My experience with the new Sky Broadband Hub

[aberdeen19032012]

I think I might move over to this...

I am currently with BT on smarthub (not the new one) - Speed is fine -  says I can get 63-74 and up to 19 upload speed.

I tried to replicate what the Sky Hub was getting on this thread - roughly same speeds although clearly not like for like I got on my S8 (havent got s10!)

same room  5   64.05 download 17.95 upload

same room 2.4 59.85 download 18.17 upload

bedroom     5    62.84 download 18.54 upload

bedroom    2.4  61.12 download  18.37 upload

Not sure if the new Hub would get to they levels?   But I pay £47pm for that and I can get it for £32 with Sky so it might be worth making the move.......  I have two wifi cameras that need upload and use 2.4 only and all the usual gadgets but I can get £100 cashback on my work employee discount site and save £15pm on it so it is a good £370 saving over 18m.

Wondered what peoples thoughts were of it.  BT are trying to sell me into the new complete wifi they have but as it wont let you split the SSID its apparently awful as things are disconnecting all over the place in my friends house!

the 2.4 speed seems to me much higher on my smarthub - not sure whats going on with that!

[Giggsy1977]

@aberdeen19032012 - you can split the SSID yes or leave them combined. My WiFi speed is virtually the same as my hard wired ethernet speed on my pc. 

[Sinth]

@aberdeen19032012 @Giggsy1977 

Same as Giggsy, performance is spot on. I have always split channels and my 5ghz results via wifi (laptop with dongle) are spot on.

System Up Time: 322:10:54

Port	Status	TxPkts	RxPkts	Collision Pkts	Tx b/s	Rx b/s	Up Time
WAN	MER	20658583	63231171	111	0	0	322:09:55
LAN	Up	29403006	19296079	1	2	1	322:10:54
WLAN (2.4 GHz)	Up	23309989	11728469	0	2	1	322:09:38
WLAN (5 GHz)	Up	98059528	55876536	0	2	2	322:09:36

---

Broadband Link	Downstream	Upstream
Connection Speed	66337 kbps	14829 kbps
Line Attenuation	D1(12.4 dB) , D2(32.3 dB) , D3(49.1 dB)	U0(0.3 dB) , U1(24.8 dB) , U2(38.5 dB)
Noise Margin	5.0 dB	6.4 dB

Speedtest.net result:

 PING ms

14

 DOWNLOAD Mbps

60.57

 UPLOAD Mbps

13.87

[aberdeen19032012]

Thank you!  So would you say the 2.4 speed is also ok?  my wifi cameras connect to the 2.4 and one is just outside and only just made it to work!

I wont have the sky tv package only broadband.

my neighbour has 500mb with virgin and it goes down weekly !

[Sinth]

@aberdeen19032012 

Even though I use the 5ghz network for my main connection, the 2.4ghz network is solid with this new hub compared to the Q hub. 

I was with Virgin 10 years ago and I think at the time they named it a "Super hub" and I had fantastic performance with that, 75mb over the 2.4ghz. Finally Sky can match that.

Things haven`t really moved on that much in tech in that time but Sky`s new hub is definiately a performer and the wifi range has definately increased. I would be really surprised if it didn`t meet your needs.

[aberdeen19032012]

@Sinth thank you. 

I was slightly worried seeing the ops 2.4 stats which were on a 70mb line showing 19-27 with mine sitting at 60 my initial reaction was .... eh!!!! 

Sitting in far away upper level bedroom on my samsung s8 doing speed test it came up as

56 download 18 upload which must be ok on wifi .    Seems ops speed is 50% down which is strange considering but again not identical layouts  do you get good 2.4? 🙂

[Sinth]

@aberdeen19032012 

Just switched my laptop to a 2.4ghz connection and ran speedtest via speedtest.net:

 PING ms

15

 DOWNLOAD Mbps

60.04

 UPLOAD Mbps

13.72

Hope this answers your question.

EDIT: With the Q hub, yes the 2.4ghz network pretty much gave half speed, not now.

[aberdeen19032012]

@Sinth and its sold !

[aberdeen19032012]

@Sinth forgot to ask was that on wifi or wired. 

[Sinth]

@aberdeen19032012 

Wifi, same room via a usb dongle.

[aberdeen19032012]

@Sinththat is great thank you.  I needed that extra reassurance it was WIFI as the Op had pretty awful readings in my opinion on 2.4.  I know it was being compared against what it was so it felt good - but to what i have with BT it was actually pretty awful.

What you are getting on your laptop on WIFI is what I wanted to see - out of interest what IS your max speed at home as a comparable.

For me I am sitting on my macbook Pro 2 metres from my BT smarthub and the figures are

Ping 19ms Download 67.25 Mb/s Upload 17.82 Mb/s

[Sinth]

@aberdeen19032012 

My connection:

Line Rate - Upstream (Kbps):14829

Line Rate - Downstream (Kbps):66337

Edit: On the hub there is a setting for bandwidth on the 2.4ghz band, set to 20/40.

[aberdeen19032012]

@Sinththank you I will remember that.

What does that setting on the hub do out of interest!

I will be ordering it next momth as tied in until December so just lining up everything so I know exactly what to do !

[Sinth]

@aberdeen19032012 

Just extends bandwidth/range so I presume that everything isn`t being channeled/fighting on the the same band.

Others may be able to give a more detailed answer.

[aberdeen19032012]

@Sinth  found it! 

When You Should Use 20 Mhz for Channel Width?
If you use 2.4 Ghz broadcasting radio, you should use 20 Mhz for the channel width. The simple reason is that 20 Mhz is really a supportive measure for your older devices. Using 20 Mhz on a 5 Ghz radio setting defeats the purpose of actually using 5 Ghz radio setting.

The only exception is that you somehow has a devices that support 5 Ghz broadcasting while only accepting a 20 Mhz bandwidth, however that is fairly uncommon. But if that does happen, see if your router supports duo bandwidth for both 20 Mhz and 40 Mhz.

When You Should Use 40 Mhz for Channel Width?
If you use 5 Ghz broadcasting radio, the chances are that your network is only consisted of the latest devices that support 802.11n. This is when you should use the 40 Mhz bandwidth.

When You Should Use Combination of 20 / 40 Mhz Combination.
Only use 20 Mhz / 40 Mhz combination if one of your devices require it. If not, just set it to 40 Mhz.