Internet keeps dropping after switch to Full Fibre

[fullfibredown]

Hi - I was on Gfast with Sky for a couple years before switching to Full Fibre once it became available this year. Since switching, stability has been terrible. The internet connection drops several times a day for about 15 seconds, then comes back online. Never had any problems with Gfast, but the new Full Fibre connection is unreliable and I really need a reliable connection.

I've spent hours and hours on the phone with Sky repeating the same information and doing the same tests. I've been promised callbacks, engineer visits etc. but half the time what's been promised never materialises. They sent a new router, but it didn't solve the problem. They finally arranged 1 engineer visit - the engineer replaced the ethernet cable from the wall to the router, which did nothing. I have an extender, and yesterday I bought a new TP Link router and set it up, but the internet has crashed again today. 

I have around 7 personal devices in the connection, plus 3 home security cameras and a hub for them, and a wifi-enabled cat flap and the hub for that. The latter hub is plugged into the router, and I need it for my cat so wouldn't be able to remove this. 

I'm at my wit's end with this. I've been told by Sky that because they can't see the issue happening (because it happens randomly, so I can't replicate it for them), they can't help. I've also asked to exit my contract because of these issues but Sky have refused to waive the fee, despite these issues only occurring since my new contract started. Please help. 

[JimM1]

@fullfibredown What sky hub are you using white or black?

[fullfibredown]

@JimM1 

It's a black Sky hub (although as of yesterday I am using a new TP Link router I bought in hopes this would fix the issue

I should mention that when the internet dropped, the 'internet' and 'voice' lights on the Sky hub were showing as amber, with the other two green. 

[JimM1]

@fullfibredown Is the TP-Link connected to the sky hub by Ethernet cable, if so it will not make one slight bit off difference as the sky hub has gone offline with the two amber lights!

[fullfibredown]

@JimM1 Apologies for the confusion, I swapped out the Sky hub for the new TP Link router. 

[JimM1]

@fullfibredown So the Tp-Link is now direct on the ONT connection and connected on the WAN output off the TP to it, what Tp did you get? The lights on the ONT are as much to look at they must be Power and PON solid Green no matter what, the Lan flashes as the TP sends data back and forth!

With the Tp-Link in place you are still getting the dropped connection is that correct!

[fullfibredown]

@JimM1  Yes, that's all correct.  Still getting the internet dropping with the TP Link.  Although it's only dropped once to my knowledge in about 36 hours since I installed it, whereas with the Sky hub it would typically drop multiple times within that time frame.  (Not sure if that is significant, though, since it seems to drop randomly.)  The router is the TP-Link Archer BE3600 Router.

I have checked the ONT but it's hard to say if the lights are different because the connection usually only drops for 10-15 seconds at a time, so by the time I get to the ONT, the connection is back.  I haven't seen the ONT lights look any different from what you described, though, whereas I have seen the 2 amber lights on the Sky hub every time.

[JimM1]

@fullfibredown You are going to have to find out how to look at the Tp-Link router logs to see what is going on, if the Wan is dropping then the issue is a connection and authentication to sky via the Fibre, I use Asus direct on the ONT and have only had ONE drop in the last 66 day's that was at 12.55pm today, something happened but it was a main drop as all units went offline with a Router reboot not had time to look at it yet on the log, captured it and reset!

[Waveman]

If you want to monitor the connection over time and get a history, you could try the quality monitor from ThinkBroadband:

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

You will need to enable the 'respond to ping from Internet' inside your router settings for this to work. You then set up the quality monitor  on the Thinkbroadband site and it will send ping requests to your router every second or so. Leave that running for 24 hours, this will generate some history of your connection that you can go back to Sky with.

Fiber is normally pretty resiliant, but due to the nature of it you need some specialist gear to be able to test and see what is going on. When they initially install it they do a power check, which checks that the signal strength is satisfactory. 

They way PON works is a single fiber from the network will be optically split into 30 or 32 connections, so effectivly if your nieghbor is on fiber they will be on the same fiber as you back to the exchange equipment. if there is a fber issue then they too will be experiencing drop outs, even if they are not with Sky, as the same fiber can carry data from diffrent providers, but the light still has to get through.

This means that you could have and issue from the optical splitter to your house, as you dont share that, or a problem at the exchange where you are connected to the Sky backbone.

Try the Thinkbroaband quality monitor and see what that shows up.

[fullfibredown]

@Waveman Thank you - funny enough, I completely forgot that I set up a monitor several months ago when this was first starting.  Here is a graph from a couple days ago - not totally sure what to make of it but I'll do some reading:

I've also set up a monitor for the new router now so will see what that says.  Thanks for your help.

[fullfibredown]

@JimM1  Thank you  - I've downloaded the logs but it only shows today for some reason so I'll check it after the next time it drops.

[JimM1]

@fullfibredown That's the way to go about it, all the tools in the Arsenal have to be used and work out what's going on! Do the same with my logs grab them once a week capture and keep them, never show much but boy did not expect it to kick off 12.55pm today but it did so huge log may not see much but just got to go look at it! 

[JimM1]

@fullfibredown Hide your IP below the Sky when you post and attach your pictures! Looks good for that day working well!