Faster internet seems more laggy

B0bbyEwing

I had a BT Smart Hub 2 on a 300mb connection and it was pretty smooth tbh. No complaints other than the monthly fee was getting out of hand.

Moved to a Sky Max Hub on a 900mb connection. Just connected it up about 4hrs ago & I've noticed a few differences already and none of them are good.

I was on my PC (wired connection) and I had open a number of tabs and was saving images from these tabs. Before Sky I'd right click & save the photo and then shut the tab and move to the next tab & repeat. Today I'd click to save but then it'd pause / semi-freeze right after saving the image - so I basically had to wait a couple secs before I could close the tab.

Home security cams are struggling to connect to the router.

On Facebook on my mobile. I'll view a post, go to the comments. Before Sky these would just load. Tonight there's like a huge buffer before they eventually load.

The security cam thing is obvious. The other 2 I have no hard evidence it's a Sky thing, it's just coincidental to me.

Why would I be experiencing this trouble when their router is supposed to be better & the speed 3x faster?

Neil_Jones

The Sky Max Hub is the SR213 and like most ISP routers its generally regarded as being a piece of junk for the most part. Most Sky routers over the last few years were woefully lacking in the Wi-Fi department and the SR213 is probably no exception.

Woodstok2000

4 hours is very little time, give it a few days and most issues will likely settle down. If not, give sky a call.

david29dpo

I have always found the free router crap, wouldn't have it in the house!

The best I have found are second hand Apple Airports, can't get them new now, and cheap.

B0bbyEwing

The BT router I used was totally fine (imo). Obviously that doesn't mean the Sky router will be but just saying I thought the BT one was fine.

Google suggests it's a known issue that the WiFi extender I have has compatibility issues with the Sky Max Hub so that's great, not. Due to the 5G band that can't be permanently turned off. I can't remember if I turned it off on the BT SH2 but whether I did or didn't there were no issues with the WiFi extender.

Problem with waiting a while is that runs the cooling off period down.

If I choose to buy a 3rd party router (probably TP Link because that's what the extender is also) then I'm guessing it's not just plug & play like how the Sky one is. How would I have it working with my Sky account?

Finally, just opening this forum on my phone now - it's like it had to think for a good few seconds before finally loading it. Pre-Sky it would've just loaded.

JSmithy45AD

All this nonsense about leaving it to "settle down" is just that, FTTP doesn't need to settle down at all.

@B0bbyEwing The Sky Max (SR213) is a pile of tosh and has serious issues at the moment, Sky's servers also seem to be having issues right now. The best advice is either to jump ship or accept that you need to purchase a wifi mesh system (disabling the Max wifi) or just replace the Max Hub entirely. If you do lose the Hub be aware that you'll lose the house phone as well.

Whether it's a plug and play situation depends on your local exchange setup and there's no way to determine which it is without swapping router first.

For now at least, google how to change the DNS servers that your PC uses, try Google or Cloudflare IP addresses. Then change the Sky Broadband Shield to 18 or off entirely.

Do you have Sky TV?

missile

I would ditch Sky and go back to BT or any other provider

sheenas

I would get a decent router, I have an ASUS router which works much better than the supplied router. It also has a decent speed test. I get over 900Mpbs up/down load speeds with a ping of 5ms with my provider. A ping of less than 10ms is excellent and would have low lag times.

flaneurs_lobster

When I swapped from BT FTTC to FTTP they wouldn't give me a new router to replace the Smart Hub 2 I'd had for years.

Spotted an EE Smart Hub 7 Plus for £25 (new) on eBay, bought on a whim. Immediate noticeable improvement in lag to laptops/phones/tablets - measured Wi-Fi speed on laptops went from 300 to 450+ Mbps (nominal 500 Mbps connection).

Don't know if the improvements are just a better design or use of Wi-Fi 6 (7 to one laptop).

Plenty of the EE routers on eBay, the associated Wi-Fi extenders are ridiculously expensive. Bit hooky in that none of this kit is officially on sale via retail.

B0bbyEwing

I've had a look & there's some Asus routers that connect direct to the ONT thingy & work.

But they're stupid money (£250-£750)

I see a couple people report the TP Link RX53 does this also (£60) but officially it doesn't, which makes it a gamble.

If I was to jump ship now then how do I go about that?

I don't want to cancel and have no Internet.

Do I just complete a switch as normal & because it's within the cool off I won't be billed?

flaneurs_lobster

Seems a bit drastic to cancel.

Assume you had to return the Smart Hub 2? The internet says that a SH2 will probably work OK with Sky FTTP, buy another on eBay - from a tenner up to not much more.

Don't say if you are using VOIP via the router - that SH2 won't work.