Sky Max Hub, Model:SR213 - how to force to 5Ghz only, + MAC ACL not working

[NaveedZ]

hi

i got today a Sky Max Hub, Model:SR213 instead of SR203.

I'm super disappointed and it's a major step back.

The problem : my recent mobiles drop to 50mbs instead of 150 with the previous router! that's why i'm not upgrading in speed anymore.

Why? because i'm sent to 2.4 ghz instead of 5ghz

i disabled 2ghz but it's not a workaround as i have devices who doesn't work on 5ghz.

1) if i can do changes on an app, why can't i do it on a browser on a big screen? that's silly.

2) I want to force mobiles devices to use 5ghz only

- first i had wifi_24 and wfi_5 in SSID and now in SR213 i can't split the SSID

this is something i could before and i can't now, regardless of the reason.
if someone want the latest AX wifi they could always choose but SKY should give us the option.

3) i tried to put a MAC address, first SSF, deny (on page http://192.168.0.1/wireless_network_configuration.jst ) , then save, i reboot a device it keeps connecting to 2.4 when i want to force it to 5ghz.

ALso when i saved instead of saving the mac address it saved 0:0:0:0:0:0

It's all buggy and not practical, but worst i lost 2/3 of my speed.

[NaveedZ]

about mac adddress/ACL  : MAC address, first SSID (the first one seems to be the 2.4ghz), deny, save

[Chrisee]

@NaveedZ short answer is you cannot control the band a device connects to on the white Sky Max hub.

Longer answer is for most people it is counter productive as WiFi6 requires use of both bands linked to get the higher speeds so Sky do not permit the two bands to be split to hsve different SSIDs.. The reason why Sky have switched to app control has two drivers first most customers find it a great deal easier to do and secondly because the increased security built into modern browsers increasingly wont connect to web sites without properly signed certificates which the local web interfaces lack. Sky lock down their hubs which is frustrating for users who need greater control if that includes yourself buy and use a third party router or as I do and use a third party WiFi system and turn iff the hub's WiFi.

The main question is why your mobiles are not connecting at the same speed as before assuming they are relatively new devices they should becas fast if not faster. In my experiencecwith bith the older black SR203 and the SR213 the WiFi range is roughly the same.

[FLC]

@NaveedZ 

Have a read of this.

But I suspect that the reason your devices are using 2.4GHz by default is because of the appalling range of the router. So even if you split the SSIDs & manually connect to 5GHz, you may well not have a usuable signal anywhere other than next to the router. Have a quick scan down the forum topics, they're littered with similar complaints of reduced performance when switching from the SR203 to the SR213. Just go back to the old router.

[NaveedZ]

hi

i did some further tests

Problems to resolve.

- An old phone does work on 5Ghz on SR203 and does not work on 5Ghz on SR213.

I downgraded WPA3-T to WPA2 yesterday, same issue, i will try again today...

I lost connectivity on 5GHz fully, regression. Any advice welcome.
the phone supports Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n, dual-band,

-my recent phone get sent to 2.4Ghz because the signal is stronger while i know i get better speed on 5Ghz.

The wifi mac address "deny" is buggy and not working. => how to we get sky to resolve it?

I currently don't have a supported solution and i lost 2/3 of my speed. Maybe asking for more pods as a workaround but i would like the router to be fixed.

-WIN:

Doorbell can works on 5 Ghz on SR203.
on SR203 i had frequent ping timeout regardless of 2.4 or 5ghz

It is now connected on 2.4 GHz on SR213 and is now more stable. That's an improvement for the router
Once i get a pod i hope i can switch to 5Ghz

Out of interest:

buy and use a third party router or as I do and use a third party WiFi system

=> that would be a TP link Access Point as a mesh with a new SSID2 and SSID5 (different than sky) to avoid interference right?
=> about a 3rd party how does it work? i was trying to use a very old SR102 as a switch, when i disabled dhcp it wasn't really working. When i put it on Bridge mode i lost connection, wasn't sure how to connect back or with which IP, kind of became a brick... 
 Do put your SR213 in bridge mode (if possible) ? and then connect it to your new wifi6 router?

if we are using sky router as a "dummy" router, why can't we get a 3rd party router (with dhcp option 61)  directly connected to openreach and sky sent us the signal? if we configure a login password they should be able to authenticte, what is so special that we have to use a sky router as a dummy bridge for the internet to work? 

Thanks

[TimmyBGood]

@NaveedZ 

Some non-Sky routers will function.  They cannot support Sky Talk Internet Calls though.

[FLC]

@NaveedZ 

It may be that the old phone can't support the extended DFS channels. Check what channel is selected for 5GHz, if it's over 48 that could be the issue.

With a third party mesh system you generally can't split the SSIDs either. On some you can however chose to specify which band is preferred or set up a separate 2.4GHz IoT/guest network. I can do both with Deco M5 but not all Deco products are equal, it depends on what has been tweaked in their firmware.

It's probably better to turn off WiFi completely in the SR213 & just use the mesh. That's what I've done & I believe @Chrisee has too.

