Dan Howdle | September 15th, 2023

Sky Superfast broadband: 61Mb fibre package

Sky Superfast (distinct from the slower Superfast 35) is one of Sky's upper entry-level fibre broadband packages, delivering an average speed of 61Mbps, sufficient for streaming your favourite TV shows and most online activities. The package is available to over 96% of UK households.

Key features

Here’s a quick rundown of what you get with Sky Superfast.

Price	£28 per month
Download speed	61Mbps
Upload speed	16Mbps
Broadband	Fibre to the cabinet (FTTC), Fibre to the premises (FTTP)
Home Phone	Line rental included
Parental controls	Broadband Shield, Broadband Buddy
Router	Sky Broadband Hub
Packages available	Broadband & phone, Broadband & phone & TV
Contract length	24 months

Who is Sky Broadband Superfast for?

Sky Superfast is one of the cheapest and most widely available Sky broadband packages. It offers adequate speeds for everything from browsing the internet to streaming your favourite TV shows, from checking your e-mails to videoconferencing.

Here’s a quick rundown of who’d want Superfast and why:

• Households with up to 3-4 occupants – This package will be adequate for small or medium households with not too many devices
• Gamers – Most online games require about 6Mbps download and 3Mbps upload, so Sky Broadband Superfast will be enough to play any online games. However, you might have to be patient when trying to download larger games
• One or two streaming devices – Netflix requires about 15Mbps to stream their ultra-HD (4K) content, but this can easily exceed 40Mbps with Apple TV+ and YouTube. So you’ll generally not want to stream on more than two devices at the same time, but below that you’re just fine
• Cloud storage – If you keep your photos on the cloud with the likes of iCloud, Dropbox or OneDrive, Superfast will ensure that your family photos are accessible when you need them

How does Sky Broadband Superfast compare?

Sky Broadband Superfast is one of the lowest-speed Sky Fibre packages, being faster than only the Sky Superfast 35 package, which as its name suggests comes with an average speed of just 35Mbps. It’s available via both FTTC (fast fibre cable up to a cabinet on the street, followed by a slower copper cable up to your property), as well as FTTP (fast fibre cable all the way to your property).

With FTTC, speed will slightly vary based on the distance to the street cabinet, so lucky customers will get up to 75Mbps, while those who live much further from their nearest cabinet may rceive speeds that are significantly slower. Sky will be able to advise you of the actual speed you're likely to get during the sign-up process.

The next speed tier after Superfast is the 150Mbps FTTP-exclusive Ultrafast. While Superfast is available to over 96% of UK households, Ultrafast is available to a fraction of that. Considering that both packages are in the same price range, that means that most often it’s going to be availability rather than speed that dictates which package is your best pick.

Let’s take a quick look at how Superfast compares to the other Sky broadband packages:

What is included with Superfast?

Not unlike its competitors, Sky offers unlimited downloads and uploads with no caps or data restrictions.

Sky broadband packages come with the Sky Broadband Hub router as standard. With its eight wifi antennae (more than most competitors), the Hub provides rich wireless coverage throughout your home and low latency.

Sky Broadband Hub Router Specifications

• Current gen WiFi – The Sky Broadband Hub uses the ubiquitous wireless standard WiFi 5 (802.11ac) introduced in 2013
• VDSL2/ADSL 2+ – VDSL2 means the hub can be connected by super-fast fibre optic cable to your home (once it becomes available), while ADSL2+ means you can also connect via a phone line
• Smart channel selection – The Smart Hub automatically connects your devices to the fastest wifi channel and frequency available
• Smart scan – The router continually checks your network connection as well as its own performance and automatically reboots if there's a problem
• Dual band – Like most modern routers, the Sky Broadband Hub uses one 2.4GHz band and one 5GHz band
• Four Gigabit ethernet ports – The Sky Broadband Hub has four gigabit Ethernet ports, so you can wire directly four different devices, or many more if you have add a splitter
• Eight antennae – Thanks to its eight in-built antennae, the Sky Broadband Hub can provide strong WiFi coverage throughout your home.
• Reduced latency when Gaming – The Sky Broadband Hub supports 4x4 MIMo (four antennas for four simultaneous data streams), which means that wireless devices can communicate simultaneously with the router without having to wait so often for each other, therefore greatly improving latency.
• Internet calls – Sky Broadband Hub has a VOIP handset socket to allow the connection of an internet phone handset
• Support for many devices – Up to 64 devices can be connected

Extras

As with all its other packages, Sky couples Broadband Superfast with Sky Broadband Shield, a set of tools that provide parental control (Safe Search) as well as protection against malware-infected and scam (phishing) websites.

The package comes with free line rental, and the phone service works on a pay as you go basis, but Evenings & Weekends, Anytime and International packages are available for a monthly fee.

For an extra £5 per month, you can get Sky’s Broadband Boost which gives you a range of extra benefits. The most notable is the WiFi Guarantee which promises wifi coverage in every room (at least 3Mbps). If that fails, they’ll either send an engineer to help you set up the Hub in the ideal location, or they’ll set you up with the Sky WiFi booster, which extends the hub’s wifi signal.

Other Boost benefits include daily checks of the line, engineer visits at no extra costs, and an extra 2GB of mobile data if you’re a Sky Mobile customer and suffer a significant unplanned broadband outage. Finally, you get the Sky Broadband Buddy app which enables you to limit the time members of the family spend on various mobile apps and enables parental control even when kids are away from home.

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What we think

Sky is a well-trusted provider with great customer satisfaction, and that offers awesome TV packages. The Superfast package offers a strong service that will be sufficient for most small and medium households.

In terms of cost, the package costs about the same as Virgin Media’s 132Mbps M125 package while being just marginally cheaper than Sky’s own 150Mbps 'Ultrafast' package. However, Sky Broadband should be considered a 'premium' rather than 'budget' provider, and as such much of the cost can be explained by the quality of equipment and the service you will receive. With widespread availability, a great router, great customer and technical support and well-priced TV packages, it would be difficult not to recommend.