Alternative to Sky Hub SR203 as router as presume needed for Sky Talk and as a modem to connect www

[NicholasS]

Hello

I've seen several posts / discussions on this topic, but as everyone has a slightly different set of circumstamnces I thought I'd outline what I am trying to achieve and the issues I have encountered since switching to Sky broadband from BT a few days ago.
We sadly do NOT have full fibre so out connections is via a copper wire and a conventional BT socket (with one hole for phone and another for broadband).  We have Sky Talk so in theory will use the Sky Hub to make / receive calls (phone line now plugged into the Sky Hub).  We theoretically receive the same speeds as we did with BT (max 30Mbps download and around 5/6 for uploads).  Phone calls seem to be better quality than with BT.  Price is about 1/3 what we were paying BT (we may have lost some international call discounts by switching so not entiely like fo rlike, but good enough given most calls now via FaceTime / WhatsApp / teams) - so £25 per month versus £75.  This was main reason for switching (and BTs lack of transparent pricing / disdain for customers).  We also have been loyal Sky TV customers for many years and have Sky q 2TB + 2 Sky Q Mini's.  All the Sky TV boxes have always been connected by CAT5 cable.

Since switching out network has become massively unstable.  An engineer was supposed to come today but cancelled at the last minute.  Another is booked for day after tomorrow.

SpeedTest is shoing that on occasions we can get expected connection speeds, but more often than not things slow down to a crawl.  Sky Q Mini keep droppoing out / buffering and despite having reconnedcted umpteen times are seriously unstable.

My guess is that the Sky Hub cannot cope with all the devices we have (multiple security cameras - mainly PoE; Tapo wi-fi controlled sockets; 4 WAPs to extend network connected back to router via CAT5; assorted laptops, iPads, iPhones, printers, etc).  Wherever possible things are hard wired.

Assuming the Sky Hub is the issue (as we didn't have any probelms with BT hub) I believe it is possible to replace the Sky Hub as a router with something else.  I've seen various threads on this saying it needs to be Option 61 compatible, but I'm not sure if that only applies with full fibre / ONT?  I would like some recommendations for an alternative please (have used DaryTek Vigor in the past and 3/4 WAPS are Vigor 810's).  I also believe that if we connect Sky Hub to main socket, then phone to Sky Hub and then a 3rd party router to Sky Hub and then everything else to 3rd party router that should / could work?  I believe we would need to switch off Sky Hub wifi?  Also not sure how we make sure that the 3rd party router is the one managing / issuing IP addrresses?  I have read something about not being able to Sky Hub to 'bridge' mode - is there a work around?  How do I make sure that Sky Hub is ONLY doing whatever is needed for Sky Talk to work and doing whatever it has to do to allow us to reach the outisde world and connect to broadband?

Apologies for the long psost and lack of detailed techical knowledge, but i sense I may only be able to to figure this out myself (unless anyone has suggestions for people I could pay to come to my house and do this in a reliable way - like the Geek Squad of old - as I'm assumong Sky engineer will be limited in what they can do, especially when it comes to recommending 3rd party products because the Sky Hub isn't up to the job)?!

Thank you in advance!!

Nick 

[sea+dog]

Upgrading from an Old Sky Broadband Hub (WiFi 5) to the Sky Max Hub (WiFi 6) the system mesh is configured differently with the later. 

1. Swap

Disconnect your old Sky Broadband Hub and connect the new Sky Max Hub following the instructions provided by Sky.

2. Reconnect Your Devices

Your WiFi network name (SSID) and password may have changed. Update the WiFi settings on your devices accordingly.

3. Re-Pair Sky Q Mini Boxes (Required for Sky Press and hold the WPS button on your Sky Q main box until Within two minutes, press and hold the WPS button on each Sky Q Mini box until it also flashes.

Wait for the connection to complete (this can take up to 2 minutes).

4. Check Connectivity

Ensure all Mini boxes are working correctly and reconnect any other smart devices as needed.

If you experience issues, restart both the Sky Q main box and the Mini boxes, then try pairing again.

[NicholasS]

Thanks for the very clear instructions.  I only just got the SR203 - the engineer that came out did suggest requesting an upgrade to the newer Sky Max Hub as that 'might' help.  Wifi is not my issue - practically everything (and everything that is heavy on bandwidth) is connected by a cable.  It was more a question of whether a different router would cope better with heavy traffic or would have the ability to manage / limit / prioritise traffic.  Reading elsewhere I'm not sure the newer Sky Max Hub would have any greater ability.  I'm also slightly unsure whether in fact it would be less configurable than the Sky Hub (have read elsewhere that it might not be so easy to manage through a browser and that what can be changed has to be done by the My Sky App).

