Going Sky Pro - router advice needed

currob

currob

currob

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I've upgraded to sky broadband pro which allows the use of (and support with) your own router. I have 28 connections to my current router both wireless and ethernet via powerline. Essential PC's are connected via ethernet and wifi as are several IP camera's.

I have always just used ISP provided routers and am clueless as to the best option out there for my needs - budget is £50 to £150 and needs to have decent wifi range as I currently use an extender which is cheapo tat and requires unplugging every other day and i'm looking forward to recycling it with a hammer :)

I mostly use the connection for the usual stuff plus some gaming and streaming on 2 or 3 devices, the line will support ~45 to 60 meg. There is a lot of local traffic via the router (multiple local ip camera feeds, remote desktop connections etc..) probably more than the external tbh.

TLDR: Need a decent router £50-£150 with great wifi range to replace sky hub
 
Firstly you'll need to extract your Sky U/P via Wire Shark (it's easy) unless going Pro means they're happy to give them out? Either way for normal fiber wireshark it :)

For one box solutions look to Netgear D7000 or one of the TP Link's with MER support such as the VR900 (as of Sept 2015). The VR900 is essentially very similar hardware as the D7000 but usually for less money with better features.

If you are OK with a two box solution and would prefer the freedom of Shibby Tomato/TomatoAdvanced/Padavan/Merlin firmware then an AC56U or AC68U (same CPU, former has slower wifi than later) combined with a ECI or HG612 BTO modem. It doesn't need to be unlocked unless you want line stats, if you do want to unlock then the HG612 is the simplest with just a firmware update required, the ECI can be unlocked quickly and easily but you will need a TTL interface (£2) and you can run DDWRT on the modem if you prefer.

Do not buy an Asus DSL product, they have a number of long established issues that tehy just don't seem willing/able to resolve and are best avoided.
 
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Please don't recommend TP Link... ever... they're as bad as Belkin for reliability / build quality / longevity.

Netgear can be good, but have been a bit hit and miss the last few years.

The Asus cable routers are good and you can adjust the power output of the wireless if you want more speed or range... although you should be careful as there is a legal maximum that you can set it to. You'll need a separate modem though as like Avalon mentions, the DSL versions have issues.

My best bet/recommendation would be Billion... reliable, will pull the most from your line (both speed and latency) and good at handling a lot of internal connections/traffic.
 
crinkleshoes said:
Please don't recommend TP Link... ever... they're as bad as Belkin for reliability / build quality / longevity.

Netgear can be good, but have been a bit hit and miss the last few years.

The Asus cable routers are good and you can adjust the power output of the wireless if you want more speed or range... although you should be careful as there is a legal maximum that you can set it to. You'll need a separate modem though as like Avalon mentions, the DSL versions have issues.

My best bet/recommendation would be Billion... reliable, will pull the most from your line (both speed and latency) and good at handling a lot of internal connections/traffic.
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Belkin = Linksys (and Wemo though it's more of a sub brand), they've had issues in the past, but so has Netgear and any other consumer brand you care to mention. I've nothing bad to say about Billion, but i'd not overlook TP Link - they offer a price/feature ratio rarely seen at the budget end of things and the VR900 is essentially a D7000 for less money with better features at the higher end of the consumer stuff. They're also showing off the new 60Ghz stuff at CES when no-one else has bothered. Even the sub £30 TP Link routers now have DDWRT class features including working QoS, multiple VLAN support, multiple SSID's with bandwidth limiting and for me at least has been rock solid.

Also as to the power options on Asus they're largely a waste of time from the testing i've seen online, power is only one part of the equation.
 
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Avalon said:
Firstly you'll need to extract your Sky U/P via Wire Shark (it's easy) unless going Pro means they're happy to give them out? Either way for normal fiber wireshark it :)
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Yes, with their new broadband pro they will do this and support any hardware I wish to use :)

crinkleshoes said:
My best bet/recommendation would be Billion... reliable, will pull the most from your line (both speed and latency) and good at handling a lot of internal connections/traffic.
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Avalon said:
I've nothing bad to say about Billion, but i'd not overlook TP Link - they offer a price/feature ratio rarely seen at the budget end of things and the VR900 is essentially a D7000 for less money with better features at the higher end of the consumer stuff.
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Thanks for the replies :)

Looking around, billion seems more expensive but if it is the most reliable then I'll adjust my budget, it's a vital piece of equipment I need so would rather pay a little more for reliability.

