My experience with the new Sky Broadband Hub

[GazzieC]

@Chrisee From whatvI understand from a friend (who happens to be an OR engineer) is the main reason that sky pulled Powerline capability was down to interference from the powerline side of the router causing lots of problems on the VDSL side of things. This was seconded buy some googling a few months ago. Apparently both Sky customers and non-sky broadband customers were experiencing drop outs and constantly low sync speeds. Turns out that having the powerline adapter in the same box and linked to the same power delivery circuit was causing loads of interference that could also cause issues for other people on the same cabinet as EM interference isn't to fussed what it affects. This was purely down to the powerline adapter being in the same box as the modem and driven by the same power supply circuitry. If sky released a standalone powerline box that you simply plugged the hub into over Cat6 it would have worked a treat! Sadly not to be! I notice from you stats earlier that you are on an 80mbps line. What package are you on as the maximum I can get with Sky is 53Mbps on a 55 line but the cabinet has delivered me 67Mbps from other providers. Just curious..

[Chrisee]

@GazzieC not sure I would completly agree as some of what you say does not tally with my own experience, being active on this forum throughout or with what Sky technical contacts have told me privately. Broadly though you are right Powerline can cause interference in some circumstances and could interfere with VDSL signals but it was not inevitable and a lot of the stuff on Google is frankly wrong.. I used the system myself for over 2 years with absolutely no issue with interference with VDSL signals as did  a number of other experienced users.  

However the technology Sky used was very basic and no great loss as the more modern systems avoid a lot of the issues. 

[GazzieC]

@Chrisee Tbh I'd agree it was only that it tallied with a very seasoned OpenReach engineer who I trust (know him for years). 

I had it working on my setup for a time (until it was removed via firmware update) and it worked with no problems. Maybe it was more of an issue on full cabinets?? I don't know I'm not an OR engineer although I am reasonably technical minded and what was said made sense.

[Chrisee]

@GazzieC loads of things cause issues with VDSL not just rogue powerline. Powerline was a popular target especially for radio hams but they did not like VDSL either for that matter and their kit can cause issues with FTTC.

My own cabinet was absolutly full as we had to have a second full size unit installed a couple of years back after 18 months when you could not order at all. Our area was a very early part of FTTC rollout and it took my speed from 2Mb/s to 40Mb/s then 80Mb/s so many of my neighbours were motivated to switch! 

[anniemv]

@Chrisee

Help.

Ive just switched from Eir to Sky broadband and Talk (voip). I think I have the new SOGEA modem with just 1 ROI phone port at back of modem.  Can I use a splitter cable or adapter to double up the phone inputs so I can connect both my phone handset and my personal panic alarm into the modem? 

Also is it possible to have a second phone in another room with this system

[Tony+K.]

Since 2008, I  have lived in 5 different countries; used 7 different broadband companies and just to compare my internet upload speed was 100 Mbps in NL 12 years ago. But I have never seen a broadband company that is as disappointing  as Sky in terms of speed, crisis management (i.e. COVID) , iOS app , process management  and customer service. 

I have been waiting for an engineer to come for 18 days ; 

internet disconnecting every day on 3 different time slots (regularly);couldn't reach out to customer service since Covid (apparently either  sky's customer base is key workers or no one has access to their services ),  tagged Sky tech support team to my threads here - never got a response, McAfee subscription has not been working since JAN'20(contrary their claim, they couldn't solve this for 2-3 money's pre-COVID; so I can imagine legal/PR advises you to make excuses to prevent any claim from customers but please stop hiding behind COVID) , and broadband shield has been giving an error for 1 month now. 

And as of yesterday there has been sudden disconnections, lags and slow downs in my internet am not even sure if there is any safety issue. 

I really hope in the long term for all industries, the survival of the fitteat will be around the customer experience and only ones that are genuinely customer centric (not the ones that put a useless/empty/one sided "how we react to COVID" PR copy to their website) survive.  Companies like Amazon that are managing much more complex business networks and directly impacted by Covid over their distribution channels never used COVID as an excuse for one day but yet they enabled more funds/manpower behind their business partners/customers during these hard times. Sadly my terrible experience  wouldn't even reach to its main target as even this platform is built as a band ait lever to snooze people's issues or pass them to Oracles for their voluntary work while Sky is blaming COVID for their intended incompetence!

[Chrisee]

@anniemv Potentially you could use a phone splitter but not sure your panic alarm can work over the new line. Check with whoever supplied the alarm.

If it will not work talk to Sky as they would have to change your supply back to one with a standard phone service. In the UK they are supposed to check these things out but have been known to miss them. Not sure on the Irish position to be honest so again you may need to call Sky Ireland and get them to check. 

