Sky Fibre Optic

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Joined
18 Apr 2006
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1,069
Location
Essex
Can anyone advise me. I've been having issues with Sky Fibre Max since being upgraded to it from Fibre Unlimited about two weeks ago. For two or three days after the upgrade I was getting speedtest results of 65-70Mbps, which I was happy with and understood that this might improve further as the connection settled in and the DLM adjusted. However, shortly after this the internet dropped out one evening and ever since I've been getting speedtest results of 35Mbps and download speeds of 3.5-4MB/s. What's weird is that the router statistics page is still showing good results:

Connection Speed 76608 kbps 20000 kbps
Line Attenuation 11.0 dB 8.6 dB
Noise Margin 6.3 dB 6.6 dB

I've been on the phone to Sky three or four times and I'm getting fed up with the way they constantly seem to fob me off with rubbish advice. They've suggested it could be a bandwidth issue because there are about nine or ten devices connected via ethernet or over wifi, but I've always had that many devices connected and never experienced issues on Fibre Unlimited. Besides, I disabled the wireless access point on both bands and removed all other ethernet devices and got the same speedtest and download results connected via ethernet directly to the router. They've also had me do a hard reset of the router. Sky are sending me a new router so hopefully that fixes it, but if not what are my options? And can anyone suggest any other causes?


Hi Nick,

Did your new router sort out your issues? I ask because following on from my threat to leave Sky a page or so up mostly in regards to the BT Openreach engineer refusing to move the master socket despite it being 15 ft from a power point, Sky apologised and paid to have it relocated in the living room where it was required. Just prior to this my pings varied between 6ms and 7000ms to 23000ms and line speeds dropped significantly as below:

DateTime Download DateTime Upload
11/10/2018 67.5 09:30:07 20.28
11/10/2018 0.11 09:42:50 1.15
11/10/2018 1.53 09:53:06 0.01
11/10/2018 65.87 10:01:46 19.31
11/10/2018 0.06 10:22:42 0
11/10/2018 1.17 11:35:29 0.01
11/10/2018 75.77 12:13:15 4.24
11/10/2018 79.74 12:29:10 19.29
12/10/2018 76.96 08:29:26 5.32
12/10/2018 42.01 10:48:30 18.22
12/10/2018 18.3 14:42:12 19.84
12/10/2018 53.1 18:04:24 17.79
14/10/2018 21.96 17:42:03 15.31
14/10/2018 38.11 17:47:51 19.32
14/10/2018 17.96 20:28:13 19.55
15/10/2018 20.86 08:25:33 17.63
15/10/2018 11.56 09:45:04 19.59
15/10/2018 14.59 10:00:15 19.71

Note the significant speed drops within the first 6 entries. The last three even show the upload faster than the download. Sky claimed the newly fitted master socket was faulty and to extend my cooling off period to 14 days after the installation of the master socket (15/10/2018).

For about 10 days got the expected speeds between 70Mbps and 75Mbps. Then on Monday (22/10) started to experience issues again. Pings varied between 6ms and 43ms and speeds dropped again as shown below:


DateTime Download DateTime Upload
22/10/2018 36.08 18:08:29 16.73
22/10/2018 31.24 18:49:17 19.04
22/10/2018 34.8 18:52:14 19.45
22/10/2018 28.28 19:48:13 16.13
23/10/2018 16.66 09:47:29 20.01
23/10/2018 14.49 11:23:13 19.14
23/10/2018 76.8 13:05:06 19.29
23/10/2018 19.93 14:11:04 4.12
23/10/2018 33.61 15:29:16 14.37
23/10/2018 25.52 16:53:36 15.34
23/10/2018 33.69 17:37:24 19.31
24/10/2018 18.1 09:20:21 18.72


Phoned Sky, rebooted the Sky Q router three times, changed passwords to kick off any devices using Wifi and eventually the CS said must be a modem/router issue and they will send off a new router which arrives today. He claims there are no faults on the line (despite the Sky website telling me that I had dropped below the minimum guaranteed speed within the last 30 days - which could have been the first set of results prior to master switch relocation).

My stats from the router are below:

Broadband Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed (Kbps) 79999 19999
Line Attenuation (dB) DS1:8.1 DS2:18.2 DS3:27.9 US0:4.6 US1:15.7 US2:22.0
Noise Margin (dB) DS1:7.1 DS2:7.1 DS3:7.1 US0:15.2 US1:15.2 US2:15.2


Can anyone shed some light as I have until Monday 29/10 to try out the new router failing which I will have to finally ditch Sky as I cannot work like this.

Many thanks

Noughtboy
 
Soldato
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Posts
3,875

Sadly the new router didn't make any difference. We've had two Sky engineers in since and both of them were, in their own words, 'baffled' by the issue. They have tried everything internally and confirmed there are no line faults within the house, so they now believe it's an external problem, probably something at the cabinet, so we're waiting to see if Openreach will come out to investigate the fault.

