topic Third Party Router for Sky Q and FTTP in Broadband

Third Party Router for Sky Q and FTTP

David3066 — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 14:26:41 GMT

Hey Community.

Speculative question about third party routers for Sky Q and FTTP.

We have our main Q box and 2 minis hard-wired to the Sky Q hub. We also have 2 Netgear APs to improve wifi coverage and a Netgear unmanaged switch. In total, we have 18 wired devices and 65 wifi devices. We run Home Assistant and while the network is very stable, the weak link is the Sky Q router. Every now and again it loses internet connection for a fraction and resets. It's a single point of failure that I'd love to get rid of and replace with something a bit more robust and with a bit more flexibilty to run all our smart devices in a VPN etc.

I've read quite a lot of threads here from people asking various questions about third party routers and most of them seem to hint at it being a bit of a nightmare to charge to a third party router if you have Sky Q like we do.

So my first question - can it be done? Is anyone who has Sky Q with mini boxes and Sky FTTP running a third party router? If so, which one and how simple was it to set up?

If I do replace the Sky Q router, I'd prefer to stick with Netgear as I'm already a user, but it's not a stopper.

Thanks for any comments.

Re: Third Party Router for Sky Q and FTTP

Chrisee — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 16:38:47 GMT

@David3066 only the black SR203 Sky hub is fully compatablecwith Sky Q so that their wifi hotspots can be used by other devices but having the 2 Netgear APs mightvmean you dont need those. If you dont and the Sky Q boxes are using ethernet simplify your network by using turning off their wifi.

In terms od routers depending on your budget the modt obvious choice would be a Netgear router that integrates with the 2 APs as far as I know Netgear support Sky's use of DHCPv4 Option61 which currently is the simplest way to connect with the standard string anything@skydsl|anything

Otherwise Asus routers are widely used and are compatable with Sky FTTP. My own experience is Sky hubs are reliable with zero issues in 8 years I have used them. They dont have the widest feature set and wifi isnt great which is why I use a set of TP-Link Access Points myself for WiFi duties.

Re: Third Party Router for Sky Q and FTTP

David3066 — Wed, 24 Jul 2024 17:35:31 GMT

@Chrisee wrote:
@David3066 only the black SR203 Sky hub is fully compatablecwith Sky Q so that their wifi hotspots can be used by other devices but having the 2 Netgear APs mightvmean you dont need those. If you dont and the Sky Q boxes are using ethernet simplify your network by using turning off their wifi.

All Sky boxes are connected by ethernet, so yes, wifi on all boxes is turned off.

@Chrisee wrote:
In terms of routers depending on your budget the most obvious choice would be a Netgear router that integrates with the 2 APs as far as I know Netgear support Sky's use of DHCPv4 Option61 which currently is the simplest way to connect with the standard string anything@skydsl|anything

Good to know.

@Chrisee wrote:
My own experience is Sky hubs are reliable with zero issues in 8 years I have used them. They dont have the widest feature set and wifi isnt great which is why I use a set of TP-Link Access Points myself for WiFi duties.

We've had ours at least that long too and it has been rock solid up to this year. It's really random, but I usually spot the orange bar of doom on our Echo Show, indicating it has lost connection. A quick look at the Sky router shows it reconnecting.

Thanks for your input.