The biggest problem Sky have is they give a brilliant router (pronounced root-er) , a Netgear box of tricks that is one of the best routers (pronounced root-ers) on the market. The technical meeting must have been something along the lines of this...
"What can we offer them?"
"how about vastly reduced broadband, with a brilliant router (pronounced root-er)?"
"When you say brilliant, how do you mean?"
"Netgear, one of the best on the market. But not with their software, we'll put our own in. And it'll make the router (pronounced root-er) overheat or keep disconnecting or not supply wireless. We'll also make it locked down, so no one can buy another router (pronounced root-er) from anyone else."
But yes. Yes they can. All ADSL routers (pronounced root-ers) in the UK require a username and password. This specifies to BT wholesale that you're connected to someone, and who it is. Sky hide it, because they don't want you to use a third party router (pronounced root-er). They even have it in their contract that you can't use anyone else's. For this reason, what I'm about to tell you if you're a sky customer (muppet!) must only be done through your choice. If you do it don't blame me if Sky find out, charge you for breaching their contract, and leave you broadbandless.
https://www.cm9.net/skypass/ is a website that makes it all easy. You'll need the router's serial number and mac code, printed on labels stuck to the underside of the router (pronounced root-er). It then comes back with your username and password, simple as that. Yesterday I helped someone do just that, and it was all working. The router (pronounced root-er) was a good D-link, not a patch on a netgear, but hey ho. His broadband was working great, he has a router (pronounced root-er) that isn't likely to break, and he has his username and password if it ever does. In the words of Alexander Orlov "Simples."