This is one fo the reasons I've been considering investing in a thrid party router.  I'm just not sure which one and whether I shgould try and get a modem / router (i fear if I use a third party modem I will lose Sky Talk).  I think probably the ideal is use Sky Hub as modem and for conencting Sky Talk and then have a 3rd party router I can configure how I want to do everything else?

[Chrisee]

@NicholasS you have to use the Sky hub connected to the line to use the Sky Talk line there is no alternative.

That simplifies things some what as you can forget about DHCPv4 Option 61 which is only required to authenticate the connection which the Sky hub does. By the way thay requirement applies to FTTF partial fibre connections as well as FTTP.full fibre.

You could try using a third party router behind the Sky hub in a double NAT confguration which almost all apps are happy with. You can simplify things a bit by placing the second router in the Sky hub's DMZ simplifying firewall issues a bit.

However one suggestion before spending money is check that the wifi on the Sky Q boxes is fully turned off if they are had wired. The big difference between the SR203 Sky Hub and the old BT hub is the Sky unit supports the full Sky Q wifi mesh system which is almost certainly going to cause interference if the wifi hot spots on the Q boxes are live. The switch is in each Sky box's engineer's menu accessed by navigating to Settings but entering 0,0,1 before select.

It would beca pretty strange nnetwork that would stress a SR203 on a FTTC connection not saying its impossible just pretty unusual.

[NicholasS]

Thanks Chrisee - wifi is still switched on at he Sky Hub providing a WAP in its own right.  I have 4 other WAPS on the netwrork all using the same SSID (so a Draytek Vigor WAP in 3 corners of the house, Sky Hub in 4th corner and a separate TP-Link WAP in the garage).  The Sky Q boxes all have wifi turned off and are connected only by CAT5 back to the Sky Hub.  I could switch the wifi off on the Sky Hub, but not sure that will make a big difference?  I agree that had Sky Q boxes been trying to set up a competing network I would no doubt have had issues, but i've always kept Sky Q hard wired (when engineer came to install Sky Q years ago he was relieved I didn't have Sky broadband and wasn't keen on using them for mesh wifi!).

Things have improved a little following recent engineer visit by changing a few of the connections and interconnections - that is to say I am using a switch connected directly to the Sky Hub for lower traffic / simpler parts of my network (eg Sonos).  For the high bandwidth things I have made as direct a connection as possible beteen the Sky Hub and the end hardware (eg just one cable to connect my HikVision NVR back to the Sky Hub with no other hardware sharing that cable / also my home office has a direct connection back and now has fewer things attached to it).

I can only assume that the Sky Hub has been the issue because everything worked fine with previous BT Home Hub.  Hence speculating that a 3rd party router might improve things further.

At least now everything is not grinding to a halt the whole time and i don't constantly have to reconnect my Sky Q boxes - touch wood.

[sea+dog]

The bandwidth ie 150Mb/s etc to which you are subscribed is important.  I have fibre to the home ultrafast 150.  But upgrading to Sky Max  is Wifi 6  so upgrade tech and more channels and speed and it included an extender pod. I have seen my WiFi coverage improve with 20 items connected.  Remember there is a 14 day cooling off period so you could revert if you took the plunge.  

. 

[NicholasS]

Oh BTW we don't have full fibre (I wish!).  So our connection to the outside world relies on a 30ish Mbps top speed.  That is usually fine.  The speed issues I believe are all down to complexity of internal network (50-60 devices at least and some bandwidth heavy - eg 9 PoE security cameras, 2 wifi security cameras, 5/6 Tapo wifi enabled sockets, Sky Q plus 2 mini boxes, 7/8 Sonos amps, plus the usual array of wifi devices like iPhones, laptops, iPads, etc).  In fact the Sky engineer chekced speed from the outside to the Sky Hub and that was fine.

[NicholasS]

As just commented we are stuck with a very slow connection from the cabinet to our house - 30Mbps is the best we can hope for.  Swish spent several months digging up the road and putting in full fibre, but it has been two years snce they did that and no one can tell us when they will be able to make the final connection (that required a way leave and, more importantly, some more digging up of the last hundred metres or so of road to get to our property).  I hadn't wanted to sign up to another 2 year contract so i could switch if / when full fibre arrives.  If I had stuck with BY I'd have been paying £75 a month to keep the flexibility.  Had I resgned their contract it would have been marginally cheaper but still for 2 years.  Switching to Sky meant recudiong monthly bill to £25 (1/3 of what BT were ripping me off for) - that said the BT modem / router did a better job!!

