WiFi Max

[Chimpishuk]

https://www.sky.com/help/articles/enhanced-wall-to-wall-wifi-guarantee

All they're guaranting is wall to wall 25mbps doesn't say anything about the pods being WiFi 6. However in my opinion it's a mistake along with:

1. Splitting administrative tasks between a terrible to navigate app and web management. By all means add basic tasks to the app but don't take it away from web management for more advanced users.

2. Removing any remote management from the pods.

3. Failing to add a WPS button to pods.

4. Preventing LAN communication between Sky stream boxes to replicate App logons between Stream devices.

5. Removing 3rd party app subscription from monthly bills and adding a separate marketplace.

4. Removing fight night from monthly bills and adding them to marketplace.

5. Separating broadband and TV bills.

6. Failing to have fully functioning search abilities with all supported apps.

7. Failing to add game streaming apps.

8. Treating their VIP customers like alpha testers and failing to update early adopters of new tech on known issues-as others have said "a wall of silence,"

9. Failing to deal with back office escalations appropriately and not checking with the customer if the issued are fixed.

10. Mis-calculating future bills by adding another 100% without any explanation.

11. Failing to remove application subscription services after two months of requests.

12. Using a these year old Samsung panel on Sky Glass and calling it a premium product.

13. Providing a customer service experience that is getting progressively worse.

14. Promises for call backs from CS being ignored and totally unreliable.

15. Providing a worse user interface and remote experience.

16. Communicating less and less directly with customers.

17. Failing to recognise beta testing and self troubleshooting by customers.

18. Not offering compensation.

19. Failing to remove Q dishes.

20. Allowing ownership by Comcast. Renowned in the US for extremely poor CS..

21. Attempting to charge customers for several products that either do not work at all or have fundamental issues.

22. Logging calls over four months ago that remain outstanding.

23  Failing to take ownership through resolution and root cause analysis.

24. Encouraging a culture of "not my problem,"

25. Consistently reporting the same issues and being asked to supply the same information

[adwarduk]

@mae-3 agreed 🙂 I think as a whole we'd all just like a stable system. For what's being charged it'd have been very surprising to get 6/e on the mesh. If you do a scan you'll see the DFS channels being used for the backhaul and at the moment not very stably sometimes.  It'll get fixed 

[mae-3]

@adwarduk 

DFS requires a radio 5Ghz receiver that can distinguish between radar and wifi the more expensive the chip the better the stability but never seen a perfect 5Ghz distinguish between the radar and wifi, and most systems back off too easily for false positive radar when its wifi detection which band should be shared.

In the end, more wifi bands are necessary for wifi meshes, eg: 6Ghz without DFS which is fortunately what that 6Ghz band supports.

But the rising cost of chips...

[Chimpishuk]

@adwarduk @Chrisee 

I capitulated this evening.  Returning to gigafast with my SR203 4.2 and white box style signal booster box.  I'm glad I didn't return it! I'm still within my cooling off period and negotiated:

1. No charges at all for the period the router and pod was is use.  Because it has never worked as advertised.

2. Return charges on the delivery of hardware fee.

3.  £50+£10 worth of credit for all of the trouble associated with the new router.

If I want faster wireless speeds I'll go back to BT or similar mesh systems. But the BT product worked flawlessly.

The final blow was reading and researching that the router and pod configuration is stored and set in Comcast propriatory xfi cloud.  Want to change your SSID? Goes off to the cloud to be saved.

Want to factory reset......again off to the cloud.

That was the final straw for me. I've never heard such nonsense in my life. It's basically turning your network devices into dumb terminals that load their config from Comcast's cloud.

I'd rather lick dog poop off a stinging nettle than load my router config from the cloud.

No thanks.  Good luck all.

[adwarduk]

@Chimpishuk @Chrisee Sorry it didnt work out.  I'll be keeping only the sky kit on mine now and only because I'm getting it cheap & everything important on my other line. Once I can get full fibre the sky lines going. The BT stuff works very well and whilst they restrict you a little with the disks you get a lot of control on the rest. The premium home one was withdrawn probably  because they've a new one coming once it's tested and all the kinks worked out no doubt.  I'll keep plugging away with this bag of spanners for now but will be going after compensation. 

