New customer, are speeds always this slow?

[MattNicholls]

Hi all,

I've just joined Sky. I have 500mbps download and Sky stream in 2 rooms.

My sky stream devices are struggling to hold a connection - either buffering, sound dropping out, or the picture dropping off completely (please wait while we load...).

If I test my wifi on a TV and sky stream box up a single flight of stairs (using Netflix check my connection) I'm getting as slow as 15-25mbps on the TV and 25-50mbps on the sky stream. If I test the sky stream box that's 1-2m from the router, I can get 400-450mbps at times, but at other times can sometimes lose picture. This is in an early 2000's house.

Am I crazy for thinking something must be up here? I've been on the phone for hours with sky support and all they suggest is that it's something in my house causing interference. I have since turned off every plug in the house except for the TVs and Sky boxes and it makes no difference. I can't imagine this is the service you should be expecting at 500mbps download?

I should at least be able to use the *sky wifi* to actually watch shows on the *sky stream* without it buffering and freezing? Even my 5G can do that when I'm on the train...!

Sky phone lines suggested I pay £10 extra a month for Sky Max or cancel my contract as I'm still in the cooling off period... but I'm loathed to pay even more money - the service should work as expected. I shouldn't be struggling to use the stream box on 500mbps - if I am, then sky stream isn't fit for purpose!

I'm thinking about using powerline adapters/MoCA, but if I have to do this I'll need to do it across the house which is a complete faff and not what I expected when I signed up to a 500mbps package.

My alternative is to buy an aftermarket wifi 6 router/hub in the hopes that it provides a stronger signal to the boxes? 

I've tried the whole turning on/off/hard reset etc.

Any advice would be much appreciated!

[TimmyBGood]

@MattNicholls 

There's nothing magical about Sky Stream which means it can work on WiFi from Sky Broadband when other devices cannot: Sky Hubs don't do quality of service delivery to Sky television boxes in particular.

That you sometimes get north of 400Mbs from the connection would seem to indicate that it is correctly configured, which does tend to suggest the issue is local WiFi conditions.  Given you must have an ONT, one option is to use a longer ethernet lead to move the Hub to a more effective location.

[TimmyBGood]

@MattNicholls 

I'd add that my own BT Broadband 500Mbs FTTP 'tests' at well over 400Mbs by ethernet and less than 40Mbs on my phone in the same room as the BT Smart Hub 2.

[MattNicholls]

@TimmyBGood 

Absolutely understand your first point - but it seems unreasonable that the Sky Stream boxes don't actually work properly in a house that has 500mbps WiFi. Sky is moving away from coax boxes, replacing them with streaming boxes, and then not providing sufficient resources/services for the stream boxes to actually work. If I stand next to the Sky Stream box and do a Speedtest on my mobile I get 200-250. If I do a Speedtest on the Sky Stream I only get 25-50mbps.

Back in the day sky would offer boosters in these cases, but today their only suggestion is to pay another £10 a month for the priviliage.

I asked the engineer to install the router in a more sensible place (upstairs, where most of our things using internet are) but they refused. 

Other than running an Ethernet through the house (to each device that needs it) - would I be better off setting up a mesh system and/or upgrading the router to WiFi6?

[Chrisee]

@MattNicholls wifi signal strength is affected by the lay out and type of construction of your home. Sky have never routinely supplied boosters unless customers have bought an add on package like Broadband Boost which for £5 per month guarantees 3Mb/s in every room if the hub doesnt meet that then they would supply a single booster.What I suspect you maybe referring to is the ability of  Sky Q tv boxes to act as wifi hot spots which the new Sky Stream units dont. 

The standard SR203 hub is a wifi 5 device which can easily output over 500Mb/s but speeds drop the further you are from the box especially if your home has solid internal walls. The ONT unit your new fibre service normally arrives through links to your Sky hub by a short ethernet cable. You can easily replace that cable with any length of ethernet you want so moving your Sky hub to a better location. Ideally any wifi router needs to be placed centrally in your home in a location in the open and above obstructions like radiators.

Assuming that doesnt sort the problem you have a number of options but before spending money consider what speeds you actually need. For example your Sky Stream puck can only requires around 30Mb/s to stream UHD programming so spending money so most of the cost to get say 500Mb/s is wasted. The same applies to other devices as few apps can use speeds over 100Mb/s other than for downloading files. Wifi 5 supports speeds above 500Mb/s so while wifi6 is nice to have it isnt essential. Having high speed connection is more about having capacity for multiple users than the need for high speed for every device. Speedtests are useful but what matters most is if whether devices and apps work.

Sky offer a new bundle called Wifi Max which they offer at £7.50 a month which gets you a new Wifi6 capable hub and you can get up to 3 pod extenders which form a mesh network if the hub doesn't deliver a minimum of 25Mb/s in every room. The first pod is sent after a call to get any more requires a Broadband engineer to come out to check they are needed.

Given that£7..50  is an ongoing commmitment for a minimum 18 months for lower cost you can buy your own mesh wifi set up. My own solution cost me under £100 and has three physical units which are placed on each level of my home the main unit linked to the Sky hub by ethernet is set to run in Access Point mode. Normally you would turn off the Sky hub's wifi to avoid interference. This wifi5 set up gives speeds of around 150 to 200Mb/s in the most distant rooms which in practice is more than enough. Mesh wifi sacrifices speed for stability you can pay more for a wifi6 capable set up if you prefer.

You can go on and replace the Sky hub with your own router but you lose the voice line if you do. This can get quite technical as not all routers can connect to Sky's services but again you would probably need satellite units in most homes. To get 500Mb/s in a four bed house you would need to budget something around £2 to £300. 

[MattNicholls]

@Chrisee 

Super helpful response - do you have any further info about your mesh set-up? 

Noting you said you have 3 mesh points in your house for each of the floors - we are in a similar position (3 floors). The router was installed on the ground floor in the bottom corner of the room.

I completely get your point regarding speeds not needing to be exceptional throughout the house for most activities - the issue we've been facing is that even our Stream pucks (only needing 25mbps for HD) aren't even capable of lasting >1 hour without dropping out and losing picture.

This is separate to the fact that once the Christmas period is over and I return to work I'll need a strong connection to work from home (teams calls etc). It'll also be used for gaming so would need relatively strong speeds for that.

Would appreciate hearing more about your set-up. I considered running powerlines / MoCA but I'll need to run it to several devices across 2-3 floors so will end up a bit of a mess.

What kind of speeds are you getting throughout the house with mesh? Is it an easy install? In my case, speed tests on my mobile are pretty much 150-250 throughout the house in its current form - it's more the issue of there seemingly being interference which is causing low signal strength and cutouts (according to sky support lines, despite there me having tried turning off all other plugs apart from sky puck and TV). 

[Chrisee]

@MattNicholls there are many mesh systems around I bought a three unit kit from TP-Link the Deco M4. I have one in the hall/landing on each level. One is linked to the Sky hub by a long ethernet lead. To stream video you not only need enough bandwidth but high stability (low jitter) which my set up delivers but a lot depends on the layout of your home. 

Loads of options around Netgear have similar ranges.