My experience with the new Sky Broadband Hub

[Dave+H68]

Hi All,

Well, there are certainly some really different and interesting issues posted all over here and other forums, which yes, and I would apologise as it happens that many posts get cross-polinated.

I would also point out that whilst I'm not a newbie to all this computer or network stuff, I certainly don't consider myself an expert or pertain to know more than the experts.....  I can only ever comment on what I see and experience from my own set up and compare it to others set ups and am always greatful for any advice or view given.

With all that said, whilst I too was dissapointed since my Sky Superfast after moving from EE........ I've solved most if not all of my issues!!

After recieving and reading much advice on here and other sources and a bit of reading up, and the repeating message of it's not the router or the Sky service, I took the plunge and ordered 4 Managed switches to replace my 4 un-manged switches to try to reduce all of the LAN Packet Collisions and also see if that in turn helped the high PING rate.............  BUT whilst I was waiting for those to arrive, I also set up a Netgear D6400 Router............. and WOW, even with my existing un-managed switches in around the house I went to ZERO packet collisions on my LAN (Wi-Fi has never been an issue).

So, Whilst I have now spent a further £105 on switches I may not have needed, it's probably what should be in place anyway.

My LAN network is providing a better response now..... but the PING and download speeds I see on the checker sites is still Higher in PING and up and down in download speeds, but the router is always seeing a static speed.

Each of my switches are connected directly to the router and other devices from the switches or the Netgear access point in the loft.

I guess I may have lost the Sky MESH bit but I never looked or considered it in any case, and my phone line is also uneffected.

So, my fix may be right or better for me, but may equally not ideal for others, but I feel still worth sharing, and I personally still feel the line is not as clean and the Sky routers are a bit pants, but as I say, just my opinion, not meaning its right.

Thanks to everyone who offers opinions and advice on here....... it's always appreciated and good to swap and consider opinions and solutions. 😉

[RobHL]

@jamesn123  I switched of the WiFi but it still doesn't work with just the switch. I got my nephew to look at it and he is a cisco verified network engineer and he has said the router is nor providing ip addresses to the devices. It works if just static.

As I have said before the sr204 routers are not fit for purpose. 

[Denno]

Few questions regarding the Sky Broadband Hub and Sky Superfast. 

Ive recently ordered both to replace the hub i got with Sky Q a few years ago and Fibre Max. Am i right in assuming that this is fibre to the box at the top of the street and copper or something else from this to the house? 

The new Sky Hub is being delivered tomorrow but the engineer visit is booked for the 20th Oct? It mentions they will be looking at bringing a new connection into the house and setting it up for me. And that there might have to be some digging. Is this so they can bring fibre directly to the house? Can someone explain what it is that needs to be done for the Superfast Broadband to be installed and can i just plug the new hub in or should i wait? 

Ive had a bit of experience with Virgin installing fibre at some properties where I work and they do alot of excavation so that the fibre can be installed direct into peoples properties if they wish to have it. I cant remember this happening on my street by anyone so how would Sky bring fibre direct into my house or have i got it wrong?

[SBrisbane]

I have superfast and can confirm it is a fibre connection to the cabinet at the end of my street from the exchange, from the cabinet to my property is the old style copper telephone wire.

I had major issues with my installation and the engineer eventually ran a new cable from the closest telephone pole to my house. He went in to detail about how sensitive the connection is and there is a max distance from the cabinet where the speed totally drops off, so he renewed this part of the wiring to try and get the best speed possible.

At the time of me ordering is stated I would get around 150mbps.....the fastest I've seen it is around 118mbps but recently it sits just over 100 which I'm disappointed with but as it sits over the gaurenteed speed there is nothing I can do about it. If Virgin was in my area I'd be off to them in a shot.

[Dave+H68]

@Denno  & @SBrisbane 

Yes, unless you are on cable, then Fibre is 'Generally' set up as Fibre to the cabinate and then down the old copper wires to your house.

BT are however beginning to put fibre on the poles as well.  They recently ran the fibre cabling down the poles in our close, but I'm not sure if they are doing this in certain area's and then waiting for it to be connected live, or if it can be taken as soon as it's on the poles.... although I would bet it's the former..... they are rolling out the infustructure, then turn it on.

BUT, I have also heard oseen on here somewhere that although Sky is using the BT\Openreach system....... that they use some sort of different equipment.... or atleast I think that was put to me at some point to try and explain why since changing my service from EE to Sky, I am ALWAYS seeing much higher PING rates, and my speed is not taken the jump I had expected, considering we are real close to both our echange AND cabinate.

Do Sky use Openrech, but different equipment at the exchange???

And, another question I would love to find the answer to is:

What is the max speed that Fibre can achive on the old copper lines??

Obviously this will have lots of dependant caviats etc....  but when we had an EE 40meg package, we always saw 39meg on the router AND on speedtests on my PC.... now we have Superfast, which I believe is a theoretical 80meg package???..... we only see 55meg on a good day.

