Poor SR213 WiFi

[FLC]

I set my Hub up in advance of activation, changed gateway, SSID, passwords & channels so everything would connect as before & all looked good. Line was activated on Monday & all looked OK barring slightly weak signal & the phone taking another day to port. Then I wake up Tuesday to find that suddenly, the SSID, bandsidth & channels are locked to auto. The 5GHz has been shoved to the extreme 157 channel, & both now have dreadful levels (sub 75-85bB). The Hub is located in an upstairs bedroom where all previous routers have lived, But in the lounge, this has lower signal than that from my next door neighbour's Sky Hub (detached). Further, the 2.4GHz signal is lower than the 5GHz, which of course it shouldn't be.

I could maybe live with the app configuration if it wasn't buried away & so restricted. So do I forego the phone & buy a third party DSL router that supports Sky's protocol? Do I turn off the unusable WiFi off & deploy a mesh?

Just an observation as a new subscriber who may not last the 14 day cooling off...

[Stellavision]

The SR213 is pretty locked down in terms of what is user configurable. The SSID and password can be changed, but it needs to be done in the My Sky app. If it's changed in the GUI it will simply revert to whatever is set in your MySky.

The hub uses dynamic frequency selection and user selected channels are not possible. 5ghz will normally sit at 149 and is really helpful in areas which are built up, as the lower 5ghz frequencies around channel 36 are often congested. The trade off is that upper 5ghz frequencies will have a shorter range unfortunately.

1, 6 or 11 are generally preferred on 2.4 ghz as none overlapping channels, but the hub 6 is supposed to switch channels daily if interference or congestion is detected.

-75db to -85db is not ideal and could cause dropouts and high latency. If you have WiFi Max then you are eligible for pods to improve your WiFi coverage. If not, then you may need to evaluate what other third party products can be used on your network to provide the WiFi coverage you require.

[FLC]

Is the previous SR203 equally crippled?

If not is there any reason not to switch by acquiring one through Ebay? Not withstanding of course the legalities. Appreciate it not WiFi 6 but nor is the SR213 beyond about 10 feet...

[Chrisee]

@FLC all Sky hubs are locked down,  the older SR203 is controlled by its web interface and while you can manually control the WiFi channels it uses it is limited to ch 36 to 52 in the 5GHz band. Any router able to access the higher DFS channels can not have manual control as those channels can only be used if there are no higher priority services near by such as radar installlations. 

Personally having had both I found the SR213's automatic channel selection pretty good as it avoids interference pretty well - I have a separate third party WiFi set up in the same room and the two play nicely. If you want to control you are better advised to buy a third party router. Asus models are popular as they support Sky's requirement to use  DHCPv4  Option 61 assuming you are in the UK.

Any SR203 hubs on ebay are Sky's property as none have been sold they are only lent. Currently Sky do not object to people buying and using them but if they wanted to they could disable them at any time.

[FLC]

@Chrisee 

Thanks for that.

I've certainly had manual control of the DFS bands with previous Netgear & Edimax routers. My understanding of DFS was that in the event of a conflict with another service, the router shuts down transmission. Living under a military flightpath, I've always avoided using them as the base bands are sufficient for my needs. But of greater concern is the woeful output from the SR213. As i said in the OP, my neighbour's Hub penetrates two external brick walls better than my SR213 penetrates one layer of floorboards. InSSIDer reports that isn't AX so presumably an SR203, as he moved to Sky around two years ago.. Maybe the SR213 is faulty?

A third party router isn't really an option due to telephony. So it looks like dusting down the Deco mesh. But like so much today, that also lacks manual control of channels & will happily sit on the most congested for both bands. I've nothing against auto channel selection in principle, I've just never seen it implemented properly.

Maybe time to research another mesh system & look for a Black Friday deal. But rather annoying when the BT Smart Hub covered the property on it's own, could split SSIDs & had manual channel selection...

[TimmyBGood]

@FLC wrote:

 Living under a military flightpath, I've always avoided using them as the base bands are sufficient for my needs. 

---

That's interesting: I'm working on a theory that the seemingly random poor performance of the Max Hub reported in this forum is associated with DFS.

Certainly makes me reluctant to switch over to Sky Ultrafast as we're located under one of the more well known designated low flying routes.

[FLC]

@TimmyBGood 

I have low flying Apaches overhead most days. So while I don't think I've ever experienced issues around the DFS channels, there's no good reason to use them. The "Dynamic" in the DFS name says that in the evnt of a conflict, the router just changes channel & waits for the clients to catch up. No idea whether the buffer in streaming services is sufficient to mask that or if it would cause a short drop.

But I would imagine in a congested urban environment, the additional channels would be welcome.

But the main issue for me is low output, & that's on both bands. With 2.4GHz being lower than 5GHz, which it shouldn't be. Maybe the theory that the SR213 has had it's transmission power dropped to promote take-up of the Pods has some merit? 🤔

[Chrisee]

@FLC I use a 3 unit Deco M4 mesh which works well for me despite its lack of manual channel steering its optimise option works well for me. Running in Access Point mode I get 500Mb/s in my main living area dropping to 200Mb/s in the most distant rooms. My home is not very wifi friendly being split  level with 3 levels. I bought the Deco system to replace the Sky Q boxes wifi mesh  I used before I switched to Sky Glass/Stream. It provides an extremly stable signal which is critical if you are using streaming services. For my usage as we still need a landline the Hub 6 is a decent router if you can use third party wifi.

I share @TimmyBGood concerns about reports of WiFi issues with the Hub 6. Quite what Sky have done is not clear but I got a very early example soon after launch which had similar range to the Hub4.2 it replaced - I used an Apple Utility to measure the power at various standard points in my home to do a A/B comparison. However we read.multiple reports of issues being reported with significantly worse performance against to Hub 4.2 and competitors device. on the surface this should not be the case.  Sky have not responded with anything useful to my query.

What we do know is this is system developed by Comcast for their Xfinity producr and uses mesh technology from Plume - Sky's pod extenders are rebranded Plume Super Pods. Whether the issue is because is optimised to US homes which use primarily timber frames partition walls and have HVAC systems while UK homes are built differently with masonary and use radiators etc which changes the way  WIFi begaves or as posted above its the use of DFS channels your guess is as good as ours.

[FLC]

@Chrisee 

I have Deco M5, with the bonus of being able to set a preferred band for a client to use, unless the M4 firmware has caught up in that regard? But the Network Optimisation is useless. Currently channel 11 is completely unused yet the M5 stick resolutely to the congested channels 1-6. Same with the 5GHz, everything local to me is on the default channel 36 with everything else free. So what channel does the Deco select?

I've even tried setting up another router right next to the main Deco, using the channels it's currently selected. But even running the optimiser in that scenario it reports back that it's selections are "perfect". 🙄

I'm kind of reluctant to invest in an ASUS mesh because they're bloddy expensive & no guarantee that they won't also jump on the auto channel only bandwagon with a firmware update.I might just acquire an SR203 just to satify my curiosity. Will post back the results if I do.

[FLC]

Just for the hell of it, here's the 5GHz channel from the BT Smart Hub & the SR213 side by side, measured as far away as I can get in the house:

I've maintained SSIDs through many, many router changes so -5 is BT & _5 the SR213. A 10dB difference with the BT being mostly stable & just within usable limits, while the SR213 swings around & frequently dips to 85dB.

[Chrisee]

@FLC I wish I wasn't surprised but I will point to that  post when I post in the closed Superuser  forum we use to talk to Sky staff. I have also noticed the variable output power.