Sky Superfast Broadband which Netgear Nighthawk

Question

Hi Folks&nbsp;I am looking for recomendations. &nbsp;We have Sky Superfast broadband with their standard sr203 router which is BAD! &nbsp;We have dropouts and after research have come to realise there is a fundamental issue with a heavily connected home.&nbsp;&nbsp;My technical knowledge in this area is woefully out of date, so please bear with me. &nbsp;We have at least 30 devices and want to expand our home with more. &nbsp;We have two fairly intensive gamers in the house and two adults that are forced to work from home and require stable internet connections - which we currently aren't getting through the sky router. &nbsp;(We are getting good speeds into the house but not around the house.)&nbsp;I have seen on the sky forums that the sky performance is greatly improved by adding in a netgear router and effectively using this instead (connected back into the sky sr203). &nbsp;However, which one would you recomend?&nbsp;Does anyone have experience of this setup?&nbsp;&nbsp;Would it be better to ditch the sky router completely (and is that possible?)&nbsp;&nbsp;Thanks in advance&nbsp;Charlie

Charliebird · Answer

Thank you. &nbsp;I don't think it is the distance so much as the fact that the Sky router has an issue with more that 10 devices connected - it causes a drop out. &nbsp;It is a known Sky issue (not widely publicised by Sky). &nbsp;We have a booster which Sky provided which gives the coverage. &nbsp;But when more than 10 devices are being used concurrently we get drop outs and unstable internet. &nbsp;Which has led me to consider replacing the router.&nbsp;

plemans · Answer

Its a good consideration.&nbsp;Not sure if you can replace the skybox entirely, it'd depend on their compatible gateways but you should be able to connect a router to the sky device. Just depends on if the sky gateway has a passthrough/modem only mode or if you'd need to use a dmz option.&nbsp;How big is the home?&nbsp;What are the interior walls made of?&nbsp;What speeds do you subscribe to (and actually get)?&nbsp;Reason I ask is it'd change what router i'd recommend. AX devices are great but if you don't have the need for them, sometimes a higher end AC router or mesh system is better.&nbsp;

plemans · Answer

You might be better off investigating a mesh system like a triband orbi. If you're getting good speeds where the router is but not at distances, then a mesh might be better off.&nbsp;

Charliebird · Answer

Unfortunately the Sky router doesn't have a modem only mode. &nbsp;Not sure whether it is relevent but I am aware we need&nbsp;MER (IPoE) to authenticate and In order to pass authentication we would need to clone the SKY router's WAN MAC address to the interface, and then pass DHCP option 61 and 60 - client-id and class-id. &nbsp;(I have pulled this off other forums and will need to explore how to do this as its stretching my knowledge somewhat!!!)&nbsp;&nbsp;We have a 4 bed detached house. &nbsp;There has been some extension work so internal wall are a mix of breeze block and stud walls (a few steels around too!!)&nbsp;&nbsp;On the whole we get reasonable speeds to the router. &nbsp;In fact a speedtest now show 80Mbs download. &nbsp;Our guarenteed speed is 51Mbs. &nbsp;&nbsp;Our Sky Q setup already provides a mesh through the SkyQ mini boxes (if you are familiar). The mesh can be turned off if required. &nbsp;&nbsp;Thanks for your help so far!&nbsp;

plemans · Answer

michaelkenward&nbsp;knows 10x more than me about the dsl side of things based of the posts. I'd just confuse the issue. :)&nbsp;&nbsp;If you can get a router connected to the sky setup with everything forwarding properly, I'd probably look at a mesh system versus a single router solution, especially if you're using one now.&nbsp;You put its a 4x bedroom but not size.&nbsp;Breeze block as in cinder block or in decoration? Cement/brick/concrete tend to do a great job of blocking wifi.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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Sky Superfast Broadband which Netgear Nighthawk

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