Sky Broadband - all went wrong on May Day

ktothema

On May Day our phone and broadband went a little funny, and since then the broadband hasn't worked properly. In the last (nearly) 4 weeks we've suffered a sort of comedy of errors with Sky trying to get this fixed, which included them sending a BT telephony guy out to fix a noise issue. He tested our line for everything but they "don't do noise - that's the broadband guys". But at least we know our phone line suffered no permanent ill effect.

In essence we're suffering with very intermittent broadband. Wifi is next to useless, and you can see wavering even when plugged into the router. We're on the third router from sky, which at least all our devices can see at a constant rate, if they can't connect to the wifi (9 very different devices I can immediately think of!).

With the first two routers we tried using an old cable modem as a slave and this got us useable but not stable wifi. With the latest router the slave and the router fail at the same time, so we're pretty sure this one is working - its something with the line.

We're at a bit of a standstill with sky who will not send someone appropriate to check our line, nor can they figure out from where ever their call centres are what the problem may be.

Looked at a similar post about o2, and downloaded inSSIDer. There doesn't appear to be a busy channel issue for us.

Anyone have any advice? and sorry for the long post.

penrhyn

Hi, some faults can be hard to locate, is it purely a wifi problem or is the router dropping the internet connection as well. Do you get drop outs when using an ethernet connection?
I assume you are connecting directly to the master socket, and have filters in all the right places, and don't have a cordless phone base station anywhere near the router.
Two things you could do, first post your router line statistics.
Here is a useful tool
http://www.skyuser.co.uk/tutorials/how_to_use_the_skyuser_router_stats_tool.html

Second if you suspect internet drop outs you can monitor the connection with Routerstats Lite.
http://www.vwlowen.co.uk/internet/files.htm

PS Is there still noise on the line, and does going off and on hook cause drop outs?

ktothema

Thanks for coming back. The router does appear more stable when using an Ethernet cable, however the speed wavers without the connection totally dropping. All the filters, etc are correct, we've got multiples of cables and filters so have tried with them all. The only thing we do have is a cordless phone which is near the router, but since this issue (we've had sky bband for a year with no issue) and before getting the latest router we've switched to a corded model. This has made little difference to the problem itself, but we wanted to ensure we were doing things by the book.

We rarely use our landline, so drop outs are happening independent of calls. The only reason we realised the line wasn't happy on mayday was it was cutting us out whilst trying to complain to sky about the broadband!!!

I'll try that dropout website, could be a really good bit of info - thanks! And the sky one.

ktothema

Oh, and the noise thing. We never noticed a noise, it was something sky picked up when they tested our line. I did notice clicking during calls which has stopped since the fix at the exchange happened. Sky haven't since retested our line, so god knows if this noise is still there (I have asked for a retest, they were reluctant).

duchy

Is the filter for the router connected to your master socket -and do you have TV connected through the same socket for interactive etc ?

Does it make any difference if you connect through the test socket inside the phone socket ?

Sky can check if the internet is physically dropping -ask them to check.

(Do call back and follow up otherwise Sky will just assume it's OK now-I wouldn't have a problem if I took a call from you on my shift with this -but I'd probably take you back and double check that everything had been checked properly and make sure you were in the test socket and not using extension cables first)

penrhyn

ktothema wrote: »

Oh, and the noise thing. We never noticed a noise, it was something sky picked up when they tested our line. I did notice clicking during calls which has stopped since the fix at the exchange happened. Sky haven't since retested our line, so god knows if this noise is still there (I have asked for a retest, they were reluctant).

Noise checks are easy, just call Zoe! Dial 17070

You can also get advise from Sky on Twitter
@SkyHelpTeam

ktothema

Duchy - yes, its the master socket. in the process of testing and line testing the test socket has also been used but there's been no difference to the broadband. our sky tv box isnt connected to the phone line anymore, we were told we didnt need to as its connected to the modem.

not sure whether to trust sky on the line stability as they've been insisting that the line is stable, but when this fix at the exchange happened I was told they'd seen we were receiving unstable broadband.

The programme suggested earlier seems to show our connection is quite stable now which is very good to know, as it would hopefully mean the issue wouldn't be replicated if we moved suppliers, and we're seriously thinking of this.

We're on top of sky at all times, am just hoping someone on here may come up with something that they haven't yet thought of.

Since posting earlier, i've moved the router so its further away from the phone. since then I have no wireless connectivity at all. the router struggles to pick up the internet, requiring several reboots.

there's something not right going on, I'm guessing its not a straightforward issue and most people at sky do appear to be trying to help. its just that its been 4 weeks nearly and we're no closer to solution.

penrhyn

Try plugging the router into the test socket.



Then post your router statistics.

ktothema

Are these the sort of stats you are talking about?

Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN MER 47202 63253 0 0 0 1:23:57
LAN Up 63409 58159 0 7918 1122 2:42:26
WLAN Up 17896 11068 0 67 0 2:42:04
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 5201 kbps 412 kbps
Line Attenuation 49.5 dB 30.3 dB
Noise Margin 6.1 dB 16.2 dB

This is from the master socket, not test btw. just wanna make sure they're the things you are after

ktothema

Decided to reattempt plugging in the slave cable router this am. Its only working, and hasn't dropped out at all on devices connected to it, where others can't connect at all to the sky router. Is it likely we're just being sent dodgy router after dodgy router?

penrhyn

These are the important bits.

Connection Speed 5201 kbps 412 kbps
Line Attenuation 49.5 dB 30.3 dB
Noise Margin 6.1 dB 16.2 dB

The key figures are your downstream sync speed @ 5.2mbps and the line attenuation of 49.5db and the noise margin of 6.1 db.
In an ideal world you should be getting around 6 -6.5 Mbps, however the modem is syncing just below its optimum of 7db suggesting the line may have some noise on it.
Do you have extensions wired to the back of the faceplate?
Try repeating the stats from the test socket.
Did you try the quiet line test?

BTW are you on Sky Connect or Sky Unlimited LLU?

I doubt there is anything wrong with the routers Sky have sent out. I found them to be reliable, always mount them vertically with plenty of room for air to circulate.