Replace sky hub

[bigjonnyauk]

Hi guys my sky hub is not great to be honest and struggles with multiple connections and also the 5ghz wifi range is not great.

Im on the sky fibre max pack and get around 78mg download and 19 up

Is there a direct replacement rhat would be plug and play basically which would be better and give better range also and help with multiple devices .

Dont really want to go the adding another router to the existing sky one

Thanks

 

[Avalon]

If it’s just a wifi issue, you’ll get much better results adding a dedicated AP in a central location than an AIO device in a poor location.

 

[bigjonnyauk]

If it’s just a wifi issue, you’ll get much better results adding a dedicated AP in a central location than an AIO device in a poor location.

its not just a wifi issue , the main problem is when many devices are connecting its struggling and seems to come to a standstill

as said i dont want to go the route of adding an access point or another router due to my property and more cables/wires everywhere

 

[Avalon]

its not just a wifi issue , the main problem is when many devices are connecting its struggling and seems to come to a standstill

as said i dont want to go the route of adding an access point or another router due to my property and more cables/wires everywhere

Then I doubt that the issue is with the router, with the exception of the wifi device limit, that router will easily handle hundreds of devices. Replacing a mediocre AIO router with another AIO router is unlikely to result in a positive outcome.

 

[Webzta]

My experience of the sky router vs say a draytek, is that if one person is using it heavily then the sky router does a very poor job of load balancing - almost to the point where it doesn't at all.

Draytek or another router in the same scenario makes much better use of the line and shares it around - if that makes sense.

 

[bigjonnyauk]

My experience of the sky router vs say a draytek, is that if one person is using it heavily then the sky router does a very poor job of load balancing - almost to the point where it doesn't at all.

Draytek or another router in the same scenario makes much better use of the line and shares it around - if that makes sense.

This is exactly my problem ,can you suggest another router that will better load balance as u put it ..

 

[Webzta]

Haven't tried any of the consumer drayteks but have been using the small business/enterprise ones for years, Draytek 2862 is what i'm buying at the moment for VDSL. Note we use unifi pro APs rather than the wifi built in.

I need to change mine but haven't got round to it yet, I suffer the same issue... shame as the wifi performance etc is good on it.

 

[Webzta]

A lot of people are recommending something like: TP-Link Archer VR900 V2

Apparently you need a router that supports 'Option 61' - i'd do some googling and go with what most people are running, if you buy from the rainforest you can always return.

 

[Avalon]

My experience of the sky router vs say a draytek, is that if one person is using it heavily then the sky router does a very poor job of load balancing - almost to the point where it doesn't at all.

Draytek or another router in the same scenario makes much better use of the line and shares it around - if that makes sense.

That isn’t really load balancing in the conventional sense, the Sky Hub does exactly what the Draytek or any other router not doing local QoS/traffic prioritisation does. In simple terms, if you have two identical data streams from the same source that are both capable of outpacing the local connection, the end result would be a 50:50 split. In reality you won’t, and that’s ignores the remote servers ability to send, the routing/peering to connect to it, the ISP’s traffic prioritisation policy, the clients connectivity to the router, the clients capabilities to deal with data and the type of traffic as well as what else is taking place on the connection, even QoS locally only influences one of those variables and if some genius is running P2P with an uncapped uplink on your connection, then you’re stuffed. Before trying to buy your way out of a problem that seemingly only exists for two people with no real evidence that the proposed solution works, perhaps look at the traffic that is causing the issue. When I had a Sky Hub the whole house could stream/game without significant issue, throw in some uplink saturation and everyone had issues, the solution is to identify the issue and fix it, not throw money at recreating the problem with new hardware.

 

[Wardyp]

I found the wifi on the sky hub to be pretty rubbish.
I now have sky running on a TP-Link AC1600, the setup wizard has a sky option so it's easy to get going.

It has served my well, previously I've used it with BT and with virgin in modem mode.

 

[Webzta]

That isn’t really load balancing in the conventional sense, the Sky Hub does exactly what the Draytek or any other router not doing local QoS/traffic prioritisation does. In simple terms, if you have two identical data streams from the same source that are both capable of outpacing the local connection, the end result would be a 50:50 split. In reality you won’t, and that’s ignores the remote servers ability to send, the routing/peering to connect to it, the ISP’s traffic prioritisation policy, the clients connectivity to the router, the clients capabilities to deal with data and the type of traffic as well as what else is taking place on the connection, even QoS locally only influences one of those variables and if some genius is running P2P with an uncapped uplink on your connection, then you’re stuffed. Before trying to buy your way out of a problem that seemingly only exists for two people with no real evidence that the proposed solution works, perhaps look at the traffic that is causing the issue. When I had a Sky Hub the whole house could stream/game without significant issue, throw in some uplink saturation and everyone had issues, the solution is to identify the issue and fix it, not throw money at recreating the problem with new hardware.

Yeah just a term used to describe what the OP experiences.

Basically say you have a 10MB line, and 3 devices want to use it to download a file as an example.

Device A gets 10MB, then device B starts, but device A still uses say 9MB, device B gets 1MB, the more going on the more unbalanced it is.

With other routers that I have used, this is not the case, even without configuring any load balancing as you say.

I can only tell you about my experience with the Sky Q router..

 

[MissChief]

Thought about asking Sky for a Hub 4? Mine has been rock solid with brilliant speeds. Even with two people playing games and Netflix running it hasn’t missed a beat.

 

[Webzta]

Thought about asking Sky for a Hub 4? Mine has been rock solid with brilliant speeds. Even with two people playing games and Netflix running it hasn’t missed a beat.

I had no idea there was one

Sounds like a sensible option if sky are happy to upgrade.

 

[Webzta]

Thought about asking Sky for a Hub 4? Mine has been rock solid with brilliant speeds. Even with two people playing games and Netflix running it hasn’t missed a beat.

So they wanted £5 extra a month as I had to upgrade to some new service to get it.. not doing that.

 

[MissChief]

So they wanted £5 extra a month as I had to upgrade to some new service to get it.. not doing that.

Broadband boost. Means you can ask them to come out and they'll guarantee Wi-Fi in every room of your house. It can be cancelled AFAIK.

 

[Webzta]

18 month contract and can't get it added to Sky Fibre Pro package. Typical sky b******s.

 

[Avalon]

18 month contract and can't get it added to Sky Fibre Pro package. Typical sky b******s.

Then why not invest in your own hardware to do a better job? A reasonable router and AP’s or mesh if you’re that way inclined, will set you back about the same as Sky want, but be capable of growing with your needs and moving to new ISP in the future while offering greater functionality.

 

[Webzta]

Yeah will do just a case of getting round to it. Typical case of doing it so much for work that home gets neglected

 

[Avalon]

It happens, also from memory the reason you can’t add this to Pro may have something to Pro being a legacy product, superfast is basically the same product now as Sky like everyone else have moved to a ‘max’ style profile where everyone gets the maximum the line will support, it’s a cheap way of fudging average speed increases.

 

[Webzta]

Need the static IP so stuck with Pro for now.