[Chrisee]

@Dave+H68 Sky use Openreach for the local loop in the UK - the connection from the exchange to your home. That loop can have 4 different type of connections first of which is FTTP - fibre to the premises which only a small percentage of homes can access but wider roll out is underway - this is sold by Sky as Ultrafast and does involve some digging to connect the fibre to your home. Currently top,speed sold is 145Mb/s but everybody should get that speed. The other three all use the copper phone lines.

Second also sold as Ultrafast uses the line to your home which has to be under 200m or so long to the cabinet it uses technology called G.fast also potentiallyd offers speeds over 100Mb/s. This technology was going to be installed in many cabinets but the roll out has been scaled back as it does not work as well as hoped.

The third type of service is Fibre to the Cabinet sold as Sky Superfast thst offers speeds up,to 80Mb/s which you should get if your line is under 300m or so to the cabinet longer lines mean slower speeds and in rare cases on very long lines the service can be slower than ADSL. Over 95% of lines have FTTC capability. 

Last is ADSL broadband which Sky sell as Sky Essentials that offers speeds of 24Mb/s but most people get speeds under 10Mb/s. The kit is in the phone exchange so speeds depend on the length of the line to the exchange. The main drawback is not the low download but the upload which is typically only around 7% of the download speed while FTTC the equivelant percentage is 25%..

Sky connect at the exchange to their backhaul network which is judged as being at least as good as BT Wholesale's. Latency issues can be caused by the DLM systems Openreach use to manage line speeds on FTTC where interleaving is used to stabilise lines. This is not something Sky can control but normally once the line is optimised - typically thst takes a couple of weeks - the interleaving is removed. The other main cause of high latency is poor WiFi in the customer's home. You can monitor the quality of your connection by setting up,a Broadband Quality Monitor on thinkbroadband.com's website.

@SBrisbane  & @Denno Post your hub's stats and someone can tell you what is going on see Find your Sky Broadband router statistics

@Dave+H68 only one comment about your long post about your network which is Sky Q boxes can often misbehave on complex networks with managed switches as they are designed and developed for simple domestic networks. Sky have a number of security settings which obviously they do not document that can cause loss of connectivity with managed switches. Incidentally Cisco were one of the main contractors when the Q system was developed.

We will have to agree to differ on the Sky SR203 hub's suitability as a domestic router.

[RobHL]

@Chrisee  the sr 204 and sr 204 fail far too often. They are not for for purpose for the number of connected devices that the modern family will have.  This number will only increase as well. Whats worse is sky have not acknowledged it. 

[Chrisee]

@RobHL we have been round this before but  I agree they don't support the number of devices YOUR family has. Suspect Sky will at some stage bring out a hub 5 with a more powerful,processor. It is a common theme here where people assume their use case is typical but in practice it rarely is as millions of customers will have under 10 devices connected. Sky know exactly how many devices are connected of course. 

[RobHL]

@Chrisee  I see some of your point but people that want relatuvely fast connection will tend to be people that have lots of gadgets. Its not dofficult to go over 10devices if you are a family of 4.

[jamesn123]

@RobHL 

The hub seems to fail at around 25-30+ devices. If you have more than that I would argue that is certainly not typical use case.

[englishl1989]

Yeah mine started failed at the 30 mark. I switched back to the old ER115 router and all 52 devices work perfectly now. 

Whilst I take your point that it's not a typical use case to have more than 30 devices, the device shouldn't fail when you have...and it should be made clear of the device limit in the adverts.

Sky's internal DHCP server, by default, has a subnet mask of 255.255.255.0 meaning it it ready and willing to serve 254 addresses. Failing at 30 is laughable. 

[RobHL]

@jamesn123 im less than that and its failed 3 times. Im onto my 4th router in 10 weeks

[RobHL]

@englishl1989  exactly...absolutely riddiculous. I am sure half these people defending it have their broadband been paid for by Sky.

Which services do yo have @englishl1989 as I am moving back to superfast and they are sending me the Sky q router back.

[jamesn123]

@englishl1989 

I agree it is a fault and needs to be looked at. My point was simply 30 devices isnt typical

[englishl1989]

I have super fast but the new router. Not really sure why but that's what I ended up with. I'd be fuming if I had listened to the adverts and have sky 5 quid a month to guarantee WiFi in every room (they must be losing a fortune!) 

The sky engineer who came out told me that sky know if the issue, it's a memory leak in the firmware or something (lots of dns requests being sent when a device initially connects).

anyway, he told me that he refused the new router at his house and is still on the old one. I had one lying around so I plugged it in and changed the ssid and, to my surprise, everything started working perfectly. So this new router isn't up to the job and has been rushed out to the masses.

really frustrates me when people say "it's a free router so don't expect such things that you are asking". You are paying for a service so you should be supplied with equipment to provide that service. Its like saying "you purchased this car, the engine came free with it, if you want the car to perform better pay for a better engine". 

Sky, sort out your hardware. The silence on their part, even denial at times, is going to leave a bitter taste in a lot of peoples mouthed that no offer will ever be able to tempt back. 

If they just said "we know about the issue, a fix will be available at Christmas" then that would put everyone at ease.