traffic load of the website’s servers, of course, so sometimes some website load a little slower during peak hours.
If you like watching streaming videos off YouTube and other streaming video sites, you will barely have to wait for the stream to buffer, as they will begin almost instantly and will play continuously. Again, during peak hours, this is subject to heavier traffic on servers, so it may be a little slower.
So, there you go. In sum, we are fairly satisfied with the service of SkyBroadband. I hope this review helps you in deciding whether or not to subscribe to SkyBroadband, switch ISP’s, or maintain your present one.
law student, leftist, national democratic, film school graduate, photography hobbyist
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9 comments to “SkyBroadband Customer Review, Feedback”
hi there! i’m on a week reading your whole blog archive and it is very interesting from your college years until you have your own job in Batasan. We don’t know each other or have seen each other but what unites us is that both of us came from a state education institution of the phil. I came from a state college in pampanga and have graduated year 2006 BS Biology and I share the same point of view regarding your thoughts about anything and everything under athe sun (philipiines). I am currently out of the country until 2011.
my comment is irrelevant to your blog but i am encourage by you as I read your blogs for me to acquire a blo site also. since I do journal everyday it is part of my routine as a training in my campus ministry years and my pastoral class last year, i am encourage to blog also about my walk of life in Christ, differently from yours but i am one with you with all of your opinions and ideas. I am a christian evangelical so I’m into prayers (that’s my battlefield) and as I said I am with you! I just started blogging last week I have 1 entry eheheeh already!
God bless
Hi there! Did you know that I am inspired by you to start my blog entry? Yes, I accidentally browse your blogsite and as I was reading almost all your blog I was so encourage to start mine. Actually I did blog 4x before, but I stopped from doing so. We don’t know each other personally and we don’t have any acquaintances, what connects us is that we both came from a state educational institution. I came from State College in Pampanga, not UP of course. But I am with you with all your opinions and views. But since in my case I am a minister, I’d rather be on the prayer battlefield. I am a graduate of BS Biology year 2006.
Be blessed always!
=) not relevant your blog (my comment) ehehehe
thanks for the inspiration bro!
mahirap ang malayo sa pinas that’s why I am with you sa mga opinions mo and everything that you have posted in your blog regarding our country, kahit kababayan ko si PGMA I feel bad that she is running for a seat in the congress (kadistrict ko siya). Anyhow, ang Diyos naman lahat ang nakakaalam, maraming salamat sa inspirasyon bro! Happy New Year din!
Be blessed!
Nakakainggit naman yung bilis ng ISP mo. Sana ganyan din dito sa Kabite. Haiz….
So Skybroadband throttles bittorrents? Nice heads up. Thanks. Guess they failed to notify me on that one. Doesn’t seem to be in their sales pitches. Heh.
I just happened to see this article on Comcast’s throttling of bittorrents.
I was about to get a skycable subscription here in marikina for the intention of having a Skybroadband. Unfortunately the broadband isn’t yet activated in my area. Anyway, they told us they can send a team to activate the said line. And, THEN….I was browsing the net and read negative feedbacks from SKY subscribers, I was so frustrated that I rejected Sky installers the following day UNTIL i saw this blog of yours. I think I gotta give it a try since well as you’ve said, seems the responders are impartial (looks like talaga). I will call them again and continue the agreed installation. I hope it would work for me. I am a heavy internet user and trying to learn to trade online so I need real time badly.
Thanks a lot for posting this as this helped me decide finally.
Hi there! I was browsing reviews for SkyBroadband because I am in desperate need of a reliable ISP that will allow me to work from home. I’m very glad that I was able to find your review because it is detailed and when I was saw the results, I was drooling.haha.. The results were perfect for what I needed. In order for me to work, the requirement should be at least 2mbps download speed and upload speed must be 512 kbps and the server must be Miami, Florida. I have requested from my current ISP (PLDT) to have my plan updated to the 3mbps plan, but the results were very devastating. I only get dl speed of 1.8 and upload of .21 using Miami, Floria server. If its not fixed, I will have to travel back and forth for about 3-4 hours. So thank you for this review it gives me hope, because I am considering Sky Broadband as of this time because I think they will be able to install it faster. Would you recommend Sky for my case? I really hope you can shed some light on this because I really want to start working at home ASAP.Thank you.
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