Is Sky Broadband good for gaming?

Jonathan Victoria • 25 Sep 2024

Does Sky deliver on your gaming needs…

Choosing the right broadband is crucial for gamers. A fast and reliable connection can be the difference between victory and defeat, especially in fast-paced online games and competitive play.

Sky is a fairly popular broadband provider in the UK, but exploring the company’s offering and answering the question ‘Is Sky Broadband good for gaming?’

We’ll be taking a look at Sky Broadband's overall performance, focusing on speed, latency and reliability. We'll also break down its packages, equipment, and customer support to see if Sky Broadband meets the demanding needs of gamers. 

Whether you’re a casual player or a competitive gamer, find out if Sky Broadband is the right fit for your gaming experience.

Why internet speeds & stability matter for gaming

Good broadband is imperative to gaming in the modern day. Most triple-A games - the high-budget, top-of-the-range games from well-established developers - come with online services or online multiplayer, both of which require a broadband connection to play the game.

While annoying as it can sometimes be, particularly for single-player games with somewhat pointless online service features, it is something you see rather often, so the importance of having good solid broadband cannot be overstated.

But in particular, it is online gaming where it is at its most important, especially when playing more competitive games.

Titles such as Call of Duty are simply not worth playing if you have poor broadband, with constant lag and stability issues hampering your ability to enjoy the game and thus rendering any sort of online play unplayable.

Before you can even get to that point though, games these days come with insanely large download sizes - inconceivably high sizes compared to the amount of storage consoles had just 15 years ago (I remember being super excited when I could finally store saves for my PS2 games on what was then a massive 64MB external storage cartridge!)

It’s not as simple as putting a disc in the tray and playing the game. In fact, physical game discs are going the way of CDs, with the newer consoles not even having a disc tray, being all digital.

Before you can play your game, you have to download the whole thing, and if you’re running on super slow broadband, say less than 50Mbps, and you’re trying to download the latest EA Sports FC game, you’ll find yourself waiting a long time before it’s ready to play. Trust me, I know the pain.

Sky broadband packages for gaming

You should now better understand why it is important to have good broadband to play your games, especially if you didn’t know before.

Broadband providers know this as well, and as such often look to call out to gamers to show that what they offer is good for your gaming needs.

One such company that not only gas started calling out but specifically targeting gamers is Sky, who have begun targeting a gaming audience in some creative ways, including through a high-speed interactive map and playing experience in one of the UK’s most popular games, Fortnite, known as Sky City.

Not only that, but you’ll find some of their broadband offerings have the tagline ‘Suitable for gamers’ on them. This isn’t just them saying this either, and in fact, they are downplaying its suitability for gaming.

While pretty much all of Sky’s Full Fibre packages will be more than adequate for online gaming, there are three that they have specifically pinpointed. They are:

• Sky Full Fibre Gigafast – 930Mbps average download
• Sky Full Fibre 500 – 515Mbps average download
• Sky Full Fibre 150 – 152Mbps average download

Let’s put these packages and figures into a simpler term. Say you’re a big online gamer but you’ve got a family to take care of as well.

Sky Full Fibre 150 will be fine for you if you have a smaller family who isn’t taking up too much broadband at peak play times. Streaming videos or TV will take up a good amount of the broadband, so if you have others in the household using it up, you’re not going to get the best playing experience.

In that case, you’ll want higher speeds, giving you more room for multiple devices to be connected and using the broadband at the same time without causing any (or more too many) issues.

Sky Full Fibre 500 is a great option for this, providing 515Mbps average download speeds. This will give you more than enough room to continue playing with ease even with a larger family and a busy, high-usage household.

The same goes for Sky Full Fibre Gigafast, which is Sky’s first offering of gigabit broadband, the fastest broadband you can get in the UK (gigabit broadband as a whole that is, Sky is one among other providers that offer these hyperfast speeds).

With Sky Gigafast, you’d likely never have to worry about how many people are connected at one time as it offers such high speeds that can accommodate all devices and users’ needs.

How does Sky perform?

We briefly touched on each package there but now let’s look more in-depth at the key factors that will enable smooth and easy gaming.

The main elements that will lead to a happy gamer are download and upload speeds, latency and ping, and reliability and consistency.

Download speeds

Starting with download speeds as this is what you want first to be able to download your games. The better the speed, the faster they download.

It should be noted that with Sky Broadband, and really with every provider, the advertised speeds for each package are not an exact representation of the speeds of which you can get. This is part of the reason why you should want to go for a package that offers higher speeds than you anticipate to need, just in case.

That’s not to say you won’t get those speeds, but Sky does express that they are advertised speeds and that you may not get exactly them when you get your broadband installed.

For now, we’re going to use the advertised speeds to showcase how fast Sky Broadband’s ‘Suitable for Gamers’ packages can download a large-sized game. 

We’ll use the critically acclaimed Baldur’s Gate 3 in this case, which says it requires around 150GB, and we’ll use omnicalculator.com to get a figure as to how fast it can be downloaded.

• Sky Full Fibre 150 (152Mbps) – 2 hours, 11 minutes & 35 seconds
• Sky Full Fibre 500 (515Mbps) – 38 minutes & 50 seconds
• Sky Full Fibre Gigafast (930Mbps) – 21 minutes & 30 seconds

So you can see the benefits of faster speeds when it comes to downloads, which is usually the speeds shown when advertising a package as they are most important for streaming content.

But in this case, we need upload speeds as online gaming needs this the most, so it’s important to have good upload speeds to be able to prevent much lag. This is where we’ll move on to the next important factor.

