topic Down Load Speed in Archive

Down Load Speed

monkeynuts54 — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 15:39:11 GMT

After adding a new thread on this subject I have been looking through all the old posts and this is a common problem which I feel as a cutomer from day one Sky should sort this out faster .

Seems really odd that most who have Sky BB do not have this problem (funny that ) which might just be a fluke but it happends .

Do you think its about time all these complaints should be colated and then submitted to Sky to see what the answer is ?

Re: Down Load Speed

PeteRG41 — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 16:17:26 GMT

You're not being especially clear about what your issue is.

Are you having problems with using Sky Q via a third party broadband provider?

Re: Down Load Speed

monkeynuts54 — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 16:37:03 GMT

Cheers for the prompt reply

One question what does your BB provider have to do with a Sky Q box and how it works ?

Re: Down Load Speed

Anonymous — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 17:42:25 GMT

Are you having trouble downloading/streaming? As mine is very slow today and keeps freezing.
Im with BT

Re: Down Load Speed

Chodley — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 17:48:41 GMT

@monkeynuts54 Still have no idea what your problem is. Are you hinting with the title that Sky on-demand stuff takes too long to download?

I don'y use sky broadband, have a pretty poor connection at about 32Mb since our local FTTP provider singularly failed to deliver the 1Gb connection I ordered in February 2020, and I get ok-ish download speeds

HD stuff is buffered enough within a minute to be able to play. UHD takes too long though, Netflix, D+ and Prime show it can be done just about realtime.

Re: Down Load Speed

LGUser — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 17:50:12 GMT

Read this thread on the problem with downloads and mainly BT. Also,if you are having trouble downloading, post in that thread instead of this thread.

Re: Down Load Speed

Chodley — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 17:51:37 GMT

Oh, just found your other thread. Yeah that sounds broken. No that's not typical and I seriously doubt Glass would be anything other than even worse in every respect.

p.s. It's "download". 😉

Re: Down Load Speed

JPR007 — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 10:41:09 GMT

@monkeynuts54 wrote:
Cheers for the prompt reply

One question what does your BB provider have to do with a Sky Q box and how it works ?

@monkeynuts54 It has an effect because Sky Q configures differently depending on whether you have a Sky router or not. When using a 3rd party broadband provider, unless using the Q boxes connected via Ethernet, the Sky boxes only connect via 2.4GHz Wi-Fi which is very heavily congested and suffers badly with speed problems, hence slow downloads etc. When using a Sky router the boxes can use 5GHz which is less prone to congestion and supports higher bandwidth. Ultimate solution is to use cables which are immune from the pitfalls of Wi-Fi and it's unreliability but that's not always practical.

Re: Down Load Speed

monkeynuts54 — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 10:44:27 GMT

Yes I can agree with that answer but the strange thing is the problem has just started and the system has been set up over 18months ago

If it means hard wiring the QBox as much as I do not wish it that way it looks like this is the way forward .

The hard wiring is a backwards step after all the hype around wifi

Re: Down Load Speed

LGUser — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 10:50:49 GMT

@monkeynuts54 wrote:
Yes I can agree with that answer but the strange thing is the problem has just started and the system has been set up over 18months ago

If it means hard wiring the QBox as much as I do not wish it that way it looks like this is the way forward .

The hard wiring is a backwards step after all the hype around wifi

Going wired can bypass incompatabilities and get things to work. So it's worth a try. I'm wired and I have not had one connection drop to the router.

Re: Down Load Speed

JPR007 — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 10:54:50 GMT

@monkeynuts54 wrote:
Yes I can agree with that answer but the strange thing is the problem has just started and the system has been set up over 18months ago

If it means hard wiring the QBox as much as I do not wish it that way it looks like this is the way forward .

The hard wiring is a backwards step after all the hype around wifi

@monkeynuts54 Hype around Wi-Fi is the bane of peoples lives, and is certainly one of those technologies that has promised so much but delivered so poorly. Hardwiring is far from a step backwards, it is the way things should done in the first place for devices that are fixed and plugged in. A cable does not suffer from interference and all the other associated problems Wi-Fi does, and for things such as video that require a stable connection it's the only proper connection method that is reliable.

