My experience with the new Sky Broadband Hub

[jamesn123]

I have been sent the new Sky Broadband Hub to test so I thought I'd report back here to let everyone know what kind of performance you can expect and what kind of upgrade it is (if any) from the previous hub. 

The new hub is officially called 'The new Skybroadband Hub' its model number is the SR203

Unboxing

Immediately you notice that the packaging is a lot larger than the old Hub 3 so it certainly will not fit through a letterbox which I don’t think is the end of the world to be honest. Upon opening the box you’ll find two separate boxes, one containing the hub and the other containing power lead, ADSL lead and VOIP lead. The hub 4 noticeably doesn’t come with a microfilter as I assume the hub is aimed at customers who may be using it for FTTP & VOIP.

No sign of plastic packaging whatsoever and it seems all the cardboard is fully recyclable which is a great plus

I forgot to grab a picture of the rear of the hub, i'll add this to the thread later but for those who are wondering it has 4 x ethernet ports as well as the standard RJ11 connector and a telephone connection which I can only assume is there in preparation for a possible Sky VOIP service.

The setup guide included is fairly basic but that is all it needs to be as setting up the hub is very easy. Once turning the power on the hub was ready for me to use in under 10mins which is excellent considering some routers on the market take a good 30mins-1hr to update firmware and then setup.

Its worth noting that the format of the admin login has now changed. It used to be username: 'admin' & password: 'sky' however its now username: 'admin' & password as your WiFi key. 

Performance

So firstly I took some base readings with the current hub in place. For consistency I used the same device during the whole test (Samsung S10) and allowed both old and new router to select their own channels (both selected the same one).

The speeds shown are from a maximum possible line speed of 70Mbps download and 14Mbps upload

These are the scenarios I tested;

• Both 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz SSIDs synced together with main Q box & Q mini switched on
• Both 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz SSIDs synced together with main Q box & Q mini switched off
• 2.4Ghz only with Q boxes off
• 5Ghz only with Q boxes off
• File transfer between two WiFi connected laptops over the LAN as this would test the fastest possible throughput when multiple devices are hitting the WiFi.

These are the locations I tested in;

• Same room as hub (Lounge)
• 2nd floor bedroom
• Garden

I've compiled the results into one table but I do have the separate results table if anyone wanted to see that

Hub	Location	Setup	Download	Upload
Hub 3	Same room	Synced SSIDs Q Mesh ON	43.1	12.5
		Synced SSIDs Q Mesh OFF	41	12.7
		2.4Ghz Q Mesh OFF	6.5	8.6
		5Ghz Q Mesh OFF	44.1	12.6
	Upstairs	Synced SSIDs Q Mesh ON	20.6	10.4
		Synced SSIDs Q Mesh OFF	20.1	9.9
		2.4Ghz Only Q Mesh OFF	1.1	0.7
		5Ghz Only Q Mesh OFF	36.7	12.8
	Garden	Synced SSIDs Q Mesh ON	14.5	10.7
		Synced SSIDs Q Mesh OFF	8.4	8.2
		2.4Ghz Only Q Mesh OFF	0.6	0.2
		5Ghz Only Q Mesh OFF	36.6	12.5
	Same room	LAN test between two WiFi connected laptops Q Mesh ON	23.1	18.4
Hub 4	Same room	Synced SSIDs Q Mesh ON	47.6	14
		Synced SSIDs Q Mesh OFF	50.5	12.3
		2.4Ghz Q Mesh OFF	27.7	12
		5Ghz Q Mesh OFF	51.2	12.3
	Upstairs	Synced SSIDs Q Mesh ON	36	12.7
		Synced SSIDs Q Mesh OFF	39.1	12.4
		2.4Ghz Q Mesh OFF	24	13.9
		5Ghz Q Mesh OFF	43	12.3
	Garden	Synced SSIDs Q Mesh ON	37.1	13.2
		Synced SSIDs Q Mesh OFF	45.6	12.3
		2.4Ghz Q Mesh OFF	19.3	13.7
		5Ghz Q Mesh OFF	43.3	12.3
	Same room	LAN test between two WiFi connected laptops Q Mesh OFF	45.6	67.4

Observations

From the tests we can see straight away that there is a big improvement to speed in all areas. Most notably the 2.4Ghz WiFi space where I saw around a 20-25x performance increase from 1.1Mbps upstairs to 24mbps upstairs. This is likely the factor of two things, firstly that the Hub 4 has better WiFi interference control as my area is quite high in interference. Secondly I measured the signal strength output between the two hubs and the Hub 4 showed a 15db improvement upstairs which would have contributed to the increased speed.

We can also see that the LAN test was around 2-3 times quicker which shows the Hub 4 can handle a higher sustained load from multiple devices.

