It’s been a little over a week now since I tried out Sky cable’s cable internet broadband service. The trial was offered to me for free when I subscribed to their SkyCable Select cable tv package which was 280PHP (6USD) a month. The trial is good for 15 days upon installation, and you are required to make a 1,000PHP (22USD) deposit for the modem (the deposit can be refunded if you decide to discontinue the trial or not avail of their broadband service) . So I accepted the offer and opted to try out their 3mbps package which is 1,999PHP monthly (45USD) excluding your cable tv bill.
speedtest - sky broadband
As advertised, you do have fast download speeds. I experienced up to 300+kbps on torrent downloads and selected http/ftp downloads… but the uploading speed is a joke. Aside from this the speeds aren’t consistent. they often drop down to 20+kbps depending on the time of day, and the connection isn’t reliable.
My Grandmother has a PLDT myDSL connection of 512kbps for only 1,299PHP (29USD) inclusive of your phone bill, which I use whenever my sky broadband connection is dismal. The burst speeds aren’t are as fast as sky but you maintain a constant download speed of around 45kbps, and the upload speed is decent for the money.
speedtest - PLDT myDSL
Reliability and cost are my primary criteria for choosing my ISP, now that I have tried both connections at the same time my vote goes to PLDT. 1,300PHP monthly for a decent 512kbps connection with a phone line against 2,000PHP monthly for a 3mbps, PLDT just brings more value to the table compared to sky broadband. Not to mention that despite the 3mbps max speed of sky broadband online games and instant messaging services surprisingly do not perform well… it is actually disappointing.
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
so what do you prefer? pldt’s mydsl? i’m having plan 990 the landline with dsl w/c comes with up 384mbps…but apparently i was having a hard time downloading from megaupload ‘cos it takes too much time to download a movie with 300mb file size..it takes me 2 hours…at an average speed of 40kbps of download.
That’s decent if you ask me, but if you really wanna try out Sky’s broadband service go ahead and see for yourself.
i’m going back to PLDT myDSL since skybroadband is a big pain in the a**.. the only time that i can actually maximize my 3mbps connection is at dawn (roughly around 4-6am) and when i try to download at megaupload at around 8-9pm, i only get around 8-30kbps of speed.
not to mention frequent disconnection, lag, and hard connectivity to my internationally-based online game..
but when i tried playing it in my friend’s house that only has 1mbps speed in myDSL, never did i experience any disconnects or connectivity issues.. there were a few lag spikes, but it’s both bearable and unavoidable..
final judgment: moving back to pldt myDSL, but getting the 2mbps connection.