Sky Fibre Optic

nichorob · 17 Jan 2013 at 08:04

Replaced the horrible Sky Sagem router with a nice shiny Asus RT-N66U last night. Was a 10 minute upgrade, extracting the username / password from the old router, plug in the new one, upload the latest Merlin firmware and enter the DHCP info and instantly the WAN light came on and been fine since.

Speeds are the same but wireless has improved ten fold and great to be using Google DNS again and have access to gigabit ports.

OCdude · 17 Jan 2013 at 16:42

Stupid question, but why don't Sky like you using own router? (or at least make it harder to)

MagicBoy · 17 Jan 2013 at 16:43

It makes technical support more difficult.

OCdude · 17 Jan 2013 at 20:40

Hmm I'm not going to be a happy bunny if the weather prevents my install tomorrow

OCdude · 18 Jan 2013 at 16:49

Engineer has just left, no dramas - huzzah!

Strangely, I lose quite a bit of download from my PC. I'm putting this down to a combination of the fact that my PC is pretty knackered (and lags when doing the speed test) and i'm also using a 20m ethernet cable (although I was under the impression that you could have much longer runs than that, and suffer no ill effect?!)

Anyway, when it was tested via another cable and laptop, the speedtest was closer to 33/7 (which is fine, as my predicted speeds were 31/6).

So nice to be back on a fast connection. No more sitting around waiting for YouTube vids to buffer, or iPlayer downloads

MagicBoy · 18 Jan 2013 at 16:53

Ethernet is good for up to 100m.

dlockers · 18 Jan 2013 at 17:12

OllyM said:
I don't think they use MER on Fibre, the Hub just reports it as that. It's just standard DHCP isn't it?

They use MER but they don't use MAC authentication
Just DHCP Option 61

fozzybear · 21 Jan 2013 at 17:57

Had my Sky Fibre installed today.

Engineer came round at 1pm but apparently my existing line was atrocious. 4 hours later and I now have a new line fitted and speedy broadband.

I can't praise the Openreach guys enough. Ended up having 2 of them working alongside each other.

MehulLakhani · 21 Jan 2013 at 18:07

Ok

This might sound dumb, but how do they fit a new line ? Do they actually take out all the old wiring, and run a new cable back to the cabinet ?

R

Mehul

Digital · 21 Jan 2013 at 18:34

Ravster said:
Had exactly the same issue, absolutely fuming. Original installation was due for 19th December....Fibre is now being installed on Friday this week.

Been stuck with pathetic 4mb Sky ADSL in the interim because whilst they forgot to activate fibre for the original install, they didn't forget to disable my service from o2.

Truly ****ed. They offered half price for 3 months, but clearly an endemic issue with Sky.

Ravster - Had the switchover today from BT to Sky Talk, how long did you wait before attempting to re-order Fibre?

fozzybear · 21 Jan 2013 at 19:39

MehulLakhani said:
Ok

This might sound dumb, but how do they fit a new line ? Do they actually take out all the old wiring, and run a new cable back to the cabinet ?

R

Mehul

I haven't got a clue.

The previous line was just cut away and binned. They spent some time up a ladder and back and forth from the cabinets. I'm sure there was a lot more work involved than it seemed.

What a difference compared to Three 3G mobile broadband!

Redgie · 22 Jan 2013 at 22:37

Just hacked my modem to get my real line stats and noticed something a little odd:

xdslcmd: ADSL driver and PHY status
Status: Showtime
Retrain Reason: 0
Max: Upstream rate = 7392 Kbps, Downstream rate = 39628 Kbps
Path: 0, Upstream rate = 7392 Kbps, Downstream rate = 32399 Kbps

Discovery Phase (Initial) Band Plan
US: (0,95) (868,1207) (1972,2783)
DS: (32,859) (1216,1963) (2792,3959)
Medley Phase (Final) Band Plan
US: (0,95) (868,1207)
DS: (32,859) (1216,1963)
VDSL Port Details Upstream Downstream
Attainable Net Data Rate: 7392 kbps 39628 kbps
Actual Aggregate Tx Power: 1.2 dBm 12.2 dBm
============================================================================
VDSL Band Status U0 U1 U2 U3 D1 D2 D3
Line Attenuation(dB): 7.4 43.3 N/A N/A 18.9 52.2 0.1

Signal Attenuation(dB): 7.4 42.8 N/A N/A 18.9 52.2 N/A

SNR Margin(dB): 6.1 6.1 N/A N/A 6.6 6.6 N/A

TX Power(dBm): -9.9 0.8 N/A N/A 10.3 7.8 N/A

Does this seem a little low to anyone else? The installation engineer checked the line and quoted around 115/35 as my attainable, and having an upload of only 7.5 attainable seems a little odd. Anybody?

OzZie · 22 Jan 2013 at 22:54

Got Sky Fibre (40mb) arriving Thursday.

Estimated line speed was 28-29mbps. Does this mean that i wouldn't be able to get (or worth bothering about) the Pro service for up to 80meg because my line doesnt support anything faster? Not sure how it works? Coming from 10 meg so it will be quite a bit faster hopefully. Glad to finally be on the fibre bandwagon at least!

Thanks.

MissChief · 22 Jan 2013 at 23:45

it would certainly suggest that I'm afraid ozZie. You're probably quite far from your PCP so it's the most your line can support.

OzZie · 23 Jan 2013 at 09:09

MissChief said:
it would certainly suggest that I'm afraid ozZie. You're probably quite far from your PCP so it's the most your line can support.

Ok, no problem. Makes it cheaper on the wallet, plus i'm a patient sort of guy.

Nikumba · 23 Jan 2013 at 20:59

Mine is due on Friday and quoted me 39-40Mb down so that isnt too bad, maybe when BT put different line cards in might get better but 40 be enough

Kimbie

Mr_Orange · 24 Jan 2013 at 09:54

As much as it pains me I may be looking at an AirPort Extreme Base Station to replace my Sky router. It appears to be the only one I can find that has gigabit ports, works with Sky's authentication and does 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless.

Anyone have any experience with them?

Nikumba · 24 Jan 2013 at 09:55

Mr_Orange said:
As much as it pains me I may be looking at an AirPort Extreme Base Station to replace my Sky router. It appears to be the only one I can find that has gigabit ports, works with Sky's authentication and does 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless.

Anyone have any experience with them?

Why do you need an Airport?

Is it for the wireless or the gig ports? If for hte gig ports, just by a cheap gig port switch and plug it into the sky router?

Kimbie

OllyM · 24 Jan 2013 at 10:00

Mr_Orange said:
As much as it pains me I may be looking at an AirPort Extreme Base Station to replace my Sky router. It appears to be the only one I can find that has gigabit ports, works with Sky's authentication and does 2.4GHz and 5GHz wireless.

Anyone have any experience with them?

Yes, I use an Airport Extreme on Sky Fibre and it works perfectly.

Mr_Orange · 24 Jan 2013 at 10:58

Nikumba said:
Why do you need an Airport?

Is it for the wireless or the gig ports? If for hte gig ports, just by a cheap gig port switch and plug it into the sky router?

Kimbie

It's more for the wireless with the gig ports as a bonus. I have considered a TP Link TL-WDR3600 as a possible alternative but it means farting around with openwrt.

OllyM said:
Yes, I use an Airport Extreme on Sky Fibre and it works perfectly.

Thanks for confirming it works!