Recent full fibre installation slow

[bubs0121]

I recently upgraded to Full Fibre broadband (14 October 2024) but the WiFi connection, especially when working from home, is poor. On my Sky account, it says the connection is good and averages at 150/151. However, when trying to do Zoom or Teams call, the connection is poor and when using the independent speed check, it shows around 30/40.

I've reset the router many times, but the same issue remains.

I called Sky, and after running some checks, they said if the issue continues, they can send me an updated Wifi 6 router, with the WiFi Max guarantee but this is at an extra cost of £4 a month.

I have only recently upgraded to full fibre and it's a shame that my previous Sky connection cabinet worked better.

I feel this is unfair to be charged extra for an updated router, but I'm curious to see if other people have had similar issues and how it has been fixed.

I've been with Sky for over 15 years and feel this installation has made the connectivity worse, especially when we're now working from home and it's making it impossible to take meetings.

Can someone please advise on this situation and if the only other option is to pay extra to get an updated router?

[HandSpan]

We have the exact same problem you've described. I'm sorry I can only empathise rather than offer a solution. We didn't even want full fibre as our previous wifi was perfect. In an effort to reduce my bills I agreed to be recontracted and apparently this was part of the agreement.

With Sky for close to 20 years. Can't afford to pay any more but all streaming services buffer and lose connection repeatedly. Working from home is now slow. 

So disappointed. Response from Sky lacking. 

[TimmyBGood]

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@HandSpan wrote:

We didn't even want full fibre as our previous wifi was perfect. In an effort to reduce my bills I agreed to be recontracted and apparently this was part of the agreement.

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Replacement of aging copper phone-pair infrastructure (which is essentially Victorian technology) is a strategic national project: all new orders, speed changes and recontracting from any Openreach ISP will be onto fibre optic where that's available at the address.

In the vast majority of cases this should be beneficial for the customer as fibre is immune to most of the failure modes and vulnerabilities inherent to copper.

[Jazzerat26]

I responded to a Sky Email that provided an automatic compensation payment on the 9th of January with the following content:

Thankyou for the Automatic Compensation Payment however I am still very unhappy with the consequences of asking you to upgrade me to the Fibre Network.

After many delays and false promises, irritatingly made mainly via text messaging from a variety of mobile phones, installation was finally agreed for the 6th of December following:

• An 'eventual' visit to the property arranged to determine what would need to be done.
• The survey required that a new cableway was needed from the road to the house.
• Subsequently the 'cable layers' came and with our permission dug up a channel through the lawn, laid the cableway and replaced the turves.
• On December the installation engineer then said that the Router would need to be moved as access into the house at the existing location was not possible - it was agreed to place the fibre entry box in a different room to 'line-up' with the newly installed cableway.
• Everything seemed sensible and the engineer went ahead attaching the Fibre Entry point inside.
• He then spent a long time trying to run a cable from the internal box out to the street cable via the new cable way.
• In the end he was unable to complete the connection into the street cable because the cable point to cable point boxes in the street were full or blocked requiring a different set of engineers to fix it - I was told that at this stage in the process  a fast fix team would resolve the problem in a couple of days.
• On ringing the support number to find out when the fast fix would occur, important to us because we were booked to fly to Spain on the 15th, I was told that there would be no fast fix and it was arranged that a team would complete the roadside problems for my connection on the 13th of January AFTER I had returned from Spain.

What actually happened was that the Problems were fixed and the changeover made, in my absence in Spain, on the 17th of December causing the following:

• My copper connected Router stopped working - you had swapped it over to a fibre connection with the box now being in a different room.
• My WiFi enabled Alexa and heating appliances could no longer be instructed to perform their schedules because the internet was no longer going to the copper connected router.

So, on my return I had to rewire all of the connections because the router had to move to be near to the new Fibre Entry Box.

• WiFi service into the Kitchen has now fallen from around 70 mbs at best with occasional dropouts to around 5 mbps which is unusable for the work it has to do.
• I bought a range extender and using that I can get a reasonable WiFi environment by moving into the Dining Room but that is not a long-term solution.
• WiFi which previously supported an Amazon Fire Stick in the Kitchen and other devices in the conservatory have become unreliable.

This was not what I expected in agreeing to upgrade for a better service.

I need help to get back to a minimum of what was available previously

Please let me know how you can help resolve this situation.

Very disappointed

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What is the best way to get some response other than stopping payment or cancelling Sky

Thanks John R

[Chrisee]

@Jazzerat26 simply talk to Sky as they dont use email,for customer support so your message went nowhere. This link explains How to make a Sky complaint | Sky Help | Sky.com

Ofcom designed the compensation scheme and it is explained here Customer Auto-Compensation | Sky Help | Sky.com. . Sky and Openreach make it clear that someone over 18 must be present during the install who can make decisions.. That you were away is unfortunate but thst isnt something Sky or Openreach are responsible for.

Sky have a good track record at dealing with complaints but if you are unhappy with their response or 8 weeks pass then you can go to the independent dispute resolution service. Openreach do not permit transfer back from full fibre back to partial fibre. Assume you are aware that the long term plan is to decommission the copper phone network so if you hadn't switched now you would have had to at some point in the future? 

[Jazzerat26]

Your point about having people on site to make decisions is valid - it took over 3 months before the December 6th appointment where the fibre was fitted internally but would not work because the external street connections failed.

We advised the engineer that any fix would need to be before the 15th of december because after that we would be away - I was aked to contact the 'fast fix' coordinator who specifically said there was no chance of the connection being repaired before then and the earliest was January.

January the 13th was agreed and in my diary as the date when the fibre cxonnection would be enabled.

The rest is as I described it.

Th e consequence is my existing WiFi coverage has dramatically changed in some areas dropping from 70mbps to less than 5.

Whether that would have happened anyway is not relevant because had it been connected with an engineer present it could have been identified and addressed at that point.

Because it was enabled in my absence I am left with the problem.

[Avril1970]

Did you resolve this? I had fibre installed last week and wifi poor, sky tech team keep changing settings but no joy

[bubs0121]

Hi all,

After a lot of back and forth with Sky, where settings were updated and I was advised to reset the router every night, one solution they offered was to update the router. However, that came at an extra cost of £4 a month.

I was yold that if the new router does not improve the signal, then an engineer can come to install Wifi hotspots.

I wasn't happy with the extra charge and felt that this information should have been communicated earlier, i.e. what things to expect if there is an issue with the wifi.

The new router came and it has now improved the signal, so we now can have 2 people working from home, doing Teams call, without the quality dropping.

Hopefully the Wifi 6 router comes as standard for future fibre installation.

I hope that helps!

[TimmyBGood]

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@bubs0121 wrote:

Hopefully the Wifi 6 router comes as standard for future fibre installation.

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It does for new customers: the situation for current Sky FTTC subscribers moving to FTTP is ambiguous.  Sky has always charged an additional monthly amount for the service supplement which facilities booster loan.