I hope you have better luck with the new router.
 
Suspended
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Essex
Sadly the new router didn't make any difference. We've had two Sky engineers in since and both of them were, in their own words, 'baffled' by the issue. They have tried everything internally and confirmed there are no line faults within the house, so they now believe it's an external problem, probably something at the cabinet, so we're waiting to see if Openreach will come out to investigate the fault.

I hope you have better luck with the new router.

Nope. It started at ~74Mbps then an couple of hours later was in the mid to high 30's now back upto 73/74Mbps. Had a few latency issues at the same time. Spent close on 90 minutes onto Sky and I can say unreservedly to MissChief they have been excellent. I mean really polite and helpful. Some more than others but the worst was very good. The last guy, Julian, was the most technically competent. Checked Skyshield settings, he understood "tracert", helped me switch off the hotspot on the Q Box (so bloody fiddly that. Why not make it openly visible?) Whilst there, I was able to switch off the background downloading that the box may try to do...if I want a damn program, I will select it and download it myself. Hopefully that was the BB hog as since chatting to him my speeds are back to the 72-74Mbps range and 18-19Mbps.

I am coming to the conclusion that the Sky equipment is just bad and not fit for purpose. The Wifi signal is poor, there are only two ethernet ports, their is no QOS, I cannot allow/disallow MAC addresses etc. If the disabled hotspot and backgound downloading don't resolve the issue then I am at my wits end. Julian did try to tell me that other devices may be taking up bandwidth in the background and whilst I agree, unless they are active, we are probably talking 0.5Mbps each so 69/70 Mbps.

One thing he did say though that I disagreed with is that no one device should be able to take over the entire connection speed so the 80Mbps is shared amongst all the devices. That is hogwash. If it were true, there is no way I would be getting 74.9Mbps in the first place. If there are numerous devices using the pipe, it will be shared, sure, but otherwise if their is only one device active, it will pull whatever the Wifi can feed it.

The saga continues.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Mar 2007
Posts
3,875
Yeah one of the people I spoke to on the phone at Sky tried to suggest it was bandwidth related but when I was able to replicate the problem with one device connected via ethernet and the wifi disabled they quickly stopped suggesting that! I agree with you that the Sky Q hub is very poor, particularly the wifi signal quality. The quality of the supplied internet equipment has always been an issue with Sky.
 
Associate
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12 Feb 2008
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Location
Shropshire
Is anyone else having issues today? Speed tests are maxing out around 10Mb/s when I usually get nearer 70Mb/s. TBB monitor doesn't look too healthy either.
 
Caporegime
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In a house
yep got my email about a week or so ago, doubling my speed at no extra cost and happening sometime this side of Christmas.

Ive heard nothing, can't get more than 40 anyway.


Is anyone else having issues today? Speed tests are maxing out around 10Mb/s when I usually get nearer 70Mb/s. TBB monitor doesn't look too healthy either.

No issues here in the NE.
 
Soldato
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4 Mar 2003
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Chatteris
Must say I've been pleased with the initial move from Vodafone to Sky for my Fibre. My Vodafone router started blinking at 6:00pm last night. I unplugged it and plugged my Sky one in. It was up and online in about 5 minutes just as I received a text from Sky telling me the change had been completed.
Had a couple of disconnections last night, but always expect that over the first few days. So long as it settles somewhere around the 72/19 which BT, Talk Talk and Vodafone in the past have managed to give me, I'll be happy.
 
Associate
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14 Jan 2010
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2,423
Location
Essex
Sorry I know Im reviving the thread here but can someone just let me know if using an openreach modem is just plug and play or if i have to dial in any different settings for using one. I'm usually just connected to the Q Router from the master socket, but I've bought my own Router with no internal modem and have a openreach modem ive just got from the classifieds to hopefully get some better connectivity.
 
Man of Honour
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20 Sep 2006
Posts
34,041
Sorry I know Im reviving the thread here but can someone just let me know if using an openreach modem is just plug and play or if i have to dial in any different settings for using one. I'm usually just connected to the Q Router from the master socket, but I've bought my own Router with no internal modem and have a openreach modem ive just got from the classifieds to hopefully get some better connectivity.
If it's FTTC then the modems are plug and play, no config required.

Your 3rd part router will have to support Sky's DHCP authentication system to work.
 
Man of Honour
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21 Nov 2004
Posts
45,037
Our connection has gone terrible, breaking all the time. Line is apparently fine, new router, booster added, problem is not quite as bad, but it’s still there. Fibre box is flashing like crazy, but not sure what could suddenly be causing the problem.
 
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