3rd party router replacement

[mae-3]

@GBR22114 

Was the broadband line dropping when you had the Sky router connected to the broadband line? The details I've provided are correct and known to work with the 2860ac from what I've seen on the forum over the last couple of years with other members using that router.

It does suggest to me that there is possible a broadband line fault, which really can only be diagnosed with the Sky router or an alternative to see whether that also drops, eg: that would double confirm a broadband line fault if it does on two routers.

[GBR22114]

No drops with the previous router (also a Draytek, haven't used a Sky router for a few years)... though the frequency of drops seems to have decreased overnight, last one was 4 hours ago rather than 10-15 minutes which was happening after I connected the 2860 yesterday.

Thanks for your help @mae-3 

[Adam+McGechan]

Hi everyone,

I apologise for this basic question, but I'm having trouble finding an answer as my Google searches just come up with ancient results!

We have recently moved into a house which has Sky fibre to the house - we have the Ultrafast Plus package, the Sky Q router plugs into a wan box on the wall via ethernet, and we get speeds of about 515Mbps as advertised.

I would like to replace the Sky Q router completely - I did this at a previous house which had Vodafone DSL, and every router/modem they sent just overheated and died. I just needed to call Vodafone to get a couple of account details, which were needed to connect the third-party router.

I was thinking of something like the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000, in order to get full-speed wifi upstairs. The issue we have is that Sky's own wifi (which I believe forms a mesh with the Sky Q box) interferes with our Google Home and Philips Hue, so we have the Sky wifi off, and I use a Linksys Velop mesh to create a new wifi network. But, I've never been happy with the Velop system, and it only gets about 140Mbps upstairs, and even only gets about 260Mbps when I'm sitting right next to the primary node, which is plugged into the Sky router directly.

By comparison, the Sky wifi (when re-enabled) gets 506Mbps in the same room, and 253Mbps upstairs, with a weak signal.

I understand that wifi is variable and will never match wired, but it seems silly to be paying for 500Mbps Ultrafast Plus, and only get half that speed via our Linksys Velop. I would hope the Asus would be powerful enough to overcome this. I don't mind using it merely as a wifi router, plugged into the Sky Q router, but the Asus is rather large, and removing the Sky router entirely would be great.

Sorry for the length of this query, but I've been tearing my hair out the last week trying to figure out how to get fast wifi through the house! It's a 70s build with thin walls - it shouldn't be hard!

[Adam+McGechan]

Or... would it be better just to get a Asus xt8 mesh, which I believe will plug straight into the ont box anyway? (was just reading another thread about it... and it's £100+ cheaper than the AXE11000 router).

[cookiemonsteruk]

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@Adam+McGechan wrote:

Or... would it be better just to get a Asus xt8 mesh, which I believe will plug straight into the ont box anyway? (was just reading another thread about it... and it's £100+ cheaper than the AXE11000 router).

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@Adam+McGechan 

Both will work directly connected to the ont.  You could get 2 xt8's  and mesh them together to cover up to 4200 sq ft for the price of the axe11000 and still have change left over

[BrianGJSteer]

I have a Gigaclear FTTP connection, which was supplied with two Linksys routers, but the confguration I nneded to set up could not be backed up, so I bought a Synology RT2600ac router so I coudl connect both my Sky SR203 FTTC router and the WAN connection from Gigaclear to the one router which I set up as Failover, in case the 500 Mbos Gigaclear goes down. The Sky connection is only 38 Mbps.

But more important for you, any router that has at least one WAN connection should be able to be connected. In my case I used abcdefgh@skydsl to connect the Sky WAN to the router.

I am not sure if this helps, so if it doesn't work, sorry, I can't help.

[Adam+McGechan]

@cookiemonsteruk Thanks! Sounds good, and sounds like the xt8 would be as good a shot as any at getting decent speed upstairs, with a meshed pair? Like I said our Linksys Velop is a bit miserable, but it's also fairly old (probably bought it in 2014).

I'm not expecting to get 515Mbps, but if I can reliably get 200-300+, that would be great. The Velop sometimes delivers that, but only sometimes, which seems slow consideringthe Sky router itself gave me 253 when I tested it earlier.

[Adam+McGechan]

@BrianGJSteer Thanks, that is useful, because it's the WAN/ONT configuration that I know I will get stuck on if I get the xt8s!

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Adam+McGechan 

Always best to initially ethernet sky router to the blue wan port of asus and perform sequential firmware updates until it doesn't update anymore

Then remove the sky hub and directly connect ont to asus wan port

Locate "client identifier (option 61)" and type in

anything@skydsl|anything

And set the MTU to 1500

[Adam+McGechan]

@cookiemonsteruk Awesome, thanks. I've ordered a pair (£100 off at Amazon today too!), which will be here tomorrow. Worth a shot!

[Adam+McGechan]

@cookiemonsterukGot my ZenWifi and have updated firmware, created three separate networks, etc. So far so good.

I'm about to replace the Sky router and plug the Asus directly into the ONT. I've found the option 61 setting I need to fill out. However, you mention setting the MTU to 1500 - where is this setting? I looked at the Asus support site, and their screenshot shows it in the WAN settings, under Account Settings, but I don't have it there.

My WAN setting is on Automatic IP at the top. Does that need to be something else?

[MUFFINTAST1C]

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@Adam+McGechan wrote:

@cookiemonsterukGot my ZenWifi and have updated firmware, created three separate networks, etc. So far so good.

I'm about to replace the Sky router and plug the Asus directly into the ONT. I've found the option 61 setting I need to fill out. However, you mention setting the MTU to 1500 - where is this setting? I looked at the Asus support site, and their screenshot shows it in the WAN settings, under Account Settings, but I don't have it there.

My WAN setting is on Automatic IP at the top. Does that need to be something else?

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What Asus router do you own, I'm pretty well specced when it comes to those..

[mae-3]

@Adam+McGechan 

The MTU setting isn't on my Asus ZenWifi XT8, and it isn't a setting that should be messed around with as it will impact performance in most cases from the default or upstream setting.

The only thing required for full-fibre is DHCP Option 61 string, and DHCPv6 PD if you so wish and that's about it for the Sky authentication side of things. 

[Adam+McGechan]

@MUFFINTAST1C 

It's the Asus ZenWiFi AX6600.

Got it all working, and I have replaced my Sky router, and am getting good speeds (only been testing a few minutes). But still looking for that MTU setting.

[Adam+McGechan]

@mae-3 

Ah okay! In which case, I'm all done? What does the DHCPv6 PD setting do? (can't see that either!).