Understanding SkyQ (minibox connection issues)

[rieden]

[Apols - the background ended up taking longer than I expected. There are somne questions at the end if the prologue is too long to read]

1. I've been a Sky customer for over 20 years in various incarnations up to Sky+ HD with one extra room box in the kitchen. A couple of weeks ago in a weak moment I succumbed to the offer to migrate to SkyQ with a "minibox" in the kitchen.

2. I was once a sky broadband customer but last year moved to BT because they offered 150Mb fibre where Sky was only offering half that. My home is an amalgamation of two 19th century bungalows and many of the walls are flint which is opaque to microwaves so I have a couple of WAPs (ethernet connected WAPs, not wifi repeater/range-extenders) in strategic locations and have good wifi performance on both 2.4 and 5GHz throughout the house. I alkso have a general policy that anything whioch doesn't move uses an ethernet connection rather than wifi to avoid cluttering up the bandwidth, and I have a wired gigabit network to most rooms via a number of unmanaged switches, but this doesn't extend to the kitchen because it has a separate loft space and my wife is alergic to visible cables running along walls.

3. When selling me the SkyQ the salescrook asked if I had Sky broadband (to which I said no) and asked if I had wifi in the rooms where I wanted the Minibox (to which I said yes).  I quized him a bit about what the network needs were, and he just kept saying "it uses internet so it will be OK". He also left me witrh thge impression that SkyQ didn't need any satellite feed either "Because INTERNET!!". It was only after installation that I discovered this was complete **bleep** and that SkyQ doesn't even use the houshold wifi but uses its own separate network (which is frankly barking) but I'm getting ahead of myself.

4. System was installed last Monday and worked, although the installer did spend quite a lot of time faffing with the minibox network connection - initially set it up nect to the main box in the sitting room, them moved it to the kitchen and seemed to be messing with wifi settings for a long time before it worked. She seemed to ne on the point of giving me a "booster", but didn't.

5. Later on monday evening the kitchen telly started freezing a couple of times, but it seemed to go away and it worked well enough until Friday when it just plain refused to connect, reporting SkyQ connection OK, but no internet. I phoned the help line and went through various reset/reconfigure actions but to no avail. They said it would be an engineer visit with the earliest one being IN TWO WEEKS TIME. So no TV in the kitchen for two weeks (we're talking divorce-worthy actions here!). After getting a bit cross on the phone they agrteed to send me a new minibox in case that was the problem. They said it would take a few days, but (credit wheree it's due) it arrived before 11:00am the next day (yesterday - a saturday).

6. I got the new box set up next top the main box and moved it to the kitchen, but it didn't work. After doing some googling I discovered the 001 menu and found that changing the 5GHz channel to a narrowband one (I've found this can work better on weak signals) gave me something that worked, but after a while it started freezing again [I also went around devices to deconflict channel numbers on both 2.4 and 5Ghz bands  as far as possible, but these days many devices have very limited choice of channels so there were limits to wht I could do].  I suspect switching to narrowband was what the installer did in the "faffing" I mentioned. So bottom line was still no kitchen TV and divorce migrating steadily from possible towards probable...

7. Phoned Sky again, went through stuff and they agreed there was a signal issue. They said it would need an engineer visit with a 12 day earliest date. I asked if they could just send me a "booster" so I could set it up myself as this would be much quicker, but apparenltly this is verbotten. After strongly suggesting this wasn't really acceptable because it was a brand new pressure-sold service which hadn't been installed addequately they offered me a sunday appointment next week (which would normally cost extra but they would waive that). I guess that's what I have to put up with.

So the actual questions:

A. Is it possible to switch the SkQ to use my household wifi (which has excellent coverage in the kitchen)?

B. If no, then is it possible to use a 3rd-party wifi repeater/extender in the SkyQ network (using WPS to connect as I don't know the wifi key)?

C. Are there any other "hidden" adjustment menus other than 001 with more settings I could tinker with?

D. Other than ethernet connection (which will involve a fair amount of effort due to the location) is there anythng else I can try? 

TIA,

PDR

[TimmyBGood]

---

@rieden wrote:

A. Is it possible to switch the SkQ to use my household wifi (which has excellent coverage in the kitchen)?

No

B. If no, then is it possible to use a 3rd-party wifi repeater/extender in the SkyQ network (using WPS to connect as I don't know the wifi key)?

No

C. Are there any other "hidden" adjustment menus other than 001 with more settings I could tinker with

No

D. Other than ethernet connection (which will involve a fair amount of effort due to the location) is there anythng else I can try? 

