How do you connect up SkyQ boxes?

[jamessawle]

Hi Guys, We have a new SkyQ Installation that we have been kind of pressurised into but thats another story. We have a really annoying problem, we have quite large rooms and we have found out that ours rooms with its thick walls are causing a problems in that the remote boxes cannot connect to the main unit when either they are connected wirelessly or over our network. now the network is over 10Gb Cisco Managed Switches with the Gateway being handled by a CheckPoint Firewall and Starlink Buisiness Internet link, we are not able to change the Network at all and the Internet access is bloody fast and connectivity to each room has never been a problem and has been checked, even putting one of the remote units directly on the other side of the wall as the main unit, the remote states it cannot connect to the main unit (the walls are around 5ft thick and are natural stone). We asked our Sky installer who was worse than useless and basically said that he had no ideas.

Any ideas would be much appreciated 

James

[nigea99]

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@jamessawle wrote:

Hi Guys, We have a new SkyQ Installation that we have been kind of pressurised into but thats another story. We have a really annoying problem, we have quite large rooms and we have found out that ours rooms with its thick walls are causing a problems in that the remote boxes cannot connect to the main unit when either they are connected wirelessly or over our network. now the network is over 10Gb Cisco Managed Switches with the Gateway being handled by a CheckPoint Firewall and Starlink Buisiness Internet link, we are not able to change the Network at all and the Internet access is bloody fast and connectivity to each room has never been a problem and has been checked, even putting one of the remote units directly on the other side of the wall as the main unit, the remote states it cannot connect to the main unit (the walls are around 5ft thick and are natural stone). We asked our Sky installer who was worse than useless and basically said that he had no ideas.

Any ideas would be much appreciated 

James

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hi @jamessawle 

Unfortunately when your home wifi is not SKY, the SKY Q boxes will not use your wifi but instead use a wifi signal generated by the main box.

Where coverage is poor we usually recommened connecting the boxes via ethernet but we also know that SKY Q does not also work well with managed switches.

Not being an expert in this area, I am afarid I do not know what to recommend for you.

[TimmyBGood]

@jamessawle 

As @nigea99 indicates, Q really isn't designed for that environment, and it's unrealistic to expect a regular Sky installer to be able to address it: they are somewhat unlikely to be CCNP qualified.

For context, Q is now a decade-old design, and doesn't use standard networking.  Q Mini boxes communicate directly with the main Q box on a client-server basis rather than being stand-alone devices, and cannot do so over normal WiFi: they form their own proprietary 'mesh' with the main Q box, a Q Hub (where relevant ) and Q boosters. The usual workaround for this when Q devices are out of range is ethernet, but not through managed network hardware unless the user is prepared to delve into switch configuration.

Perhaps significantly, Sky Stream (which is effectively the successor product to Sky Q) has abandoned this network topology and all Stream pucks are standard individual network devices.

[Chodley]

Powerlines might work

I would put the q (and minis) on another switch though and have that connected to the cisco one and treat it as a separate vlan because I suspect once the Q does get attached it might get its port disabled by the managed switch if spanning tree protocol is enabled. At least that used to be a common issue.

[jamessawle]

. Thanks for the sugeations, I have tried VLANs and even spent a couple of day sniping packets to see what went in and out of the main Sky Box and was still unable to get enough from it to give me ideas, we have been trying to get it working since installtion, and it has never worked well. Basically given me an idea to ditch Sky now, I get better performance from Amazon, Netflix and a fire stick, it will save me loads each month and I will at least work which Sky doesn't,. Thanks anyway