Sky Q mesh interfering with booster- will third party router resolve?

[Nyoung2]

Hi all.

I have a dilemma and was hoping somebody may have experienced the same/have some insight.

First to explain my set up:

Sky Superfast BB (latest rooster).

Sky Q Main Box

2 X Sky Q mini boxes

Note: all boxes linked by wireless. Hard wiring I'm afraid isn't viable as this would resolve my issue I'm almost sure.

Sky Q booster.

My issue:

Come to light as I have a peloton in the garage. Which needs Wi-Fi to work. I obtained a booster from sky to extend the Wi-Fi out to the garage. Which sort of works, however my problem is every now and then the Pwloton seems to jump off the extension provided by the booster and on to the signal boost one of the Q minis puts out. The issue is the boost the Q mini gives is  weak so when it moves onto that it isn't strong enough a signal to operate properly. So it essentially makes the Peloton semi unusable.

I have tried splitting the bands and disabling 2.4 GHz on the Q boxes. Meaning the Peloton on 2.4Ghz will connect to the booster only. The issue here is we have an array of smart home gear that works on 2.4Ghz so it can be jncosnistent

As Sky is my BB provider connecting the Q main to router and other minis by 2.4Ghz doesn't work (as if it did I could then use 5Ghz exclusively for other devices).

So I believe moving on to a third party router may be my solution here, as then the Sky Q mini boxes will no longer act as boosters so it'd eliminate the Peloton jumping to different access points.

@cookiemonsteruk i have tagged you (hope you don't mind) as I've followed a fair bit of your advice re third party routers and was wondering if you coild offer a suggestion.

we get fibre to the house (image attached), and don't use a landline. So I was looking ideally for a router which could handle the modem aspect as well (without needing separate). But I don't want to have to use the sky router and new one as an access point I'd like the new router to be able to handle everything. Is this possible without an external modem? 

 

We will likely consider upgrading to ultra fast at some stage so something that would future proof that upgrade would help.

Soemthing mesh comparable would help as we will likely need to extend the reach to get to the garage.

I am a gamer also and would like to be able to bandwidth manage devices so if anybody knows of a router that could work as above with that feature please let me know.

hope that explains everything, any advice on adjusting how my current set up works to resolve the issue with existing kit would be welcomed. Otherwise any router suggestions and advice would be great.

TIA

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Nyoung2 

That photo is of a ont which is effectively a fibre optic modem so you are future proofed for ultrafast and gigafast as any upgrade will be a change of speed not technology.

You may have realised i am a huge fan of any thing asus. As you already have the openreach "modem" you would need just a standalone router etherneted to that ont

Any of the below will work both as a replacement to the sr203 or in access point mode etherneted to the sky hub

Asus rt ax58u

Asus rt ax68u

Asus rt ax86u

Asus rt ax88u

Asus zenwifi xt8

As a gamer you would benefit the asus in full router mode allowing you to prioritise gaming packets over streaming and vice versa

[Nyoung2]

Great thanks for the Inuit. Forgive my naivety, but reading between the liens here I'd be able to opt for say one of the cheaper models there. And then buy a separate ASU's mesh node and that would create a mesh anyway without endearing having to go all out on the Zenwifi XT8?

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Nyoung2 

All the above are ai mesh capable. So if you say got an asus rt ax58u and set it up in router mode and 1 or 2 more ax58u and set them up in ai mesh mode you would be to create a mesh using the asus router app 

[Nyoung2]

Thanks for all the help.

most of the above seem out of stock on most places.

the 69U I see is available via Amazon.

do you know what the difference between the AX2700 and 3000 is?

2700 seems to be the only one available.

thanks

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Nyoung2 

If by 69u you mean rt ax68u then the 2700 refers to the processing speed within the mesh . I.E. as far as i can fathom say your getting 500Mbps into the main router then the ai mesh set up can handle 2700Mbps communicating between each other.