A few other notable things were that after changing the SSID and password of the new router to the same as the old one all devices reconnect except for the Q boxes which was a little strange. I had to go through the WPS process with both Q boxes. I also had a browse through the web admin interface of the hub to see if there were any differences between the two, I didn’t find any.

One thing that I was happy about though is that the auto logout for the admin user does actually work now so you don’t get stuck with that annoying message ‘another administrator is already logged into the hub’. Previously on the Hub 3 if you didn’t logout the next time you tried to login you’d get that message and just be stuck, the only solution was to reboot the hub. Now it does actually log you out!

All In all the new hub seems like a decent step up. All 3 of us in the house had no complaints and nobody noticed any issues. 

For anyone who is curious about anything I would be more than happy to take questions/run a test. 

[Chrisee]

Like @jamesn123 I was fortunate to snag one of the new Broadband Hubs to test and have very similar results both used as a standalone router where the wifi speeds were significantly better. I wont bore people with another set of figures but I found very similar results with significantly better signal strength at all points. Speeds were faster but almost as important latency and jitter were lower. 

Particularly pleasing is the improvement continues with my Q boxes in the Q mesh with around 10Mb/s improvement in throughput. This means I have at least 60Mb/s throughout the house which is not wifi friendly. The wifi signal spreads easily to the bottom of the garden useful when watching the cricket.

The firmware looks very similar to the existing Hubs which is not totally surprising. Latency seems good at an average of 8ms to a local Speedtest.net server and generally the unit feels faster in use which I assume means a faster processor is being used. It does look like Sky have delivered what they promised.

One warning at the moment these hubs are not released with limited supplies being used for some trials and are not available to customers just yet. 

[davidsale]

Would love to know how to become a tester or join the trials. 

Having worked at Sky for 6 years in the past I used to trial kit there and was always interesting. 

Is there an application process or do they just use prominent posters on the community? 

[Chrisee]

Hi @davidsale customer pertcipation is by invitation, the Sky community managers approach forum members for various activities. The Oracle programme is the top tier and gives a few perks one of which is an ability to talk to Sky staff on a back channel. In this case I have shamelessly campaigned for 8 months to get a look at the new hub which paid off. 

[Jordan1711]

What was your latency before on the sky q hub? 

[Chrisee]

Hi @Jordan1711 In my case around 15ms so improvement around 5 to 7ms.

[jamesn123]

@Jordan1711 

Do you mean ping on WiFi to router or from router to a site?

[stejo]

The results look very encouraging and should finally solve all my issues. I do hope they let existing customers upgrade to the new hub without a massive fee. Would be interesting to see if I could turn IPV6 back on and still have access to my HSBC app.

[jamesn123]

@stejo 

I dont have any facts on this but if Sky do the same as usual it'll likely become available to existing customers for a one off of around £50 or if you bargain during a re-contract then probably for free.

[Chrisee]

@stejo The HSBC app works with IP6 on for me however it also did on the Q hub.

BT sell there Superhub 2 for £200 and the rumour is the new Sky Broadband hub is pitched against that but time will tell. Dont expect it to be given out for free except for the new services like SOGEA or g.fast for quite a while. 

[stejo]

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@Chrisee wrote:

@stejo The HSBC app works with IP6 on for me however it also did on the Q hub.

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I'll turn it back on and see if it works, was a few months now since I had to disable it. I also left it disabled because my security camera's worked a lot better (smoother playback). The increase in 2.4ghz speed on the new hub would probably help them too.

[Jordan1711]

Stats 

[simon194]

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@jamesn123 wrote:

@stejo 

I dont have any facts on this but if Sky do the same as usual it'll likely become available to existing customers for a one off of around £50 or if you bargain during a re-contract then probably for free.

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Probably more than £50 because Sky charge £69(?) for the ER110/ER115.

[lettice]

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@Chrisee wrote:

@stejo The HSBC app works with IP6 on for me however it also did on the Q hub.

BT sell there Superhub 2 for £200 and the rumour is the new Sky Broadband hub is pitched against that but time will tell. Dont expect it to be given out for free except for the new services like SOGEA or g.fast for quite a while. 

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The Superhub 2 or 3 is a Virgin media product. The Smart Hub 2 is from BT, which is what I suspect you are referring to.

A neighbour got the Smart hub 2 recently for nothing, but they subscribed to their BT plus service (that gives them some 4g access when things go wrong) and that provides that router for free. It also comes free if you have the BT complete wifi package or a g-fast customer.

[Chrisee]

Hi @lettice Your right I fid mean the Smart hub2 - dont think  BT sell too many at £200 just as Sky dont sell too many Q Soundboxes at its full price.