[TimmyBGood]

@Chimpishuk 

Just on a factual point, 'Allowing ownership by Comcast' wasn't a Sky decision: Comcast outbid its rivals for a majority stake in a publicly listed company (in this case through a rather unusual process overseen by the relevant UK regulator) after UK government declined to block any such takeover on public interest grounds.  That's essentially how capitalism operates...

https://www.paulhastings.com/en-GB/insights/client-alerts/takeover-regulation-in-the-uk-bidding-war-... 

[Chimpishuk]

Whatever, it's unfortunate Comcast won the bidding.

[TimmyBGood]

@Chimpishuk 

They offered more, and existing Sky shareholders enjoyed a very nice payout at what Comcast themselves now recognise was far too high a price per share.  It's extremely unlikely that a government or regulator would block a takeover based only on a perception that a bidding company had some alleged issues with customer support in their other operations: for one thing that's a very difficult metric to quantify.

[TimmyBGood]

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@Chimpishuk wrote:

The final blow was reading and researching that the router and pod configuration is stored and set in Comcast propriatory xfi cloud.  Want to change your SSID? Goes off to the cloud to be saved.

Want to factory reset......again off to the cloud.

That was the final straw for me. I've never heard such nonsense in my life. It's basically turning your network devices into dumb terminals that load their config from Comcast's cloud.

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That's inherent to the Plume system: a great deal of what you seem to be identifying as Comcast-created issues  originate from them buying in an existing and widely used CSP solution from another company, which is not particularly unusual.

Personally I'm more concerned that in rebadging the Plume hardware-software-cloud combination (which has been widely reviewed elsewhere) Comcast/Sky have disrupted what's apparently rather good underlying technology, and also created significant customer confusion with its current incompatibility regarding the Q wireless mesh.

[Chimpishuk]

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@gordoncampbell49 wrote:

Latest my sky update, is going on about WiFi max' is this a router update or what.

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[content removed]

I'm going to see out my Gigafast contract with Sky and the move to another provider. I have the option of Openreach FTTP of which there are many providers or whatever Virgin use to the property. Sky sold a product to customers that doesn't work either at all or as expected and wants to charge customers extra for the hardware and WiFi guarantee. Has a long list of known issues, heavily restricts end user configuration changes [content removed]

If they had approached me and told me we have an alpha product included some of their technical details. Then said they want me to beta test it at but at an additional cost....can you imagine what my response would be? That's how I feel.

Moderator note: language removed

[Chimpishuk]

It's interesting I was having a chat with a sales guy at Virgin about their 1GBb/s broadband offering (Gig1).  It's £45 per month, no phone line and up to three of these plume devices free of charge.  I'm guesssing they must have their AI learning cloud / plume devices working better than Sky currently have as it's a new and mega unstable Sky product..  Speaking to a neighbour around here and he reckons he's regularly getting over 1GB 1.1GB over ethernet and a consistent 700mbps/800mbps on certain wireless devices (with Virgin).  Their latest project is 1.1Gb/s down and 1GB/s Up! Crazy for a home product.  Their IPTV offering looks OK-ish but is missing some key channels and tbh the interface of Sky Stream looks a lot better than Virgin UI.  It's always been the same way having used both services.  The Sky Stream boxes work with any ISP but the Virgin stream is exclusive to Virgin broadband customers, lacks some streaming apps and apparently most apps require you to setup a subscription via virgin with the exception of Amazon which is a major pain.  On balance, now I've calmed down about Sky Wifi Max and my feelings on the fact that it's been released too soon and managed to successfully revert back to my 1GB service and SR203 - it was fairly painless too.  I will stay will Sky but will look at an alternative wireless mesh system and turn off wifi on the SR203.  It can still manage DHCP, Security and DNS obviously. 

In terms of comparision between the Virgin 5 Hub and the Sky Wifi Max they both support Wifi 6 but neither support WiFi6E.  The one advantage the Virgin Hub has over the Sky Wifi Max is 1x2..5GB/s ethernet ports and 3x1GB/s ports where the Sky Wifi Max has only the four 1GB/s ethernet ports. Apparently you get an O2 sim with unlimited data and calls on a current deal.  Apparently Virgin are trialling a 2.4GB/s on the latest Docsis 3.1 standard.  

