Can you use your own equipment with Sky Broadband?

rob5ta

Hi everyone,

As per the title of this thead, i am trying to find out whether it is possible to use your own wireless router with Sky Broadband, or if you have to use their supplied Netgear?

I have my MAC code, and am still on tenderhooks as to whether to take the plunge and go for it, or stay on my rock solid 8MB Nildram service.

I can get Sky's 16MB Max product for £10 per month which equates to a £15.99 per month saving compared to the £25.99 i am paying Nildram at present.

Sky's customer service seem to "think" that i will be able to use my Draytek router with Sky BB, but i dont want to risk not being able to without confirmation from people out there "you" as to whether it is possible due to the fact their tech support team are rumoured to be useless!

If anyone could help me out here it would be appreciated. In short i just want to know the answer to 2 questions.

1. Does anybody on this board use a non-sky supplied router for Sky BB, if so have their been any issues?
2. Is it worth the switch, or is it really that bad?

Cheers for any advice, and Happy New Year in advance!

Rob

Browntoa

got the feeling that you can only use theirs

Sky supply the router with all your connection details pre-entered, and stop you from logging into the router to change them, apparently. It's based on a Netgear DG834G, but Sky have replaced the firmware with their own version to disable certain "features".

gavinp

The Sky router is a Netgear DG834GT with custom firmware which I understand is a completely different beast to the DG834G (despite the confusingly similar name!).

Sky do not allow you to see the ADSL username and password hardcoded into each router but it can be extracted in a few seconds:

http://www.asininemonkey.com/netgear-dg834gt-hacking.html#URL_Injection

Sky specify you must use their router in their T&Cs but I have connected successfully using my old router.

Is your Draytek ADSL2+ ?

A useful site for more detail on Sky broadband:

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/

Thanks

Gavin

rob5ta

Hi Guys, thanks for the responses.

Gavin, to answer your question, yes i have a Draytek Vigor 2800 ADSL 2+ compliant router.

If Sky dont support the use of other routers, then that is fine. The Draytek cost me an arm and a leg, and is in my opinion one of the best routers out there, and i utilise a lot of the features including QOS so switching to their inferior Netgear is not an option.

Have you had any issues with Sky BB in general, or has it been fairly reliable?

i am still 50/50 about actually doing the switch.

Rgrds

Rob