Poor sky router

denwyn

Been with Sky for about 2 years now, ok at first as all we had was desktop,but we have since then acquired a laptop, i have noticed signal wireless strength not really very good at all, it drops signal in some parts of the house, which is just a small semi by the way. Even in the same room as the router its never showing full signal, changed channels as sky recommend with no improvement. Sky customer service no help at all, they say i am not allowed to fit my own router, its a real pain now as i have just bought a Nexus 7 and her a Ipad, which both drop the connection when in other rooms. It cannot go on like this. Took laptop,ipad and tablet to neighbours to try he as a very old netgear router, and signal strenght is far better than my Sky router, all our stuff worked fine, even to taking the Nexus into the garden,not that i want to do anything like that. I think the easiest way out is for me to swap ISP's,which ISP offer the best routers, i would prefer one which does not lock all the passwords etc like SKY, so i could if i needed to i could by a good quality router I read its possible to get your details from the SKY router via some software download, don't really want to go down this route as it looks a bit of a risk to me. Need an ISP who offers unlimited downloads if possible,not wanting fibre optic stuff, its not available here for years yet, pay £15 a month now so needs to be about same cost. .

Toxteth_OGrady

ISP is irrelevant when it comes to wifi signal strength in your home; they have no control over it (apart from supplying a particular wireless modem/router).

You could get a wireless repeater/range extender.

penrhyn

My Sky supplied router works fine, I suggest you try scanning for interfering radio signals, and if you find one change the router's wireless channel.
Have you got a white one, an black one or the shiny two tone wireless n one?
Make sure you router is not located near any RF sources that could block the signal.

Download inSSIDer: - http://www.metageek.net/products/inssider-wifi-scanner/?utm_expid=190328-1&utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metageek.net%2F

I assume you know how to log in to your router.

ballyblack

I just bought one of the new N routers of SKY (shiny silver/black) of Sky for £35. A improvement in range over the old Sky (black) router.

My Nexus 7 works perfectly in a large house

I found it worked best by having it installed high up in the room and not sitting on the floor?

prowla

The wireless signal can be very dependent upon location in the house, and it doesn't like going through walls.

You can get an additional access point and attach it to the Sky box with an Ethernet cable. I did that to be able to separate things into two wireless networks.

denwyn

Toxteth_OGrady wrote: »

ISP is irrelevant when it comes to wifi signal strength in your home; they have no control over it (apart from supplying a particular wireless modem/router).

You could get a wireless repeater/range extender.

I do know the ISP has nothing to do with the wireless signal strength, just wanted one who supply better router than Sky or at least make it easy to use your own router

denwyn

prowla wrote: »

The wireless signal can be very dependent upon location in the house, and it doesn't like going through walls.

You can get an additional access point and attach it to the Sky box with an Ethernet cable. I did that to be able to separate things into two wireless networks.

Does that mean i can just add an additional router, at present the sky router is behind the TV, as thats the master BT socket, and only phone socket in the house,main pc is upstairs and fed by ethernet cable from sky router, can i connect my another wireless router to this then

ballyblack

Use a wi fi Extender such as

Plug it into any electrical socket to extend the Sky router range

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0055Y6PUA/ref=asc_df_B0055Y6PUA8976477?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&!!!!!googlecouk06-21&linkCode=asn&creative=22206&creativeASIN=B0055Y6PUA

prowla

The Router/Access Point (access point, rather than modem) would need an Ethernet input connection rather than a phone line (ADSL) input.

To clarify, I have:

1. Sky supplied Sagem ADSL modem/router/wireless.
2. Netgear FVG 318 Wireless VPN Firewall, which is an Access Point with router/firewall/wireless.
3. A wire running from one of the 4 Ethernet ports on the back of the Sky Sagem to the port labelled "Internet" on the Netgear.

When I first got ADSL, my router did not have WiFi, and I plugged into a separate wireless access point in exactly the same way as above.

denwyn

Thanks for all the advice, I'm not to well up on the techie stuff with routers,looking at maybe asking Sky if they will sell me one of there new routers as from what is said on here and what they say the wireless signal is much better,failing that i am going to switch to BT. The wrreless extenders and repeaters seem far to complex to set up, and i do not want the mains socket stuff, after lots of problems with it in my daughters house. Thanks everyone for all the help

penrhyn

So what router have you got then?
Why not try some of the suggestions?
Going to BT maybe something you'll regret, maybe not today maybe not tomorrow but soon and for the rest of your life.