Configuring Sky Broadband on a 3rd Party Mesh - My story
I spent hours browsing this, and other forums looking for advice and guidance on how to set up a third-party mesh network on top of Sky Broadband. I write this post with everything in one place in the hope that if someone is in the same predicament as I was and Googles it, they will come across this post and it may help them.
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My Sky Q Hub was starting to creak under the strain of a Smart Home (30+ devices). Devices were starting to spontaneously drop off the network, and smart TVs and consoles were starting to really struggle with connectivity. A phone call to Sky left me deflated, having been told that I simply had too many devices connected, and I should start unplugging things. That did not seem right, especially as more and more home equipment is 'smart' these days. I figured it was time to ditch the OEM Sky router and Sky’s own mesh and replace it with something more up to the task.
The first thing to point out is that you cannot just stick another mesh system on top of the Sky router. There are a few problems with this, the main one of which is called the “Double-NAT problem” which can cause all sorts of connectivity issues for devices due to their being two routers issuing IP addresses. To overcome this, you need to remove the Sky Q Hub from the setup completely, meaning aside from the mesh router itself, you need to also buy a new modem.
After some research, I settled on the Draytek Vigor 130 modem (~ £90) and the Netgear Orbi RBR20 Mesh System (~ £300 with two satellites). I investigated the Amazon Eero and the Google Nest WiFi mesh systems, both of which looked good, but there is a sneaky banana skin called “DHCP Option 61” which led me down the Orbi route. See further below.
Here are the steps I went through to get it all set up:
Pre-work
- Jot down your network SSID and password
- Turn off the Sky Q and any Sky Q Mini Boxes at the wall. The mesh network they create with each other causes all manner of problems. More on this later
- Place your Orbi satellites around your house
- You may have read that Sky uses a different type of connection protocol to other ISPs. Rather than use PPoE like most ISPs, they use MER, also called DHCP Option 61. There are hundreds of posts across the internet of people struggling to get third-party network equipment to work with Sky because of this. Because it is unusual, most routers are not configured to support it; most of them assume you are using PPoE. It is difficult to figure out for sure, but from what I could tell, neither the Google nor Amazon mesh systems support it. The Orbi RBR20 DOES support DHCP Option 61… but not out-of-the-box. You need to do a firmware update. But to do this, you need an internet connection! It is a bit of a catch-22, but in the end, I figured out a way to do it:
- Plug the Orbi router into my Sky Q Hub Router via Ethernet cable, and go through the process of configuring it as an access point via the Orbi mobile app
- When it has an internet connection, connect to the Orbi WiFi network via a computer
- Browse to the admin console on 192.168.1.1
- Go to Advanced --> Administration --> Firmware Update
- Update the firmware on the router and the satellites
- Once you have done the firmware update, hard-reset the Orbi by sticking a pin in the reset hole on the back of the device for 5 seconds (this does not overwrite the firmware, but wipes out all the Access Point configuration you have just done and takes it back to a clean install)
- Turn the Orbi off for now
Setting up the Modem
- Disconnect the Sky Q Router and plug in the Draytek modem.
- Connect to the modem with a laptop via an ethernet cable and on a browser go to 192.168.2.1 to access the control panel
- Under the “Internet Access” menu on the left, choose “MPoA / Static or Dynamic IP”.
- Tick the Enable option next to “MPoA (RFC1483 / 2684)”
- Change the value in the VCI box to “101”
- Click OK, this opens the option at the bottom of the screen called “Enable Bridge Mode”. Make sure this is ticked.
- Restart the modem by cycling the power button on the back.
This puts the Modem into Bridge Mode which disables the NAT feature and delegates the allocation of IP address to the upstream router, thereby overcoming the ominous double NAT problem.
Setting up the Orbi
- Look on the bottom of the Orbi router for the default access point name and WiFi password and jot these down
- Turn the Orbi router on then connect it to the Draytek via Ethernet cable
- ** Note ** - The Orbi app is undoubtedly an easier way to set up the system, but you cannot set up DHCP Option 61 via the mobile app, so you will need to do this via computer
- From a computer, scan for WiFi networks and wait until default Orbi access point appears (can take a while after first boot), then connect to it using the password
- Browse to 192.168.1.1 to open the control panel
- Follow the step-by-step guide to configure the network. When prompted, replace the SSID with your existing Sky network name and password. This allows all your existing devices to automatically connect to the new network without you having to reconfigure everything.
