Sky Q, Mini and Sky Router/Booster Nightmare

[keithrev]

Hi All,

I am having a nightmare, any help appreciated.

I have gone from BT Broadband speed of circa 56mbps with their Smart Hub 2 and 1 Sky+ box with consistent speed across our house and rock solid performance for years to carnage.

I was out of contract with Sky so changed to a Sky Q 1TB and 1 Mini box. 

I have since had 4 engineer visits, the first when I still had BT Broadband the last 3 when I have had Sky Broadband and their SR203 Router as I hoped by having everything Sky would help it all work, afraid not.

I have seen 4 different variations of the mesh on the engineers iPads, had all boxes apart from the Boosters replaced, had software updates yet each time not only does the Mini box lose connection almost as soon as the engineer has left but now our house WiFi grinds to a halt regularly.

I have now powered off the Mini Box and taken the Sky Q box off the network to see if at least that gives me consistent WiFi and Broadband performance.

To quote one engineer we have an 'ideal home'. It is a relatively new build 3 story detached house with no thick stone internal walls. I used to have my BT router on the middle floor giving great coverage but I foolishly allowed one Sky engineer to change the BT Openreach socket and move the SR203 to the corner of the ground floor next to the Sky Q box and put a Booster where the BT router used to be. I expected our WiFi to be better with a mesh but it seems dramatically worse.

Any thoughts from you fine people appreciated before I go back to BT Broadband and Sky+

[geoffae]

I have just moved from BT to Sky for my broadband, my router is in my upstairs home office where the original BT router was. The one thing I did notice when I connected the Sky router on activation day was that the Sky Q automatically connected to WiFi, this I changed back to the Ethernet connection I had put in some time ago.

When I first had Sky Q + mini installed it was intially set up using WiFi, the enginner noticed that whilst both boxes connected the signal was weak so we had a booster put in one of the bedrooms, instant improvement.

Since then I have played around with the setup, having an IT background I couldn't resist.

My 2.5GHz and 5GHz are split always have been, I did it on the BT router and I did it on the Sky router, this came about by pure chance as my son had an XBox using WiFi and it wouldn't connect if the two were 'banded' together.

When I moved to Sky broadband the Sky Q box automatically connected to the 2.5GHz network to create it's mesh with the booster and the mini (I've moved the Q box back to Ethernet in the settings)

So when all your equipment was set up did the engineers seperate the 2.5GHz and 5GHz wirless networks or have they left them banded/joined (can't remember what they call it) if they have this could be  your problem. I only suggest this as I have not had an issue switching to Sky from BT

During my testing after the install of Q and a mini I did find out that the mini did not work well using Ethernet  🙂  left that on wireless and the Q on Ethernet and their both happy.  

[keithrev]

Thanks @geoffae 

You set up sounds similar to mine. I am having a devil of a job with Sky to get my Q and Mini boxes working properly. 4 engineers have come and showed me a differnt set up on their iPads.

I have a 3 storey house and I really need the router on the middle floor for best WiFi coverage. Sky keep wanting to move the router next to the Q box in the corner of the ground floor so it can talk to the router over ethernet. My mini box is also on the ground floor about 6 metres from the Q box with the router above it centrally so no real reason to me why it shouldnt all work but it doesnt, or if it does not for long.

I thought the Q and mini box communications were over 5ghz where I wondered if distance was important.

[geoffae]

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@keithrev wrote:

Thanks @geoffae 

I thought the Q and mini box communications were over 5ghz where I wondered if distance was important.

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AFAIK they use the 2.4GHz WiFi, at least mine did after connecting the Sky router and checking the Q box, I changed it back to Ethernet in Q's network settings

The booster should take care of the signal as that communicates with the Q box to send the signal and TV data to the minis

Personally I believe your issue may be both WiFi bands are being synchronised rather than seperate, some will say this should make no difference. Technically, I would agree, but past experience from using BT and Draytek routers keeping the WiFi networks seperate, for me has always been the best option. Plus the devices that can connect to 5GHz can be set to do so.

The only problem I've had recently is when the kids have come round, "Dad I can't connect to your Wifi"

wow that's a bummer  🙂  

[keithrev]

Lol @geoffae  I have 2 boys 21 and 24 still living at home with every device known to man so WiFi/Broadband performance is more important than air. My wife has the Sky TV requirements so I have many stakeholders to manage. 

I have moved my Sky router to the middle floor of my house and put the Booster in the middle of the ground floor with Sky Q in the room to one side and Mini Box in the room to other side. 

All now connected and I am getting good WiFi speeds working on the top floor so fingers crossed I may have stumbled on a new layout not tried before. 

[geoffae]

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@keithrev wrote:

Lol @geoffae  I have 2 boys 21 and 24 still living at home with every device known to man so WiFi/Broadband performance is more important than air. My wife has the Sky TV requirements so I have many stakeholders to manage. 

I have moved my Sky router to the middle floor of my house and put the Booster in the middle of the ground floor with Sky Q in the room to one side and Mini Box in the room to other side. 

All now connected and I am getting good WiFi speeds working on the top floor so fingers crossed I may have stumbled on a new layout not tried before. 

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Fortunately I only have one stakeholder, the other two have since moved out 🙂

Interesting that swapping the router and booster has solved the problem   👍

When my Sky router arrived and I plugged it in on activation day the only thing I found odd was when making a change within the settings the router had to reboot, which meant renegotiating a connection each time. This can usually be a bad idea and can lead to the dslam in the street cabinet believing the line to be unstable and your connection speed can reduce until it settles down, but thankfully mine didn't.

The one plus note is I have been active for 18 days without a single disconnect, which is 6 days more that BT's average.

[keithrev]

Thanks for the info @geoffae I will post an update on success or otherwise of my current setup. I am going to see them in the house opposite later wh live in an identical house. They too have two older boys but have BT for Broadband/WiFi aswell as Sky TV boxes. I think they have 2 Boosters!!!!