WiFi Mesh with Sky Broadband

[Chrisee]

@samclark24 see here https://www.tp-link.com/uk/support/faq/1842/

[Codliva87]

I have a very similar issue going on but my issue is not extending wifi (although that is also needed) its more being able to see the traffic on the LAN. I work from home and do a lot of video calls per day and when the children come home from school they start gaming or watching movies on tablets/fire sticks and so on or even when they are at school the gaming consoles sometimes update during the day so when they get home its ready to use but this is killing my bandwidth.

I have Deco M5s, I have Sky broadband, I cannot modem into sky router, sky router into M5 disc and then have the Sky router dishing our IPs as the DHCP server and then put the M5 is AP mode, I want to force everything to go through the Decos, but to do this I need to disable wifi on the sky router so then everything will register to the decos but when I disable the wifi on the router the Sky Q mini box doesnt work. 

I have literally tried everything. The only thing I can think of is the decos use another authentication method not compatible with the Sky Q boxes?

[MMMIIIUUUT]

It is my understanding that the mini boxes can only connect to the sky q box via the WiFi generated by the q box.

I also have a netgear router which the q box is connected to via ethernet. I also have  TP LINK DECO 9 mesh network with the main Deco hub also connected to the netgear router

I have tried many ways to connect the mini boxes other than by using the sky q main box but failed every time. If I try to connect the main q box to the deco main node (it has two ethernet ports) completely lose sky....

I just can't win!

Any advice is mu h appreciated.

[jamesn123]

@MMMIIIUUUT 

A Sky Q Mini box will only connect via ethernet or via WiFi to another Sky Q product. It wont connect to a 3rd party router.

Also the reason you lose Sky completely when you connect your main Q box via ethernet to deco is because it sounds like you currently have 3 different routers running on your network. This is not ideal and they are likely all using different IP address spaces which wont allow communication across them. You need to get access points or use your Netgear & Deco systems in AP mode.

[Maruf99]

Hi @jamesn123 apart the asus xt9 what other mesh systems can do this and authenticate dhcp option 61? is there a specific list of devices  you could kindly guide me to?

[jamesn123]

@Maruf99 

I don't have a list no, almost any Asus router, most Netgear & TP-Link can authenticate. Additionally most lines now can use IPv6 PD to authenticate which is even more widely supported on routers so you'd struggle to go wrong.

[Maruf99]

so i ended up buying a pair asus xt8, using one as the main router and second node as an access point.

No dhcp options or ipv6 options needed to be changed, simply plugged directly to the ONT and is working amazing and covering the whole house!

[ghindle1]

I have been all over the place on thisbut for what its worth i thought i would share my experience. I have an old house on 3 floors with the Openreach GFast box in my 3 rd floor. I tried to get this moved to a more central point but came across a lot of resistance

I also have sky 1 with 2 mini boxes

I have Sky Ultrafast 1 connected to SKY 203 router. 

My first attempts to get coverage in my house was to extend with Mesh network. This did not work as i still had many deadspots, and the coverage was appalling.

I then decided to replace the router with a DECO DSL router, and after a lot of failed attempts - came across the reralization that i needed a GFast compatible product. 

Next I decided to put the DECO router into access mode and extend the network thisway, putting the deco mesh boxes close to the sky boxes and go with ethernet connections to the boxes. 

This resolved my SKY Q problems and i had reasonable wifi in some of the rooms.

I called sky to upgrade the GFast to Full Fibre, and they told me it was not available - however after speaking to alternate providers, i realised it was available but SKY were not willing to upgrade me. I would have preferred a truthful answer that it was available but at this time only for new customers.

Anyway, next stage - change the deco router to router mode and turn off the SKY Wifi. Again, more improvement but nothing toshout home about

So, i went back to drawing board - probably what i should have done in the first place - I did a network analysis of each of the rooms, and got a good understanding of the problem.

I started with the SKY Router on. its own  - ( Sky Guarantee 100GBps Download) and i was getting 135Gbps - nothing to complain about there , although i would have liked to upgrade to Full Fibre for less money than i was paying.