Can I ask a dumb question: if it is dual band wifi does that mean one channel 2.4GHz and one 5GHz or any combination? I'm pretty sure some of my equipment won't support 5GHz.
 
Yes - I highly recommend Billion, very reliable brand and also good on the latency front too when it comes to the WAN connection... for example on a Netgear router you might get a 15ms ping to google, whereas on the Billion you might get a 10ms ping to google - where the rest of the network is otherwise the same.

I've dealt with a lot of these routers over the years, installing for home users and up into pro-grade bits... I bought a Billion for home use :)

Of the top of my head... I thought that there was a decent Billion VDSL2 (FTTC) router available under your max budget.

Also yes, dual band means it will offer both frequencies. You can disable one or the other too.
 
S2KIP said:
Since when did Sky allow the use of third party routers?
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Since whenever they started their broadband pro, you also get faster dl/up speeds and a dedicated sky broadband pro support team 24/7 just for the pro customers. They not only allow third party equipment but will actually provide support with it's use too according to the representative I spoke with. I get the impression it's a new(ish) service.
 
They have always provided the username/password for Pro customers so you never had to wireshark it out of the SR101/102 but I would be very surprised if they actually decided to provide support for 3rd party routers, it seems to still stipulate it in their T&C's and I don't believe they have a special team dedicated for Pro customers over normal Fibre customers, the entire fibre team is just different from the standard broadband support team (for ADSL etc)

I guess the best person to confirm would be MissChief? (Sky Techy Support iirc)

Whichever router you go for, just make sure it has the ability to do MER or it just won't work. I would recommend any of the Asus range (without or without 3rd party firmware such as Merlins) or the D7000
 
Terrier_Jimlad said:
I don't believe they have a special team dedicated for Pro customers over normal Fibre customers, the entire fibre team is just different from the standard broadband support team (for ADSL etc)
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I hope you're wrong there as the sky rep I spoke to specifically said I will need to speak with that team in future not the usual fibre team. Apparently there's an option in the menu. If that's not correct I'm wondering if everything else she told me is correct :(

Thanks for the advice, I'll check the specs to ensure it has the ability to do MER before buying then :)
 
Odd, I'm with Sky and have Fibre Pro (shortly switching to Zen) however I've never had a dedicated 'pro' team and they've never said anything about using my own router, except for that I can only use theirs.
 
S2KIP said:
Odd, I'm with Sky and have Fibre Pro (shortly switching to Zen) however I've never had a dedicated 'pro' team and they've never said anything about using my own router, except for that I can only use theirs.
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Currently on the phone to sky to double check in case I've been mis-sold, will update shortly.

The sky broadband person i spoke to said there is a seperate broadband fibre pro team and I can use my own router with support from them, the package I'm going on to is sky broadband fibre unlimited pro which apparently is different to sky broadband pro ! Confusing !
 
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Yes, you get static ip and they said i will get the max possible ul/dl with the fibre unlimited pro which they estimate for me will be ~55meg dl not sure on the ul. I'm just waiting on the activation atm. That is with the sky broadband fibre unlimited pro package, not the confusingly similar sounding sky broadband pro !
 
From the Fibre pro part of the website:

Sky Fibre Unlimited Pro
Get all the benefits of Sky Fibre Broadband, with faster download speeds of up to 76Mb. Plus, dedicated technical support when you need it.

To buy, call 08442 410 802
 
And they've confirmed it's fine & given you the username/password?

If so, you must be the first person on the internet to have this confirmed. Otherwise it'd be all forums unless they've changed their rules very recently. It's still plainly written into their T&C's that you must use their hardware.
 
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