I suppose I'm quite priviledged to have the options of latest DOCSIS standard cable and FTTP as options.  The plume pods from Virgin are free if you go for their Gib1 speed or £8 per month otherwise but they are also WiFi 5.  So, I guess if you're trying to tighten the belt strings Virging beats Sky hands down on price.  And I think you also get two Virgin IPTV boxes free if you take their max packaage but they aren't perfect (and neither is Sky Stream!)

Given that the Sky 1GB FTTP is reliable, the SR203 router is stable and allows full management over webinterface without that silly app I'd rather spend some extra dosh on a better mesh system or a Sky compatible Wifi6e  router/ Wifi6e mesh combo. If I had one wish it would be a customiseable menu system for the Sky Stream product.  I prefer a tidy home screen instead of constact rubbish I'll never watch.  It should know by now I'm a true crime, crime drama, science, occasional SciFi, Geo-Politics and documentary guy and have no interest in Marvel, Pepper pig, The Mermaid or most of the junk it recommends.  That said it's the same with most mordern televisions home screens including LG and WebOS.  The most customisable system I've seen in Android TV built into my 65" Philips.  

Anyways heres hoping this post doesn't get completely removed as one of my last ones was either removed or edited for use of the word pedantry.  I did also think of keeping the the Sky Steam and giving Virgin Broadband ago forr the free Plume boxes. Or, having both active broadband.  Once primarily for hard-linked devices and the other for wifi devices.  Or using one for business and another for personal use. 

Possibly a bit of a waste of money all things considered.  I'm still interested to see how the plume devices develop and the firmware of the new Sky WiFi Max products develop of course.  

Hopefully I haven't committed yet another cardinal sin for mentioning another provider or having a sense of humour.  

Oh, and because I returned my Sky WifiMax within the cooling off period I didn't pay a thing for the thing as it has failed to work as advertised since day one, caused me significant annoyance and anxiety from the number of calls I've had to make and got a £60 credit.  I hope sky get there in the end, and I'm sure they will.  I'm just waiting for them to send me the return labels so I can return the router and pod.  

[Chrisee]

@Chimpishuk you have not committed any forum crime but occasionally posts are caught by the various spam filters Sky have to use to stop abuse and all of us have had this happen to posts. These posts go into a hidden queue waiting for one of the 4 Sky staff who manage the forum who read the post edit anything that is offensive and then release it They work Monday to Friday and will message posters directly if a post breaks the rules and is therefore fully removed. 

Virgin do provide slightly over 1Gb/s on their Gig1 fibre product but really that is academic as in practice it is vanishingly rare to use anything like that but people get hypnotised by the faster must be better message. You can use Sky Stream over a Virgin connection if you prefer but not vice versa. If you do consider switching do read the Virgin forum to see if the grass is really greener on their side of the fence. 

Sky do need to do work on stabilising Wifi Max this has started one of my moans were Sky Stream boxes losing network connections so requiring re-connecting on start up. I have been told that is fixed in the newest Stream firmware QS020 which has apoeared on my boxes. Virgin have had their system out longer so I assume have got more of the bugs sorted.

[Chimpishuk]

Hi,

Just a warning to anyone considering upgrading to sky WiFi Max. Even if you cancel within your cooling off period you are still expected to keep your new router and return your ,SR203 V4.2 (the black router that preceeded the new white router)

So think very carefully before you upgrade. I managed to cancel and keep both after much groaning. So I'm still using the SR203 and and have the white router and one plume device which remains the property of sky.

Im not paying any extra obviously.

[reddwarfcrew]

How does that work then. You order Sky Max, exercise you cool off but keep the max router and return the old...... is the max router functional still and put into a reduced mode or ????

[Chimpishuk]

It still works I think. Because the member of staff says if I called as a normal gigafast customer experiencing issues with the SR203 4.2, the replacement router you would be sent out is the new white router unless you're a Q customer.

Go figure. I suppose I would benefit from the the WiFi 6 on the new router. But apparently the only thing you are are paying for is the WiFi max solution (plume pods) it all sounds like inconclusive information as it is with each person I speak to at sky at the moment. My current status is I'm my now in a gigabit sky contract for 18 months. With various discounts at £47 per month. I get to keep the SR203 and Sky Booster 4 and the new White router + 1 plume device.. Discounts for all the messing about.