SKY broadband being outrun by snails

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Over the last few weeks or so, my SKY broadband has been getting slower and slower, dropping connections, lots of yellow flashing lights, etc, etc.

I've done all the usual, switching it off to let it cool down, it's plugged into the master socket via a filter, I've changed channels (as the cordless phone was also being effected by it) and tried with different hardware.

However, it doesn't matter whether it's a macbook, iphone or anything else (and I keep everything switched off when I'm not actually using it, eg, the Wii), the connection falls over multiple times a day now.

I've tried dealing with SKY before, but the last gobbledegook from their online help (it read like one of those assembly instruction booklets from South Korea in the 1970s) system left me wishing for a zombie apocalypse.


I got this


Port Status TxPkts RxPkts Collisions Tx B/s Rx B/s Up Time
WAN MER 456781 499598 0 0 0 27:09:38
LAN 13290 71424 0 0 0 32:19:47
WLAN 583030 467547 0 0 0 32:19:22


ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 7011 kbps 945 kbps
Line Attenuation 36.0 db 19.7 db
Noise Margin 13.6 db 13.7 db


Any advice?



(oh, and I've checked my laptop isn't cluttered up with too much crap on the hard drive, and the iphone has over 2 gig empty space on it. And I switch it to airline mode if I want to do anything on the laptop when the dreaded yellow flashing light starts doing its disco impression)

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

And doing one of those online tests, I got 4.20Mb/s, 0.67Mb/s and 58ms

and 1.22Mbs, 0,6mbs and 77ms respectively.

tomthered

I take it that the laptop is accessing it wirelessly if so are you using Sky's own router? If so the first thing to consider is a replacement router that is decent. I heard some of the linksys routers give good speed via wireless. Do you have a friend that has a router you can borrow?

If so you can plug one ethernet cable into the Sky router and then into yours. Go into the new router settings page and turn off DCHP. This should allow it to piggyback the Sky network, pick up an internet connection and retransmit. See what speeds this gives.

Have you actually used an ethernet cable to connect to your router vioa laptop and see what speeds you get?

If the above works and you get better speeds then consider a new laptop. See Skyuser forums for more info.

Alternatively consider a Netgear router that will take DGTeam firmware, upgrade it and you will be able to log into BT's DSLAM to reset your profile to a lower SNR giving a faster connection. This will need to be tweaked but I would have thought with a line attenuation like yours you should get a lot better speed than that or are you on up to 8 meg?

That Noise margin can be halved a still keep a connection.

ktothema

Bear in mind that not using sky's own routers is in contravention of their t&cs.

But definitely try plugging in via Ethernet and seeing if you can get a stable connection there. We had a similar issue a while ago and they found something at the exchange. Our wireless problem went further than yours and never fully resolved without us plugging in a cable router to the sky box, but the internet did become stable after that.

Try calling sky though, they're far better on phone despite the fact you MA have to repet your issue to several people.

penrhyn

You are syncing at 7mbps, have you tried checking your speed with an ethernet connection?
Also have you tried rebooting and rechecking the router stats, the downstream noise margin should be around 7db, with a higher sync speed.
I would of thought around 12mbps.
If it won't go faster you need to get on to CS armed with the figures and get them to manually adjust the sync speed for you.

[Deleted User]

tomthered wrote: »

I take it that the laptop is accessing it wirelessly if so are you using Sky's own router? If so the first thing to consider is a replacement router that is decent. I heard some of the linksys routers give good speed via wireless. Do you have a friend that has a router you can borrow?

If so you can plug one ethernet cable into the Sky router and then into yours. Go into the new router settings page and turn off DCHP. This should allow it to piggyback the Sky network, pick up an internet connection and retransmit. See what speeds this gives.

Have you actually used an ethernet cable to connect to your router vioa laptop and see what speeds you get?

If the above works and you get better speeds then consider a new laptop. See Skyuser forums for more info.

Alternatively consider a Netgear router that will take DGTeam firmware, upgrade it and you will be able to log into BT's DSLAM to reset your profile to a lower SNR giving a faster connection. This will need to be tweaked but I would have thought with a line attenuation like yours you should get a lot better speed than that or are you on up to 8 meg?

That Noise margin can be halved a still keep a connection.

Why are you recommending people to double-NAT? This is a no-no in every way and will likely cause further headache.

macman

First thing to do is see if the problem goes away when connecting by ethernet. If it does then it's purely a wireless issue and up to you to sort, not Sky.
Have you swapped out your filters for known good ones?

prowla

tomthered wrote: »

Alternatively consider a Netgear router that will take DGTeam firmware, upgrade it and you will be able to log into BT's DSLAM to reset your profile to a lower SNR giving a faster connection. This will need to be tweaked but I would have thought with a line attenuation like yours you should get a lot better speed than that or are you on up to 8 meg?

You can't use a non-branded router with Sky.

(Well you can, but (a) you have to crack the login info in the supplied router, and (b) Sky will pull the plug on you if they find out. Do you think the OP looks like that's their thing?)

prowla

As the others say, connect to the router with an Ethernet cable and see how it goes.

You may be able to connect to your router's status page using your web browser (I think that typing http://192.168.0.1 into your address bar and entering the administrator name and password that should be on the label on the router should do it).

If you can, then you will be able to see the connection speeds given - mine says "DownStream Connection Speed 5691 kbps", which is about normal for me.

So if you are getting something like that then it is not a problem with the Sky service, and is either a problem with the router's wireless interface or something interfering with it or dil;uting the signal (wireless doesn't like going through walls).

penrhyn

OP has posted their router stats:

" ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 7011 kbps 945 kbps
Line Attenuation 36.0 db 19.7 db
Noise Margin 13.6 db 13.7 db

Looks like they have been capped for some reason.

GunJack

the key here is the "dropping connections and flashing yellow lights" bit in the OP. Line instability like this will trigger sky's DLM into upping the snrm and therefore slowing the connection. Change microfilter first, then work through this:-

http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/socket.htm

and if still no better, contact sky with the fault.