Sky Max Pod

[4parsa]

I have had Sky for about 12 days now and the service has been okay. After the first night, I have had issues with devices connecting due to the Sky Max Hub transmitting the 5ghz band at channel 149 which does not allow a lot of devices connect to it. I have spoken to Sky and have ordered a Sky Max Pod but will this solve my issue with channel 149 and transmit the 5ghz band where it can be used or will it only manage the 2.4ghz which is horrible upstairs

I currently have a TP-Link RE550 extender which is only capable of even finding the 2.4ghz band, it does not find the 5ghz network to extend anymore after it went from ch52 to ch149 and upstairs i'm only managing 50mbps (I just did a test on speedtest.net before writing this) 

@Chrisee I have seen you on lots of these forums so I think you'd have a good answer haha

[mae-3]

@4parsa 

I believe the Sky Pods operate on the same wireless channel as the Sky Max router, and they are 802.11ac standard. For it to operate on a different channel it needs to be tri-band wireless which it isn't.

[mae-3]

@4parsa

Channel 149 is the other set of 80Mhz channels in 5Ghz which are not DFS and therefore no impact from radar signals in the area.

[Chrisee]

@mae-3 the with the pods is triband.

@4parsa the higher 5GHz channels do pose issues for some devices but overall are a good thing as there is less interference hopefully the pod should help.

[mae-3]

@Chrisee 

Can the channel be set for the Sky Max Pods manually?

[Chrisee]

@mae-3 no its automatic but I have found it reasonably smart my own SR213 unit is currently using ch11 & ch52 while my Deco system is on ch6 and 44 and the two play nicely with no conflicts given the two units are 3 meters apart. 

An optimise wifi option on the SR213 would be useful the Deco app has that. I am actually surprised @4parsa unit picked such a high channel but as there is a spectrum analyser feature in the SR213's web interface it will look at other networks in range. @4parsa do you have Sky Q boxes by any chance?

[mae-3]

@Chrisee & @4parsa 

So all automatic channel selections on the 5Ghz band when channels 36 (80Mhz wide) & 147 (80Mhz wide) are manual and good choices when the radar is involved in the area, any other channels are DFS and secondary for home wireless on 5Ghz, BTW. and can be moved automatically by detecting radar by the router which is a must requirement.

[4parsa]

Hi,

No I don't have any Sky Q boxes, this is the first Sky service I have ever paid for @Chrisee.

I'm really not sure why it has picked such a high channel. I have scanned nearby networks and my neighbours (who are also on Sky) are mainly all on ch36 and then mine is at 149 which makes no sense. I'll post an update when the pod arrives. I hope it helps or otherwise Im stuck with a wifi router with a channel that nothing can really connect to @mae-3 @Chrisee 

[mae-3]

@4parsa 

It is because the Sky Max hub has detected that channel 36 is in use. It has also detected radar, so bang goes the DFS channels even though the radar may only exist for an hour a week!

Humans are better at picking the wireless channel than AI...

Recommend that Sky Max is redesigned so that channels can be selected manually (or at least a preference in the case of the DFS channel) by the user in an advanced setting in Sky App.

And then Sky Max & Sky Pods will work with all wireless equipment including older wireless equipment! 😎