WiFi dropouts on video calls

[embee50]

Hi all, I moved to Sky last month after being with Virgin for many years. I work from home regularly. I had no issues prior to my switch, but since the switchover, when I'm on video calls - Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, Whatsapp - the video freezes multiple times on every call.

I downloaded a WiFi analyzer. The reports are showing that the signal drops to zero multiple times in any given 30 minute period then comes back up. We have had 3 extender pods fitted and an engineer has visited the house 3 times to try and address the problem. Yesterday he replaced the router and all of the pods - but the problem persists. I have also connected Eero routers to see if this is better than the Sky kit, but they exhibit exactly the same issue. I have tried a wired connection to a pod, but the same issue is present. It's not practical to move the router or to work from the room where the router is - and this wasn't necessary with our previous ISP.

There is no interference from neighbouring properties, the house is old (1880s) so it has quite thick walls - but this wasn't a problem for the Virgin kit I had before. It's the signal itself which is dropping out.

At this point I'm considering cancelling Sky completely and moving to another provider as it seems they are unable to fix the issue. Has anyone else experienced this issue and found a solution?

Thanks

[Chrisee]

@embee50 @If the issue is present when using the Eero kit your problem with WiFi signal is not connected with the Sky Broadband but rather with the WiFi characteristics of your home.

Older WiFi systems used the 2.4GHz band which penetrates solid walls better your new Sky WiFi Max system and I suspect the Eero use the higher frequency 5GHz band to communicate which while faster are far more affected by solid walls

Thr solution would ideally be to run Ethernet cables to distant rooms or failing that look into getting power line networking adapters

However slightly counter intuitively get a slower WiFi set up like my own Deco M4 system which uses the lower frequency band to connect

[embee50]

Thanks. What you say makes sense - however I had no issues at all with signal from the Virgin router which was previously installed here and that was using both 2.5 and 5hz bands.

I only installed the Eeros as (a) I had them lying around from an old office installation and (b) I wanted a comparison to the new Sky kit which had just been installed in the house. For clarity, there is no issue with one network interfering with the other as I turned off the sky wifi before testing with the Eeros.

The speed and signal strength are fine, but the signal literally drops to zero - and this is happening both from the sky router itself and from the wifi pods they've added to the network to boost the signal strength. I don't understand how that can be down to the age of the house/thickness of the walls?

I'm not going to run ethernet cables through the house - it's too big for that to be a practical solution and it wasn't necessary with Virgin so I'd rather just go back to them and ditch Sky if that really is the only solution which can be offered with this ISP.

[JimM1]

@embee50 If it is the wireless wifi going down then switch all your pod's off and see if it is the sky Hub as a first test, always hard to say what is going on especially with a Max hub that is hard to look at!

[embee50]

Does anyone know whether you can access a sky router via https://168.192.0.0 ? I did try and get in that way but there's no obvious way to find the admin password

[JimM1]

@embee50 You can try to get but not sure if you will be able to see a sky Max hub via the web interface, its 192.168.0.1 to get through and the admin password is the one bottom of your sky Max hub, so as below. http and not https also!

Name is admin just as you see it displayed,

Password is as per your label if you have never changed it.

MySky app on your mobile is the way to get to the Max hub!!!!