Either Powerline networking or ethernet connection from a Mini box to a local wireless mesh node

---

[TimmyBGood]

---

@rieden wrote:

 SkyQ doesn't even use the houshold wifi but uses its own separate network (which is frankly barking)

---

That's because Q was designed between 2014 and 2015 (released in early 2016) and consequently was specified to generate its own semi-proprietary 'hybrid' network with dedicated QoS (and originally intended to use built-in Powerline to reinforce wireless data transfer) because typical domestic WiFi hardware was considerably less advanced a decade ago than it is now.

https://advanced-television.com/2016/01/26/airties-supercharges-sky-q-wi-fi-devices/ 

[PandJ2020]

---

@TimmyBGood wrote:

---

@rieden wrote:

A. Is it possible to switch the SkQ to use my household wifi (which has excellent coverage in the kitchen)?

No

---

---

It is possible but not in the normal sense.

My configuration uses my own BT mesh network - but all the Q devices must be connected via Ethernet to a nearby node.

[inferiorsbeware]

LOL powerline, that thing that either breaks the internet and functions well, or breaks itself to save the internet? 🙂  I still remmeber the press release where they revealed plans to adopt enmasse powerline, all whilst profile 17a was spearheaded by openreach.  SIN498 meant openreach had been supplying a uniform modem device on all lines until 2015. it takes a person with guts to deploy a powerline device operating on the very spectrum required VDSL comunications, and to stick it into the same plastic box as the modem itself, just a year after ISPs were granted this freedom.

All the while, it seems, somebody thought, lets plonk the PSU also into this very compact and confined piece of plastic. Cause what we needed on top of all of this was as much dirty mains power to be added as possible, right?  Now lets take this mix of powerline crosstalk / dirty mains power, and hard wire it into the BT master phone socket via an unshielded / untwisted (bright magenta ended) RJ11 cable. Brilliant! 

Only the brightest come out of Sillicon Valley 🙂 

Look what I dug outta the archives (that being the cloud drive):

[inferiorsbeware]

... I will say this, my older Sky Hub has some very carefully crafted logic that forms its QOS deployment. What I see in the config export:

-LAN Queues (Queue Instances 1-32):  These queues are associated with the four Ethernet ports (eth0-eth3). Each port has 8 queues (Q1-Q8) with different precedence levels (1 being the highest, 8 the lowest). This suggests a priority-based queuing system where traffic is assigned to different queues based on its importance.

-WAN Queues (Queue Instances 49-50): These queues appeare to be associated with WAN (internet) connection namely ptm0. There are two queues that i can see:

    - Default Queue (Queue Instance 49): prob handles most internet traffic.

    - ptmhighpriority (Queue Instance 50): designed for high-priority traffic.

Traffic Flows and prioritization:

LAN:

   - When a device on the LAN sends data it appears the router examines the data packets and determines their priority based on factors like the application, port number, and/or other much more sophisticated criteria than my brain can handle. 

   - The packets are then assigned to one of what appears to be 8 LAN queues (Q1-Q8) based on some magic black box prioritisation decision making formula.

   - Queues with higher precedence indicated by their lower numbers get priority in terms of bandwidth allocation. For example it seems traffic in Q1 will be transmitted before traffic in Q8.

WAN Traffic:

   - Traffic leaving the LAN and heading to the internet is directed to WAN queues.

   - The router decides whether to place the traffic in the "Default Queue" or the "ptmhighpriority" queue. 

   - The "ptmhighpriority" queue is given preference, ensuring that time-sensitive traffic like video streaming or online gaming gets prioritized over less critical traffic.

Airties press release: emphasizes AirTies' ability to dynamically route traffic over the best available path (Wi-Fi, PLC, MoCA, or Ethernet) based on factors like source location, number of hops, and link speed.

It seems likely that the QoS rules work in conjunction with this proprietary Hybrid Mesh logic.

The router might consider the available paths and their current load when assigning traffic to different queues above. For example, if the Wi-Fi connection is congested, the router might prioritize traffic over a less congested PLC (well when it was used) or Ethernet / route around wireless via an uncongested route even if that is an extra "hop.".

ofc fundamentals eg band steering technology also plays a role, but this is a bit more sophisticated kin that it can enforce devices to connect via optimal mesh node to maximize network capacity and minimize congestion, even if that's not "closest / highest signal." 

Overall - for a home device this is sophisticated. Very much so. and SkyQ is testament to the QOS logic working. I've not felt any need to upgrade my hub. Perhaps the new Max hub applies all of this logic too, but I have a feeling it does not...