SKY WIRELESS / INTERNET

[colin.carter]

Hi All.

I've had BTinternet for about 5 years and worked perfectly.
Cabled into upstairs bedroom PC then wireless throughout the house without issue.

I switched to Sky about 2 months ago and had nothing but trouble.
Constant dropped connections, very poor coverage of wireless so I often cant connect in the living room anymore. It's driving me bonkers.

Anyone with any experience??
Is it all crap or am I just unlucky.
Anyway to upgrade / boost the wireless signal from the Sky router or replace with something else?

I have spoken to Sky many times but get little sense.
I have changed filters and even connected direct into the main BT line in so disconnecting all phones, extensions etc but still the same.

Any advice before I go back to BT!!
Cheers
Colin

 

[Slowdown]

Get BT to do a line test?

Can you swap a router with a neighbour?

 

[roddy]

when you say dropped connections do you mean the PC drops off the network or you lose the broadband connection ?

if it's losing the network, doing a line test won't make any difference to this type of connection issue. it maybe worth checking what wireless protocol the Sky router is using 'B' is the older type and doesn't give good range 'G' is the newer type and should give enough of a signal inthe average home.

If you losing the broadband, then get BT to check the line.

 

[Radar_UK]

A friend had issues with his Sky broadband keep dropping off and he was advised (by Sky) that he should cap the connection speed to 8Mb as opposed to trying to use the full 16Mb - had no issues after he did that but makes you wonder why they advertise it as a 16Mb connection if it doesn't work properly with it !!

 

[cookie]

sounds like you have two problems: poor wireless, + poor connection to the exchange.

Radar_UK says sky offer 16MB connection. sounds like sky have their own equipment at the exchange, they're using ADSL2, and you live a fair way away.
you might find getting sky technical support to up the target SNR of your line to 9db or even 12db might pay dividends.

there's no point in capping the connection speed, except it might be cheaper. your router will just sync at the highest speed it can. this is affected by the target SNR set for your line.

..or is it just dropped connections on your wireless network?

 

[colin.carter]

Thanks for the replies.

Having spent all day messing about it looks like it's wireless range that is the prob.
I dont use the upstairs study much as I'm to lazy and like to "work" in the downstairs living room. The PC upstairs is wired into the router and seems to be fine (although as mentioned I prob don't sit up there long enough to be completely certain).
The lap top seems OK when in the same room as the router and has full 5 bars showing as signal strength. As I walk away the signal drops off to 4 bars, halfway down the stairs it is 3 and by the time I sit on the sofa it is 1-2 bars and showing "low".

I have just called Sky to tell them all of this and they have talked me through changing the chanel from Auto to 11 although at first glance everything seems the same. If no better they have suggested trying chanel 6 then 1 but doesn't sound very logical to me if it is a range issue??

Also called into PC world and the techie guy say they hear this a lot on Sky and that they don't rate the Sky router / wireless box. He suggested a Belkin Wirelss G range extender which I dutifully handed over £50 (of company money) for. Got the thing home, pressed the instant fix button on the box and nowt happened - it wont talk to the router box. Only instruction says "auto connect will only work if the wireless router security is disabled" but doesn't say how to acomplish this. I fiddled about a bit but suspect I getting dangerously close to the point where it will NEVER work again!

Think I'll leave it for today and bugger off to the pub while more IT literate souls than myself ponder advice.

Cheers
Colin

 

[st247]

A couple of things. It may be worth changing the channels as advised, I had a similar problem with connecting to the Sky router on Dell laptops. The laptops don't like certain channels on the router and did drop the connection quite a lot.

As for disabling the wireless security you need to log into the router- you can do this by typing it's i.p address into your internet browser, enter your user name and password (default is usually admin and sky). Then you should be at the routers home page. Click on wireless settings on the left, and you'll see wireless security further down the middle section, click on disable, then click apply.

Be sure to restart your wireless security after you sort out the range extender or you'll end up with all and sundry borrowing your connection, as i'm doing now to one of the locals

 

[roddy]

your getting asked to change channels in case someone else nearby is using a wireless router on the same channel this can degrade the signal to a point it becomes useless, this can also happen with strong microwave signals as well.

You only really need to observe the channel 11,6,1 if you use other wireless equipment in the vicinity of the router, if you don't you should be able to use any channel.

HTH

 

[colin.carter]

Thanks guys.
Will try the chanel swapping idea for a few days and see if this helps.
Failing that I intend to have a go at disabling router security etc as outlined.

I may be gone for some time........................

 

[davedyer]

I've also got the Belkin range extender. It works - to a fashion - but then it's a Belkin.

The software that comes with it doesn't work. You need to connect it to your computer via a patch cable in order to configure it for WEP or WPA-PSK Encryption.

To do this without the software means going into your network connections and changing the IP address of your LAN port under the TCP/IPv4 (Vista) properties.

Remarkably the free Belkin tech support was good and talked me through setting mine up.

 

[ricardo]

I had connection problems with Sky wireless broadband and eventually found out I had a crappy old phone plugged into one of the sockets. Since replacing that I've not had any connection problems.

 

[colin.carter]

Thanks Dave. I will call Belkin helpline at weekend and have a go.

 

[colin.carter]

Just to feed back to everyone.
Changing chanels seemed to help a little.
Spoke to the Belkin helpline and have got the range extender working which also seems to help but again only a little. Might try moving it around but will prob leave it for now as things seem to have settled down.
Many thanks to all who assisted.
Colin