When the setup is complete, you will have a working network with a bunch of devices connecting to it, but no internet. The in-built wizards in the Orbi system are not designed to cope with DHCP Option 61 so none of these will work. Instead:
- Go to Advanced --> Setup --> Internet Setup
- Scroll to the bottom of the screen. If you have done the firmware update, you should see a DHCP Option table, with an empty box next to “Client Identifier String (Option 61)”.
- You need to enter a client string. This should be in the format:
- <mac-address>@skydsl|<password>
- Note: handily, the mac address is shown a few boxes above. Just remove the colon “:” characters
- The password can be anything.
- Example: 9dc9ee25edac@skydsl|abcde12345
- Press Apply at the top of the screen
Once this is done, the Orbi should be able to connect to Sky. However, I waited several minutes and even rebooted the router and nothing happened. It was not until, in desperation, I went to Advanced --> Setup Wizard and started the few steps of the wizard that it suddenly connected. I didn't even finish the wizard. I thought it was a coincidence, but I have done it twice now. I think there’s something in the wizard that ‘jumps’ the Orbi into reauthenticating with the ISP, at which point the DHCP Option 61 setting activates.
You now have internet! (again)
Sky Boxes
Alas, there was always going to be a problem somewhere, and that problem is the Sky TV boxes. The main Sky Q box does not automatically reconnect to the new network, even with the same SSID. You need to go into the Settings and reconfigure the network and tell it you are using something other than a Sky router. Once you enter the WiFi password it does connect.
The problem occurs when you turn the Sky Mini box on. As soon as it tries to connect to the network, it boots the main Sky box off the network. When you turn the Sky Mini off at the wall again, the main Sky box suddenly sorts itself out and reconnects. The issue (as far as I can tell) is that the Sky mini box talks to the Sky Q over a private 5Ghz mesh network. This clashes with Orbi’s 5Ghz mesh. It is a shame you cannot just tell the Sky systems to use the third-party mesh rather than create its own. I understand when you're using a Sky router, the boxes act as mesh satellites for the overall network. But when you're not using a Sky router... this just gets in the way.
I tried a handful of things. The most promising option was to go into the engineering menu of the main Sky box (Scroll to Settings, press 0 0 1 on the remote and then Select) and change the 5Ghz channel to something else. Then reset the Sky Mini and get it to re-establish a connection to the Sky Q. It inherits the new 5Ghz channel, and in theory should be out of the way of the Orbi network. Sadly, this had no effect for me and the Sky Q main box stubbornly refused to stay on the network for more than a few minutes while the Sky Mini was powered (even in standby).
The only solution… and it was not one I took lightly… was to hardwire the Sky TV boxes into the network via a Powerline ethernet (Note: I know proper Ethernet is preferable to Powerline, but this just wasn't feasible for me). I did not want to do this because my Sky Mini was wall-mounted behind a TV and it was a pain to reorganise everything. I also felt like hardwiring was a bit defeatist after spending so long configuring a new WiFi network.
With no other options, I bit the bullet and opted for the Tp-Link Nano AV600 (~ £25). Plugged one in near the Orbi router and then one next to each Sky box. I switched the network on the Sky boxes to use Ethernet rather than WiFi, and then just to be sure, I disabled both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz from the engineer’s menu. It took a little while to settle down but seems stable for now.
Conclusion
It was more complicated than I would have liked, and the introduction of Powerline wasn't in my original plan. It feels like a lot of the pain could be avoided had Sky designed their equipment to play nicely with third-party network equipment.
But I now have a fully working, third-party mesh that should be capable of handling hundreds of devices. Speeds look great, connectivity on all devices looks good, and (touch wood) there's been no drop-outs.
Hope this helps someone.
Can't edit my own post because I am not privileged enough, so I can't fix the mistake in the schematic at the bottom. The Powerlines connect to the Orbi router, not the modem.
@Bwap - Which version is the latest firmware?
I updated to V2.5.1.16 (which wasn't the version it came in out of the box) and the following option then appeared in Advanced - Setup - Internet Settings:
If you're definitely running the latest version of the firmware and you don't have the option then it looks like you're out of luck. I find that really surprising that they'd release features on the firmware of some versions of the hardware but not others... but I am sure they have their reason.
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