As for Sky "fixing" the SR213, that would likely be a very long wait, given that they haven't publicly acknowledged the poor WiFi performance. Maybe there's a relatively small number in a bad batch, but the silence is deafening. The issues that they have acknowledged with VPN & VOIP appear to be being addressed all the urgency of a sloth on holiday....

[NaveedZ]

@Chrisee happy to have your input on the router side.

@FLC thanks for your guide, i will stick with the supported way, we need SKY to fix the wifi MAC deny rule so that we can deny devices on 2.4 ghz to force them to go to 5ghz

ok so i had good progress.

after putting the old router and then putting the new router, i disabled 2.4Ghz.

- the old phone connected to 5Ghz

-the doorbell is also connected, weak signal but stabe.

Conclusion :

-The SR213 signal is better and stable than SR203. The doorbell network has stabilised
The biggest drawback is that we can't split the SSID and devices tend to go to 2.4 Ghz.
Additionnally the Wifi mac address deny rules are not working, sky to fix.
Workaround: i fully disabled 2.4 Ghz at home so that everyone get the 5Ghz.

@Chrisee By disabling 2.4Ghz does it mean i will not benefit from wifi 6 in the future? or will that still works well in terms of speed?
WHat about people with Tp-link or asus router, does it mean they will need to make a choice of wifi 6 one ssid or old wifi with 2 ssid?
Is Sky correct that they must have one SSID only? im trying to understand if other vendors will do the same....

I'm keen to enable again 2.4 ghz but how can we get sky provide us a solution (like different ssid or mac rules) to redirect devices?
how do we report bugs?
are there SKY IT admins on the forum?

Thanks

[NaveedZ]

• Disabling 2.4 GHz only affects that band:

  If you disable the 2.4 GHz band on your router, your WiFi 6 devices will only be able to connect using the 5 GHz band. 
• Potential downsides:

  While using only the 5 GHz band can provide faster speeds, it may have a shorter range compared to the 2.4 GHz band. 

That means SKY explanation of unifying the SSID isn't fully justified if we are talking about speed.
we have been well so far with 2 SSID, i personally am not convinced by the decision the tighten all settings.

Because my 5ghz signal is weaker than 2.4ghz, does sky engineer have a "professional" tool to mesure wifi signal and tell us the best place to put pods like a wifi cartography or something? 3 pods could "naturally" help to get the devices directly to 5Ghz

Thanks 

[NaveedZ]

i have pretty much resolved more or less the issues. i got an update on the mesh wifi.

- how do you use 3rdp arty router?

any experience of ptting the sky router in bridge?
can't a 3rd party directly speak with openreach?

- How to report bugs to SKY?

I'm keen to enable again 2.4 ghz but how can we get sky provide us a solution (like different ssid or mac rules) to redirect devices?
how do we report bugs?
are there SKY IT admins on the forum?

[Chrisee]

@NaveedZ to get the full WiFi6 speeds requires both bands to synchronised that is how the standard works. Use of either one will restrict speeds. However whether that matters depends on your e xternal speeds as WiFi5 devices can achieve 700Mb/s over 5GHz which is roughly7 times the max any current app can use apart from when downloading. For example you could stream over 14 simultaenous UHD movies over 700Mb/s. People massively overcestimate the speeds they require for most activities and are surprised when doubling speeds makes minimal difference in every day use. 

In terms of third party routers avoid TP-Link routers as they dont play nicely with Sky connections while Asus does. These days apart from needing to switch off the 5GHz band while connecting cheap,IOT kit that dislikes dualband SSIDs it is far better to let the router sort out which band to use. These days many of the better systems use a third band for communication between the router and extenders as the SR213 will with the pods Sky supply.

[NaveedZ]

FOr the search functionality, it's the "MAC Filtering Mode" which is not working on the wifi

[Chrisee]

@NaveedZ not sure what you are referring to the only filter I know of is the parental controls which come as part of the WiFi Max bundle which can turn  devices connected by wifi on or off.

[NaveedZ]

@Chrisee i found one of your post https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband/Wireless-Station-Access-List/m-p/4545146#:~:text=%40Ronnie213....

where you mentioned "Sky abandoned the concept of filtering by mac address when they introduced the Sky Q hub in 2016."

Today in 2024 i see on the wifi "MAC Filtering Mode" and i'm trying to deny a MAC address on a 2.4Ghz SSID.

This is currently not working.

is that a bug? 

if it's expected behaviour then shall sky remove "MAC Filtering Mode" from the UI?
Can this post be escalated to Sky to at least ACKnowledge the issue?

The use case : i'm not concerned about spoofing i want to deny 2.4Ghz SSID to certain devices so that they go on 5ghz.
Thanks

[Chrisee · Accepted solution]

@NaveedZ trying to manage network access by mac address is pointless these days as decices can spoof mac addresses simply my ios devices do it routinely to help prevent tracking. The web interface for the SR213 is not supported by Sky beyond a few basic functions like enabling UPnP the customer settings are transferred to the My Sky app.

I would imagine the setting you found is a hang back to an earlier Comcast router as the SR213 is actually an adaptation of one of their Xfinity models which may support that function. It does not appear to be functional on my hub either,