[NicholasS]

@Chrisee I'm still struggling and wondered if you might be able to point me to where I can find more detail on your suggestion: "Sky hub in a double NAT confguration which almost all apps are happy with. You can simplify things a bit by placing the second router in the Sky hub's DMZ"?

Also are there any particular routers that are likely to be suitable for my set up?  Not sure if another Draytek would make sense given I have a few of their WAPs?

Thanks in advance.

[Chrisee]

@NicholasS the number one problem you will have which is inescapable is 30Mb/s coming into the property is only enough to stream a single video UHD feed. If two or more devices try to access bandwidth above that limit you will have contention and delay its like taking a the traffic from three line motorway onto a country lane. First thing is to ensure your Q boxes never access UHD content by setting them to default to HD or better SD for on demand downloads or app streams. Video streaming or large downloads use a lot of bandwidth you dont have..

Literally any router can be connected behind a Sky hub as it connects to a previously authenticated connection. The reference to the DMZ simply means you are bypassing the hub's firewall and relying on the firewall in your second router. One problem with cheap routers like Sky's hubs is they have no ways of prioritizing particular traffic everything is dealt with in turn. You may need a router which offers the ability to prioritize urgent traffic or reserve bandwidth which is known as QOS. Look for models decribed as gaming routers. .

Draytek major on small business routers offering support for VOIP systems etc. They are great in my experience if you understand networking. However brands like Asus and Netgear produce consumer units which are easier to set up. TP-Link also are in the consumer market but their routers have issues connecting directly to Sky lines if you ever decide to live without the Sky Talk line.

The reason why I recommended turining off the hub's wifi is simply to reduce the possibility of wifi interference. Hopefully your APs are designed to produce a mesh network so cannot interfere one with another but the Sky hub wont necessarily play nicely with them. 

[NicholasS]

Hi Chrisee,

Thank you for the clear answers.

We have lived with 30Mbps for 9 years now - not had issues before switching from BT to Sky (we do stream UHD movies etc).  Totally understand your point (and nice analogy of three lane motor way going to country lane), but that is not really the issue to the best of my knowledge.  All the congestion is within our own network and i think the old BT router just did a better job of coping with it.  Sky wifi is turned off so the only wifi access is through the Draytek WAPS (and that is currently very limited as I'm the only one in the house and my desktop connects via CAT5 back to router which is the only traffic i'm aware of - pretty surew the Tapo plugs connected to lamps won't be using huge bandwidth?).  There is traffic from main Sky Q box to Sky Q Mini boxes (although not at present as I'm not watching TV in the three rooms that have Sky TV - albeit some data might be getting streamed while on standby - not sure).  There will be traffic across my Hikvision IP cameras - they all connect back to a Network Video Recorder (NVR).  That traffic has to pass through the Sky Hub router (cameras are connected to a managed Netgear PoE switch in the loft which then has a single CAT5 cable with no other traffic directly back to the Sky Hub / there is a second direct CAT5 connection from Sky Hub directly back to the NVR - the cameras only record to the NVR hard disk when motion is detected, but i expect that the traffic is nevertheless constant).  Your suggestion re QOS and being able to prioritise different bits of network traffic makes sense and if i can get a new router that makes that easy to manage I think that would be very positive.  I take your point on Draytek being less user friendly (I always found that there were far too many options on the old one I had) so I might look at Asus or Netgear.  I'm not sure if the Draytek WAPS will be totally compatible  with another brand and whether I'll be able to achieve a mesh that is optimised or if i should buy router and new WAPS all together (so much for saving £50 a month - will soon get eaten up, but better to hhave a network that works!).  Time for some more research....
Thanks again!

Nick

[NicholasS]

After a little research I'm leaning towards a Netgear Orbi 770 set up - main Orbi router plus 3 satellites (to replace my Draytek WAPs).  I don't think you can do any management of usage (QOS) but hoping that will be irrelevant (and paehrpas I could do that on a aseparate managed Netgear Switch?).  It does look like you can set up separate netwroks for IoT, VPN, guests, etc - so that might be a way to isolate security camera traffic from everything else and have more stable Sky Q viewing and internet connection for work (all subject to 30Mbps copper wire - although by some divine intervention someone from Swish turned up at my door this mornig - you could not make it up - evidently my moaning may have nudged them to realise they haven't connected up most of my road - adly too late given i have signed up to 2 years of Sky and even if i am in cooling off period have no short term alternative)....