Latency & ping

Online gaming requires good upload and download speeds, as both are needed to be able to receive and send the required data over the broadband to ensure smooth gameplay.

Ping and latency are the same thing, which is why the two have been lumped together. It refers to the time it takes for data to transfer across a network. 

In simple terms, the higher the ping, the longer it takes to transfer the data, which is to say the longer it takes to transfer the player's inputs and receive the server responses, thus leading to lag - a big gaming buzzword.

While download speed is still important for receiving the server responses, the more important role is on upload speed to send your inputs.

Typically, an average speed that will serve you well enough is 1Mbps. However, this can and will fluctuate (again, depending on others in the household) so you should ideally want more.

It is recommended to have a connection with at least 5-10Mbps to ensure smooth gameplay, although more would never harm you.

That’s where you’d be thankful you’re with Sky Broadband, as their ‘Suitable for Gamers’ packages provide you with strong speeds for both download and upload. Here are the three packages’ upload speeds:

• Sky Full Fibre 150 –  28Mbps average upload 
• Sky Full Fibre 500 – 60Mbps average 
• Sky Full Fibre Gigafast – 100Mbps average upload

As described in the download speeds section, these speeds are advertised hypotheticals, essentially what is achievable if you had a perfect connection, which is rarely the case.

You will still get upload speeds regardless, enough to not have to worry about lag even with others using up some of the bandwidth at the same time. And that brings us nicely to the next point.

Reliability & consistency

It could be fair to say that none of the above matters if the broadband isn’t stable and you find yourself losing connection at times or you don’t get good speeds consistently enough.

Broadband reliability is one of the main things people look for when researching their options for their household. Flaky broadband that constantly drops out or doesn’t consistently give a strong enough connection throughout the house is not going to do anyone any good.

You want a provider who can offer broadband that supplies good speeds that can supply everyone in the house who needs it, wherever they are in the house, and can handle having multiple devices in use at once, even at peak times.

Full fibre broadband as a whole is a lot more reliable than standard fibre connections, especially on Openreach’s network, like Sky is.

Openreach has 97% coverage in the UK, but for full-fibre connections (FTTP, or fibre-to-the-premises), coverage is roughly around 60%. So if you’re living in a city in the UK, you likely are able to get a Sky Full Fibre package.

Simply put, you can rely on Sky Broadband to keep you connected and supplied with its fast speeds.

However, in the terrible and unlikely case that your broadband does go down or you experience slower speeds than expected, Sky’s Speed Guarantee is in place to ease the pain.

When you sign up with Sky Broadband and your service is setup and operational, you will be told of the average speed you will get in the house, plus the guaranteed minimum download speed you can and should expect to receive at all times. 

This minimum speed is guaranteed and not just expected because it is what Sky is promising to deliver to you. 

Should you find that your download speed is running below the minimum for three days in a row in a 30-day period, Sky’s Speed Guarantee will ensure that you get your money back for that month. 

This way, you’re not being charged for receiving less than you should be getting, and it means Sky will personally take a look at any issues with the connection, aiming to sort it out so it won’t happen again.

Sky Broadband costs

Choosing the right broadband provider isn’t always just about the speeds or reliability. Making sure you pick a package and provider that delivers what you need at a good monthly cost is oftentimes the most important thing people look for these days.

With Sky Broadband, they offer their packages at a competitive price that should leave you more than satisfied.

While you may find other providers offering the same or similar average speeds but for less, you pay that little bit more with Sky for the added reliability, something which in our opinion justifies a slightly higher monthly price.

That’s not to say you’ll end up paying an extra few hundred pounds each year with Sky compared to another provider. It wouldn’t be that much, but like we say, that extra you do pay does make the difference.

Plus, Sky is almost always running special offers on their services, broadband included. In fact, right now* you’ll find that you can save more on their ‘Suitable for Gamers’ packages compared to their other broadband packages. Here’s how much they each cost right now:

• Sky Full Fibre 150 – £28 a month (saving 35%)
• Sky Full Fibre 500 – £34 a month (saving 36%)
• Sky Full Fibre Gigafast – £44 a month (saving 30%)

All Sky Broadband packages are available on 24-month contracts and come with no upfront cost. At the end of your contract, the monthly price will rise to the standard cost, although you should be able to get another good deal if you choose to stay with them.

In that case, you’d want to call up to find out what your options are and to get the best deal possible.

You can find these and other brilliant Sky deals here on Broadband Finder.

Sky Broadband customer service

Should you ever need to get in contact with Sky Broadband’s customer service, you’ll be glad to know that they have a good reputation in this department.

How good, you may be asking? Ofcom provides a quarterly report on the major broadband providers’ average reported complaints. Sky has consistently been one of, if not the best provider for the least complaints, with their latest Q1 2024 figure showing only six complaints per 100,000 customers.

Comparing this to the industry average of 15, you should realise that you can trust Sky’s broadband.

If you do need to contact them for whatever reason, though, you’ll find that they have several departments that you can call to get aid for practically any query, including the Sky broadband customer service number.

Final verdict: Is Sky Broadband good for gaming?

Sky Broadband has a reputation for being one of the best providers around for good reason. Hopefully, everything above has convinced you enough. For gamers looking for the ideal provider for their needs, Sky certainly should be high up on the list. 

While they aren’t the cheapest around or offer the very best speeds, the packages they do offer are more than reasonable on both those fronts, and they make up the deficit with their reliability and customer satisfaction.

Heavy broadband users should look to Sky Broadband for their needs, especially if part of their needs is a stable, fast connection even at peak times to accommodate for online gaming.

Plus, with the other services you can get with Sky, specifically TV that can be packaged together with broadband, you may find that Sky offers something that no one else can match.