New Sky Max plus pods but still very poor Wi Fi

[sloop+jb]

Previous BT complete Wi Fi customer on part fibre 150 mb switched to Sky Max full fibre 300. After spending hours trying to connect and keep connected smart devices like Ring/lights/cctv and trying to get a reasonable speed/connection to Sky Q box and mini box, I have come to the conclusion that the issue is where Openreach third party installer put the hub in wrong location. After showing him the then existing BT HUB and discs set up, he was only interested in getting the full fibre through the wall and was not bothered about end user!

It would appear that the installer had no real knowledge of the Sky system as he said I should just connect the BT discs to extend the coverage, as at that point I had zero Sky pods.

i ve waited two weeks for the system to stabilise before connecting any devices not connected on new Sky max. Added 2 smart plugs this morning and boom... lost existing connections. I have to say every device previously connected and stable speeds of at least 80mbps in every room on BT 6 hub plus 3 discs.

i had Sky engineer out last week who added the max 3 pods but this is now beyond me.

yesterday I had less than 1mbps on the Sky Q box. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated as I ve tried all the self help tips

🙏

[Caravanj]

Every time I see a post like this it makes me jittery about swapping from BT to Sky even though it would save me £27 pm.

The Openreach installer will have fitted an ONT box which is typically mounted on the inside wall near to where the external customer service point is located. That was the case when my FTTP was installed although I'd already drilled the hole through the wall from inside the CSP  into the room as I didn't want any external cabling to be seen. 

My hub is located under the stairs where the old landline master socket & Ethernet patch plate are situated so I had to install a Cat cable from the ONT box to the hub. Afer I'd done that everything came online within a few moments but my WiFi is handed by a mesh system.

Am I correct in thinking that your hub is now situated near the the ONT & if this is the cause of your problem you wil have to relocate your hub & run a Cat cable from the ONT box to it.

[JimM1]

@sloop+jb Links you may need below, the sky Max is NOT sky Q compatible so needs to be set as a third party connected device same as you had when using the BT Smarthub2 and the Complete wi-fi if it was the BT Black disk set. You would be more than better to use your app and peg the sky Max hub wireless security to WPA2-PSK mode!

sky connecting devices
https://www.sky.com/help/articles/connect-devices-to-broadband-start

Sky Max change settings link.
https://www.sky.com/help/articles/change-wifi-max-hub-settings-a

[sloop+jb]

Thanks Caravanj

i had stuck with BT since the days of ADSL Connections. The complete Wi Fi kit was so reliable and gave me amazing Wi Fi in and around the house. I have loose laid a 5m ethernet  cable to test the process of moving Sky max hub. Getting it as close as possible to old BT hub the difference in coverage appears so much better. Looks as though this will be a possible solution although it is frustrating that the initial positioning at install was so badly thought out. Thanks for your insight on my problem. 👍

[sloop+jb]

Hi jimM1

its hard to understand that Sky max is not compatible with their own Sky Q box. I'm at the point of trying anything so will take your great advice on board. I have a scheduled call back with Sky support on Monday. Why is switching ISP so frustrating. I guess that's why I stuck with BT for so long...... then after being with Sky TV for over 25 years I thought I could trust them with my broadband too 🤦‍♂️👍

[JimM1]

@sloop+jb You did everything right, if you had NOT got the sky Max but the older SR203 hub, that is Fully compatible with Sky Q Mesh you would have been better off. 

Have never used the Sky Max hub, and never will as would not entertain a hub that has to be setup/controlled by a stupid phone app. But the Max although Wi-Fi 6 as far as i can gather, likes to channel way up the Freq band which can lead to all kinds off issues,. And you are right, the Fibre Installation teams just do what they need to and they are 100% correct in what they do, but it is then upto the User to get the Hub to the Best Working Coverage area, Fibre is just not as easy as running a telephone cable all over the home!

[icesteelman]

This type of issue is the very reason I bit the financial bullet a few years ago and went with an Eero mesh for our bungalow, which had wifi dead spots with any router I tried.

Initially I  was with Talk Talk, but recently with Sky who gave me a great deal for Fibre 150.  Sky wi-fi disabled on my Sky Hub (and Sky Q box as I do not have multi-room) to avoid interference, Sky Q hard wired with no issues whatsoever.

If I end up moving from Sky at the end of the contract, the Eero Mesh system will simply need plugging in to any new router and continue to operate.

Good luck with whatever you decide to try.

[Chrisee]

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@sloop+jb wrote:

Hi jimM1

its hard to understand that Sky max is not compatible with their own Sky Q box. I'm at the point of trying anything so will take your great advice on board. I have a scheduled call back with Sky support on Monday. Why is switching ISP so frustrating. I guess that's why I stuck with BT for so long...... then after being with Sky TV for over 25 years I thought I could trust them with my broadband too 🤦‍♂️👍

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@sloop+jb the Sky Q system was designed around 2015 annd uses a proprietary mesh wifi system which is simply no longer available and was deigned orginally to require a router running the same system when the Q boxes worked as WiFi extenders. However soon after launch in 2016 Sky made changes so it would work with third party routers but the Q boxes lost their wifi boost capability in that set up.  If you have moved from BT to Sky the WiFi Max hub behaves in the same way as they did with your old BT hub.

Sky stopped developing the Sky Q system a few years back as the future of satellite broadcasting in the UK is unlikely to continue after the current satellites come to the end of their lives in a few years. In its place Sky launched their Sky Stream service which works well with the modern routers. One common issue is that the physical placement of the ONT Openreach fit means thst the router is in a wirse postion. Moving ONTs is complex but using a longer Ethernet canble so the hub can be moved is trivial in comparison.

Given the limited time the engineers installing full fibre are given often means the install is not ideal especially where the customer wants a special job. The pigtail fibre cable from the external CSP box has to be run without tight bends and is quite delicate. The whole install has to meet Openreach's spec so the enginerrs will rarely be able to use predrilled access holes etc.