Its all very well if it has worked for so many months, but Wi-Fi is not a constant like a cable, it is a variable, and people struggle to understand that sometimes. There is no guarantee it will work today or tomorrow, even if it's worked in the past...

You only need to look at the millions of posts about people working from home on teams or zoom suffering. The minute they use a cable the problems go away as long as the internet connection itself is up to a minimum level. Same goes for people who game.

Re: Down Load Speed

monkeynuts54 — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 10:55:27 GMT

You mention working from home Now this could be part of the problem 😞 (more people using the net for work ) maybe or just generally downloading material

Re: Down Load Speed

LGUser — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 11:05:33 GMT

My mother was with Comcast. One day I was over at her place and the Internet was running really slow. I had my laptop and an ethernet cable with me. I plugged the ethernet cable into my laptop and the speed was correct. I called Comcast and they were able to sort it remotely. But the point is, WiFi broke and wired did not.

Re: Down Load Speed

LGUser — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 11:07:48 GMT

@monkeynuts54 wrote:
You mention working from home Now this could be part of the problem 😞 (more people using the net for work ) maybe or just generally downloading material

The more devices actively using WiFi, the slower your connection gets. Also, Sky routers do not support QoS so your stuck. If you are working from home and the kids are doing school from home, you can't tell the kis to get off as you need more of the bandwidth.

Re: Down Load Speed

JPR007 — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 12:31:12 GMT

@monkeynuts54 It has a massive effect. The amount of people as I mentioned that have suddenly started having so many Wi-Fi issues over the last 18-24 months has skyrocketed.

Reasons being:

1) Wi-Fi gets slower the more devices connect. There is a limited amount of bandwidth, and the devices have to share it. Every device you connect, in theory, halves the bandwidth available everytime.

2) Apart from the latest Wi-Fi standard, devices on Wi-Fi can only send or receive data at once. They can't do both at the same time. It's called half duplex. An Ethernet cable is full duplex, so devices can transmit and receive data at the same time.
Think of it like Air traffic control, a plane and the tower (and only one controller) can't both speak at the same time, one has to wait for the other to stop and leave the frequency clear before they can talk. With the cable analogy, multiple planes could transmit at the same time, not just one (to different controllers obviously).

3) Your inbound broadband connection speed has an influence as well. If it's of limited speed, then there's a finite amount of bandwidth and that has to be split. The larger the inbound (and outbound) pipe so to speak, the more data transfer you can sustain.

4) Wi-Fi networks overlap, especially the massively overcrowded 2.4GHz band. Your Wi-Fi network, and your neighbours, don't stop dead at your wall. They go through it, the same as theirs bleeds over to yours (unless you're lucky enough to not have to suffer neighbours 😂).
This causes interference, and if you're all at home during the day using it as opposed to being in the office, then it's a traffic jam of data.

So yes...anything plugged into the mains, use a cable (where feasible and device dependent obviously, you can't plug an iPad in via Ethernet). Portable devices, that's what Wi-Fi is really for....and they get away with it because they don't usually require sustained data rates. By keeping heavy traffic off Wi-Fi, it keeps it clearer and faster for the reasons I mentioned above 🤓

Re: Down Load Speed

TimmyBGood — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 11:57:11 GMT

@JPR007

Also a significant number of people were blissfully unaware of the inherent limitation of outbound bandwidth on ADSL until they started using Teams/Zoom video for WFH...

Re: Down Load Speed

Chodley — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 13:13:32 GMT

ADSL or FTTC? Not many left on the former are there?

Re: Down Load Speed

bob1234 — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 14:18:44 GMT

@Chodley wrote:
ADSL or FTTC? Not many left on the former are there?

As the claim is 95% can get FTTC/FTTP (does not say they have it) 5% is still a lot of people with ADSL.