Not getting near the speeds agreed & cant do video calls whilst training for new job

[NCheets]

Hi could do with any help possible.

I have signed up to full fibre 500mb and understand there is latency and that the speed to my wifi PC & Laptop is always going to be slower that it is to the router.  I have done speed checks across different companies ie Ookla etc and pretty much get 74 - 98 Mbps download & 49- 61 Mbps upload during the day and night & this is on my PC & work laptop via VPN.  I have started a new job and have to do training from home and cant even do a Teams call without the internet/wifi crashing after about 1-5 minutes.  I am in my office which is around 20ft from the router in the kitchen with one wall between and the router is on top of a hip height cabinet un-obstructed.  I tried to call Sky tonight at 20.30 but message said 40 minute wait.  I held on the line but they closed at 9pm.

Any help or advice is welcome

[Anonymous]

What does the service checker say?

https://www.sky.com/servicechecker

Edit: what do you get without the VPN active?

[Chrisee]

@NCheets the speeds you quote should be ample for any Teams call including video. To stream high wuality video in UHD you need a maximum of 30Mb/s down. However bandwidth can be only half the story as disruptions to the data feed due to interference can cause the connection to stall and even drop. Not sure what could be causing issues in your home but move any devices thst use wireless to link like DECT cordless phones away from near the router. I would also power down and restart the Sky hub as that forces it to find the least congested wifi channel. Network issues are massively more probable than issues with the feed to your hub.

Sky don't guarantee wifi speeds above a minimal 3Mb/s even if you buy the Broadband boost bundle but despitecthe Sky Hub SR203 that you have not being known for its wifi performance its certainly not a total dog. The issue with wifi is so much outside Sky's control can affect performance.

For any serious work it is advised to use etgernet connection as that is far more reliable and of course is free from interference issues. Where thst is impossible use of powerline adapters can work but as they use your home's mains wiring the performance depends on how suitable thst is.

[NCheets]

@Chrisee thanks for coming back to me and for the advice.  There is no equipment near the router & dont use Dect or analogue services.  I originally had a lot of problems with BT FTTP and they did the same which was a nightmare as they kept taking down all the settings doing there checks so had to re-connect everything including cameras, wifi bulbs etc.  Internet seems to be fine until I connect to my VPN.  When it says "power down the hub" is this pressing the reset button or unpluging the power cord at the back as the router doesnt have a switch off button?

When using ethernet in the past this did work but not ideal having a super long cable from router to laptop/PC with kids in the house..

With reference to speeds I had 500mb FTTP with BT and from the same PC I would see much higher speeds and reliability than the same service with SKY.  Is there a technical dept at Sky that could help?

Kind regards

Nick

[jamesn123]

@NCheets 

The key thing in what you've just said is 'everything works fine until i connect to my VPN'. So your internet service is actually fine until the VPN is connected?

What VPN is it?

[NCheets]

Hi @jamesn123 the internet does drop off outside the VPN its just when working in the day I am mostly on the VPN it is worse when on a Teams call after 2-5 minutes it drops the video and either have to knock of the video, which is not possible as doing online live training.  What is wierd is that over the past 18x months not had that issue with BT?

VPN is Cisco Any Connect

We also have the2xsky Q boxes which the main one in our lounge less than  5metres, away & second even closer, the second box crashes regularly.

is there another contact i can speik too

kind  regards 

Nick

[Chrisee]

@NCheets you do not need to reset the hub to reboot it simply disconnect it from the power. While its easy to blame the ISP in most cases the cause of poor wifi is local. You can call Sky customer services and if you make enough fuss they may send out a Broadband engineer but realistically no ISP is going to fully trouble shoot a home network.

Most of us do that ourselves there are tools available to help. Downloading a wifi analyzer app onto a phone will show you all wifi networks in range with signal strength and channel, a signal on the same or adajacent channel is likely to interfere . Another useful app is Wifi Sweetspots which measures wifi speed back to the hub as you move round your home. 

I certainly would not rule out interference from your own devices as it is far more common than most people think. The range of devices that can interfere is very wide. Switching things off selectively to see if things improve is a simple way of excluding items. 

[NCheets]

thanks @Chrisee great advise will try that.  I also have my old BT wifi discs to improve coverage.

Do you think these will work on Sky?

One last question my broadband product speed is 500mb to the router on my wifi PC I am getting on average download speed of 85.66mb & 55.66mb upload thats a difference of 83% which is huge so it does feel that something is not right and via the Sky website there checks said "something doesnt appear correct with wifi".  WIth the same product with BT I didnt have this problem the only thing changed is the provider and my VPN.

I will try the shut down method, then contact our IT ref the VPN & check speeds with Ethernet cable and download the Apps you kindly mentioned if still the same I believe I have a right to cancel (dont really want to) as cannot work from home as I have done with BT over many years

Kind regards

Nick

[Anonymous]

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@NCheets wrote:

Hi @jamesn123 the internet does drop off outside the VPN its just when working in the day I am mostly on the VPN it is worse when on a Teams call after 2-5 minutes it drops the video and either have to knock of the video, which is not possible as doing online live training.  What is wierd is that over the past 18x months not had that issue with BT?

VPN is Cisco Any Connect

We also have the2xsky Q boxes which the main one in our lounge less than  5metres, away & second even closer, the second box crashes regularly.

is there another contact i can speik too

kind  regards 

Nick

---

Try switching off both Sky boxes at the wall (not in standby) and see what happens with your speed.

[Chrisee]

@NCheets IIRC the white BT discs can be used with any router but the black ones require a BT router. 

Wifi speeds are wifi speeds so its impossible to comment. Certain houses are simply wifi unfriendly due to solid walls etc. Currently my own SR203 hub delivers 500Mb/s on the level its on which drops to around 100Mb/s in my study which is 4 rooms away on another level but itsxaxreasonablt modern house with block partition walls. However a signle layer of plasterboard will block wifi signals totally if it has a thin layer of foil. 

[jamesn123 · Accepted solution]

@NCheets 

You likely wont get near the 500mbps line speed over WiFi unless you use a 3rd party router.

Sky's Ultrafast services are designed to provide many devices with UHD streaming speeds rather than give a single client device the full line speed.

If you want the full line speed to a single device you'll need to use ethernet or buy a 3rd party router/AP