I added my Router in Router mode - no drop in performance. Walking round my house i retested

1 floor down - directly below the router - 1 room exactly the same performance, 1 room 80Gbps. Still ok. I added a Mesh unit in that room, and now 130Gbps download in all rooms

Ground floor  - poor performance in all rooms, and 1.7Gbps in Kitchen area

I added 2 units downstairs , and living room now 120GBps and Kitchen 80Gbps

Hardwired all SKY Q boxes ( main and 2 minis) - reset the network, tuned off Wifi hot spots from SKY Q boxes, and finally I have good coverage and can stream in other rooms, connect all my smart devces and get good consistent coverage.

You would think i would be happy - but I cannot get my mind off the fact that I cannot have SKY full fibre, and all the steps i had to go through to get to this point. 

I am changing provider to get Full Fibre and can finally be free of the SR203

Anyway, my next stage of 

[ghindle1]

I meant Mbps not Gbps

[Redderz1]

Hi, just going to jump in with a question, what if i don't change to access point mode, just turn off the WiFi from the hub and leave my mesh in WiFi router? What problems will I get?

[ghindle1]

That is exactly what I have done. The Vodafone router with no wifi connected to ASUS zen wifi mesh with 2 mesh nodes. However I also have Ethernet to a few rooms , which directly connect to sky mini boxes with the WiFi on the sky boxes turned off . This gives me about 650 mb download and upload from wifi throughout the house and 900 mb + in the Ethernet connections to my laptop.

I even get 700mb in the garden with a tplink outdoor poe access point

[Redderz1]

So @ghindle1 you're not getting any NAT2 problems? I seem to be having varying issues leaving it in wifi mode and I don't know if it's because I am getting NAT2 interference. I have reverted to port mode but seen a drop in performance (sub to 500mbps) was getting 550 in all downstairs rooms and 350 upstairs, 3 nodes down 2 up. In port I am only getting 350 down and 250 up. However when in wifi some upstairs devices where disconnecting or running with poor performance (netflix really couldn't cope on my tv in bedroom) any ideas why? Port seems to have solved coverage but I am still getting poorer performance than before

[ghindle1]

Maybe I was not clear. - I am using the Vodafone router just as a modem with no wifi - this is turned off and a static up from my mesh router. 

[Chrisee]

@ghindle1 I assume you are aware that wifi speed is only one factor in network performance? In practical terms increasing speeds overc100Mb/s gives diminshing returns in terms of speed of most apps.Downloads get faster but many server owners restrict the bandwidth a sinlgle client can access to allow more connections. As a guide streaming video in UHD quality requires no more than 50Mb/s with midern compression Netflix uses far less for example. Online gaming requires under 10Mb/s any more tgan thst goes unused. 

As important to performance is latency and jitter - the measure if stability- having a fast connnection is useless if your Netflix blockbuster stalls due to loss of a data packet.wiFi is very convenient but inevitably  is vulnerable to interference. 

With regards to switching from G.Fast to full fibre Sky have in the past declined to switch customers who bought into G.Fast onto full fibre even when that was availably as the set up cost of the G.Fast service is amortised over the full contract period. Howevercwe have seen signs of that policy changing if customers upgrade speeds so its worth asking. 

One last point what many people don't appreciate is thst buying a "gigabit" full fibre service means you are still sharing a fibre connection with a download capacity of just under 2.5Gb/s with up to 31 other customers on the same fibre distribution point. That 99% of the time you can run speed tests and see 900Mb/s is testament to the fact most customers only access a small fraction of the bandwidth they buy. 

[JabbaBabba28]

Hi I own a set of 3 Deco E4 units. My issue is that I need the Deco mesh system as I have an annexe in the garden, and I use it to get wifi to the smart tv, phones, and latop down there. The router is in the front of the house, the Glass tv in the back of the house, and the garden annexe about 50 efeet away. When I had the Sky Q box, I had the main deco pod by the router at the front of the house, the 2nd Deco pod by the Sky Q box, and the 3rd Deco in the garden annexe.which used to work great with the Sky Q box, and the Sky router. The signal was strong enough to reach down the garden and get a wifi signal to the smart TV and my mobile phone and laptop etc. It was not hard wired in, just doing what deco does! However now I no longer have a Sky Q box but now have  a Sky Glass TV.  and I have no idea how to configure it so that I can get a wifi signal to the annexe ... I have a lodger moving into the annexe on Monday and I promised her wifi! - help!! please!! thank you