Traffic Management Policy

• Sky Broadband Traffic Management Policy

  At Sky we want all of our customers to enjoy the best possible broadband experience. We have made a commitment to a voluntary code of practice which aims to make traffic management easier to understand and compare between providers.
   

  • Sky's Broadband and Fibre products (Broadband Unlimited, Lite, 12GB and Fibre, Fibre Unlimited, Fibre Max and Fibre Unlimited Pro) are not subject to traffic management. This means we won't reduce your speed at any time, regardless of how much you upload or download.
  • Sky Broadband Connect is subject to a Network Management policy.

  
  We've provided detailed information about our traffic management policy in the Key Fact Indicator (KFI) tables below.

• Sky Broadband Connect*

  Sky Broadband Lite*

  Sky Broadband 12GB*

  Sky Fibre*

  Sky Broadband Unlimited, Sky Broadband Unlimited Pro, Sky Fibre Unlimited,
  Sky Fibre Max, Sky Fibre Unlimited Pro, Sky Ultra Fibre Optic products*

  Sky WiFi*

• Glossary

  Traffic management:

  Traffic management is the term used to describe a range of technical practices undertaken to manage traffic across networks.

  The different outcomes achieved by the use of technical practices can include:

  • the prioritisation of certain types of traffic in busy times or busy areas to ensure that it is of an adequate quality
  • the slowing down of certain traffic types that are not time-critical at busy times or busy places
  • ensuring compliance with a consumer’s contract, for example slowing down of traffic for the heaviest users
  • supporting the delivery of managed services, for example to ensure a guaranteed quality of service for a specific piece of content

  Managed services: The majority of internet traffic is delivered on a "best efforts" basis. A managed service, on the other hand is one whereby an ISP offers "quality of service" that can guarantee a certain level of performance, so that the content, service or application can be delivered without risk of degradation from network congestion. Such a quality of service arrangement can be made between an ISP and a content or service provider or directly between an ISP and the consumer.

  Best Efforts: This phrase relates to the delivery of internet traffic where traffic management is applied without distinctions based on the source of that traffic.

  Slowed down: This outcome is achieved by the deployment of technologies that can decrease the priority of traffic types deemed to be non-time critical on the network e.g. slowing down traffic such as downloads during busy times and busy periods.

  Prioritised: This outcome is achieved by the deployment of technologies that increase the priority given to certain traffic types, e.g. time-critical traffic such as video. This outcome can also be achieved as a consequence of slowing down other selected traffic which reduces the overall data flow on the network.

  Heavy users: Heavy users can cause peak traffic volumes to exceed the engineered maximum load. In practice this refers to a very small proportion of users of a network whose use is excessive to the extent that it impacts on other users.
  
  For information from Ofcom on Traffic Management, visit ofcom.org.uk