[Chrisee]

@Tony+K.  have to agree with a lot of you say. If it helps as Oracles we have been repeatedly raising the communication issue with our support. Sky have really dropped the ball.

Cant blame them directly for engineering delays which are down to Openreach who are also responsible for the infrastructure restrictions in the UK. At last fibre is being rolled out with 180,000 addresses being passed per month and Covid has slowed that down

[Shaani]

Hi,

  I am moving from BT to Sky. I have a sky Q package with 2 minihubs. Does the new sky hub support using sky q mini box's as Wi-fi signal boosters? Or is that only an option with Sky Q broadband hub? Thanks.

[Chrisee]

Hi @Shaani the new SR203 Broadband Hub does support the hotspots on Q tv boxes both minis and main.

[Really+fed+upQ]

I've been reading all the posts in this forum and it's proved very useful in perparing myself for my new S203.  I'm taking delivery of the S203 today and the booster tomorrow and I have a setup question. I've backed up the settings on my existing Sky Q router, will I be able to simply restore the settings to the new router, then change the admin password back to something I want it to be as I don't want it to be the same as my netowrk SSID password?  Will doing this cause any issues? I really want to avoid going through all my devices and changing passwords and SSIDs as some of the interfaces are a pain to navigate. I read something earlier that aluded to isues with the mesh if I do this, not sure I really understood the point. 

Also, does anyone know if there's a website that shows SKY's rollout plans for FTTP by geography? I almost signed up with BT to get to a faster speed as I have FTTP in my road now, but decided against it in the end on the basis that what I have today is "OK" and I just need to be patient. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@Really+fed+upQ wrote:

I've backed up the settings on my existing Sky Q router, will I be able to simply restore the settings to the new router, then change the admin password back to something I want it to be as I don't want it to be the same as my netowrk SSID password?  Will doing this cause any issues?

They are very different models: I'd be surprised if that's possible

Also, does anyone know if there's a website that shows SKY's rollout plans for FTTP by geography?

No - that sort of information would be regarded as commercially sensitive.  Sky are using Openreach fibre rather than laying their own, so it's not really relevant anyway.

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[mae-3]

@GazzieC 

An interesting fact about the latest SR203 router that I have found is the DSL firmware and chipset is different than ER110/ER115 and from my finding, a community member with speeds around the 50-55Mbps had a drop of 7Mbps using the latest SR203 of which they tried 2 SR203 with the same result but two routers an ER110 had ER115 (same DSL chipset but different than SR203) had better performance on the same line at the same time with no other difference than the routers. They were likely on an ECI cabinet because G.INP (bearer 1) was not active but that not 100% confirmed.

There have been technical findings of Powerline communication technology interfering with VDSL/G.fast but that usually only applies when the noise margin is at 6dB or lower and especially in the case of G.fast at 3dB but the PLC has to be close to the router/line to cause interference and usually on longer lines, say speeds of around the 35Mbps mark for VDSL2 and anything below 160Mbps with a noise margin of 3dB on G.fast.

[jamesn123]

@mae-3 

Thats interesting as I know someone who went from the ER115 to the SR203 and went from 30mbps to 40mbps sync speed with no change to attenuation or noise margin.

[lettice]

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@mae-3 wrote:

An interesting fact about the latest SR203 router that I have found is the DSL firmware and chipset is different than ER110/ER115 and from my finding, a community member with speeds around the 50-55Mbps had a drop of 7Mbps using the latest SR203 of which they tried 2 SR203 with the same result but two routers an ER110 had ER115 (same DSL chipset but different than SR203) had better performance on the same line at the same time with no other difference than the routers. They were likely on an ECI cabinet because G.INP (bearer 1) was not active but that not 100% confirmed.

Think that is a a specific user issue.

Recently had the Sky Broadband Tech team and they use the Sky Q hub for some testing as well as the normal Openreach kit.

The swap out to my SR203 and their Q hub produced exactly the same speed/attuention/noise levels on a few changeovers.
Have helped plenty with the move to SR203 from a Sky Q router Myself and never seen any kind of issue like that.

Just had a quick chat with a Sky engineer and they also have not seen any pattern of that issue.

The dsl firmware is different, but Sky have always upgraded the firmware with upgrades in their routers.

The SR203/4 does add SOGEA, G-fast and FTTP etc that the Sky Q hub and previous Sky routers cannot.

Also, be careful which leads are swapped out, the SR203 does come with specific leads, mainly around SOGEA use, but have seen using some older leads has caused issues.

Was that user discussed on here, if so is a link would be useful?

🙂