BEWARE sky GIGA fibre (well any fibre package) only as good as Sky Q box wifi capabilities

[felix2009]

I have recently upgraded to the top Sky broadband Full Fibre Package

I also have Sky Q

I also have Sky mini boxes throughout the house (3 of them)

I had a sky engineer visit on Tuesday as the broadband speed while sat next the the main Sky router is 400 mbs plus (not as fast as promised but will take it). Any where else it is struggling to get above 50 mbs and the connection stalls or freezes a lot.

As it turns out, the sky engineer confirmed that doesnt really matter what speed you have in your main router as if you are closer to a sky Q or mini box - their max performance is 90 mbs. I tested this by unplugging the Sky Q and mini boxes - download through out the house up above 200 mbs - plug them back in - down to 40.

So I can have the fast fibre I am paying a premium for but only when I turn off my Sky Q and mini boxes which I am also paying for.

Very annoyed as feel like this should have been explained to me at time of broadband upgrade

[jamesn123]

@felix2009 

This kind of thing comes up on the forum occasionally and I always try and explain the same thing...

Gigafast is a product designed to give you an extreme amount of bandwidth headroom on your external line. This DOES NOT mean Sky are intending for you to get 100s of Mbps via a single WiFi connected client, it is designed to give you HD/UHD streaming speeds to many devices at once. 

In the domestic setting its very rare for a user to need 100s of Mbps to a single WiFi client, you just wouldnt be able to use all the bandwidth. If you want to make the most of your Gigafast connection you should use ethernet or a high end router/mesh that is WiFi 6/6e. 

[TimmyBGood]

@felix2009 

It's also worth noting that Q television is a system developed in 2014-15 and released in 2016: it really didn't anticipate gigabit home broadband.  The last significant Q hardware revision was in 2019 (the 1TB UHD/HDR main box) and there's unlikely to be another one: as far as we know Q Minis are still built to a pre-2016 specification.

[felix2009]

If I got sky glass and this was connected via Ethernet does this help solve the problem?

guess then I can't have multi room

[jamesn123]

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@felix2009 wrote:

If I got sky glass and this was connected via Ethernet does this help solve the problem?

guess then I can't have multi room

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Yes it would. Multiroom would be served by getting 'pucks' to put in each room. 

[felix2009]

Do these pucks act the same as the mini boxes and have a max output as well or work differently and just leave Wi-Fi to the main router and booster?

thanks

[jamesn123]

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@felix2009 wrote:

Do these pucks act the same as the mini boxes and have a max output as well or work differently and just leave Wi-Fi to the main router and booster?

thanks

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No they dont, they are simple WiFi clients and do not boost the signal at all. 

[felix2009]

So Xbox's iPhones and iPads will only be using main hub box for Wi-Fi and nothing else?

this sounds promising

[jamesn123]

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@felix2009 wrote:

So Xbox's iPhones and iPads will only be using main hub box for Wi-Fi and nothing else?

this sounds promising

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Yes if you remove all Sky Q gear & boosters.

[Chrisee]

@felix2009 as someone who replaced Sky Q with a Glass TV and 3 Stream pucks and who also now has Ultrafast+ perhaps I can help. Using my SR203 Sky hub on its own I get the full 500Mb/s throughout the main living area dropping to under 100Mb/s in the most distant rooms on otherlevel. All of my Sky TV units streamed perfectly connected by wifi but given the 2 UHD units are both in the main living area and can only use up to 30Mb/s that isn't surprising, HD viewing uses up to around 10Mb/s. Tests indicate the SR203 tops out around 700Mb/s which is to be expected as it is a wifi5 device. 

I own 3 TP-Link Deco M4 units which I am currently using in Access Point mode with the Skyhub's wifi disabled these give similar performance in the main living area as they also only support Wifi5 rather than wifi6. However they increase the speeds on the 2 other levels to roughly 200Mb/s which is in practice more then sufficent but if I bought a higher spec unit that would likely increase a bit more. To get gigabit speeds through out my home would I judge cost at least £300 (the 3 M4 kit cost me £100) and in practice would not make any difference to our use of the system. 

I trialled and rejected Sky's Wifi Max system soon after its launch with 2 "pod" extenders which in practice did not improve the speeds my Deco units deliver and had, while I had it a number of bugs, but I understand some of those have been sorted,  but I judged the system was poor value at £10 a month.

Hope that helps.

[felix2009]

Thanks

i have gone for the switch to sky glass and ditching sky Q

hope I have made the decision!!

[TimmyBGood]

@felix2009 

I'd strongly suggest reading the many reviews of the Sky Glass hardware itself, and then look at Stream Stream pucks with a non-Sky television set.

Glass sets are now two years old and significantly overpriced unless you really value their design aesthetic or need the (admittedly generous) credit terms.