FTTP connection dropping - orange voice light - update?

[Giggsy1977]

One for the superusers and Sky staff that frequent the forum, is the issue raised years ago relating to FTTP dropping, voice light turning orange and the connection not re-establishing, closer to be being resolved?

Is it simply a case of Sky needing to update the hardware at various locations across the country and therefore a waiting game until each area becomes more resilient, or have the protocols relating to times for addressing been amended appropriately? 

There are a number of posts across the forums and I have likely missed a comprehensive response that says all this, but I thought it might be good to have it as a sticky maybe? Give anyone else coming across the issue some advice and explanation. 

As I say, apologies if I have missed something similar! 🙂

[mae-3]

@Giggsy1977 

I've seen some comments about this issues by superusers and it has occurred for quite a number of years, and I beleive Sky are looking activily at addressing the issue for good currently. 😀

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Giggsy1977 

Could you complete this form using the lan port mac address with can be found in the maintenance page of your router settings

https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=1WW4aBjPK0uCpKTt25xSN3nWgC-oMnFOk8VFoTB4uolUMkQ2...

[Giggsy1977]

Thanks @mae-3 - good to have your broad knowledge across such matters! 

[Giggsy1977]

Hi @cookiemonsteruk - I'm no longer with Sky so can't complete the form! 🙂

[mae-3]

@Giggsy1977 

It is a failure at the TCP/IP layer 3 that is causing these issue, the physical layer of connectivity is fine when these failures occur, and that is what needs to be fixed. I remember researching the matter when I was on Sky broadband and it was occuring then some 3 or so years ago! 😎

[Giggsy1977]

Crikey @mae-3 - so Sky have been aware of the issue for a number of years and still haven't resolved it? That's a shame and a little embarrassing really. Come Black Friday I shall be signing up for someone else then. How you finding Zen? 

[Giggsy1977]

@KevNewMedia - is there any update with regard to the issue?

Any feedback from users who have tried newer firmware? 

If someone isn't using a Sky hub, are they still affected? 

Many thanks. 

[Chrisee]

@Giggsy1977 the revised firmware is for the black Sky hub 4.2 not the newer white Sky Max type that FTTP customers get. The actual % of lines affected at any one time is actually very small and the issue is fixed within a few days where they arise but powering the hub down for an hour usually restores the service by switching nodes.

However often it isn't the loss of the voice line that is the main inconvenience for many users its the loss of DNS services which often also invoved. Here adding a public DNS to a device's network set up gets round that issue.

Replacing the radius servers that manage the 6 million connections is not a trivial task.

[Giggsy1977]

Thanks @Chrisee - it was the black 4.2 hub I had before leaving.

I'm sure it is a small number of people affected, but if you happen to be one of those it's very annoying! Happened to me regularly, and as you say, rebooting the router allows a new address to be acquired. What isn't great is that manual intervention is required, so for homes that rely on a stable Internet connection (heating, cameras etc.) the connection is lost until one can return home to apply the 'fix'. 

FTTP was touted as 'always on' and for some Isp's that seems to be the case. Some of my friends connections never go down! 🙂

If I came back to Sky, but used a different router, would that negate the issue?