Buy 1 to start with as it can cover 2200 sq ft so only start adding more mesh nodes if the main router doesn't perform well throughout the house

[Nyoung2]

Yea I did mean the RT Ax 68u- apologies.

great I've got one coming and hoping it tackles my problem. Out of interest so you have sort of a set up guide I can follow for once it arrives?

thanks! 

[Chrisee]

@Nyoung2 while your new router may help with the Peleton but possibly not even there see below. You are  going to have issues with the Sky Q tv system if you aren't careful. Your  Q minis cannot connect to a non-Sky wifi signal. When you remove the Sky hub these will connect to the 5GHz signal from the main Q box which will link to your new router using the 2.4GHz band only.

You will need to ensure your new Wifi router is using different channels than the Q box which by default uses ch36 to 52 as they use a 80MHz band width. You can reset Q boxes to use ch36 to 44 or 44 to 52 by switching to one of the 2 40MHz bandwidth settings in the Engineer's menu - you open that using the following remote sequence settings,0,0,1 before select. Two networks using the same frequency will interfere.

In practice wifi to a garage can be a  challenge no matter the router. Boosters need a strong signal from the hub to connect properly which usually means mounting it in the house not in the garage unless you can feed the unit in another way . Therefore for a garage you ideally need an ethernet feed or lacking that use powerline adapter kit assuming the garage is wired from your home's consumer unit.  

[Nyoung2]

Thanks for the advice.

I was aware of the channel situation because Amy first thought was wondering if I could actually connect my Q to my sky router by 2.4Ghz let them sync up and change the channel.

but for some unknown reason it doesn't seem Sky let you  do that which is well-annoying.

In terms of my current booster situation,  I put the sky booster in the kitchen to give it the best chance of working possible (where there is also a Sky Q mini box).  There's only about 10 feet between where the booster is and where the garage is so broadcast to it strength wise is great, and router to the kitchen isn't far with only one plasterboard wall in between so I know that I'm covered. The issue I have is for some unknown reason what the Peloton does is jump off the booster and on to access point the Q mini creates. That broadcasts a really signal which isn't good enough to connect properly to the garage  so data stops flowing and essentially it won't resolve itself till it finds it way back to the booster(I tried to use that as my solution before asking sky for a booster).

So I think where I'm in the position where really there are easy 'theoritcal' sokutjons that'd easy solve my issue but the Sky kit doesn't allow a common sense approach." (Annoyingly).

A new router wouldn't go amiss anyway (it'd be nice to be able to control bandwidth anyway) and as we've just moved I'm in perfectionist mode trying to get these things right so not to have to bother looking at them again! 

so my hope is by chance a good router might just bounce a good enough signal to the not far away garage by default. I don't suppose you have any other suggestion? Frustratingly the whole headache would go away if I could make the Q and Q mini talk over 2.4Ghz and then turn off the 5Ghz mesh they create meaning Peloton would connect to the split band I made for 4"5Ghz provided by the booster and if the Q minis didn't broadcast 5Ghz then problem solved.

I am considering power-lining the main Q and mini and then I can go ahead and knock the whole Q mesh off for good. So that is a potential option. 

[Nyoung2]

@cookiemonsteruk domt know if I can learn on your for some help here.

so I received the router today.

I pulled ASUs to Sky router (blue port of ASUs to normal Ethernet.

but I couldn't seem to get onto the routers GUID. The only way I seemed to be able to was connecting ASUs to the terminal directly but then obviously there was no internet connectivity for set up.

I wasn't sure which fields to input on set up either. Not sure if you could step by step me through it?

[cookiemonsteruk]

@Nyoung2 

Have you downloaded the asus app?

Ethernet the asus blue port to the the sky hub

Set up the asus app by clicking QIS

Create the router login details

Create the ssids and wifi

Passwords

Click on firmware update sequentially until it doesn't update anymore

Remove sky hub

Ethernet asus directly to ONT

Locate the field on QIS called client identifier (option 61) and enter

anything@skydsl|anything

And you should be up and running

[Nyoung2]

@cookiemonsteruk Awesome- thank you!

app was the missing piece of the puzzle! Will give that a go on her the weekend.

is there any time ther settings you'd suggest modifying for best out of the box performance?