Reply to: Replacing Sky Q hub/router with something better

[MonkeysUncle]

Thanks for the replies, the S4 and M4 look pretty much identical on the spec sheet. I will have a look at both.

Re virgin, when I spoke to them today the best deal was £64/month for my current M350 or £60/month for M500 + £5/month per Wifi Pod (I have 2)

I will go down the cancellation route and see if they come back with anything better.

[wattaj]

Re: leaving Virgin, I let their prices creep up without doing anything about it, mainly through inertia, until their most recent attempt to increase them made me do something. So I rang them and said I was planning on leaving, the customer service people offered the best they could but it wasn't enough so I asked them to cancel the contract. Assuming you're not still tied into a longer contract, that puts you on a 30-day notice period before it all comes to an end. Within a couple of days one of their UK-based retention people was on the phone and I managed to haggle them down to less than 50% of the current price, and immune from the increase they'd told me was going to happen. I now pay £30pcm for M125 and Talk Anytime calls.

I have just done something similar. I now have M125 @ £20pcm, but no calls as I don't need a land line. It was a bit of a phaff which was why I eventually went down the "cancellation" route, but I did get a free streaming box out of it as well.



-- Edit --
I was also given a Hub4, but it's been a bit tulip, so I'm going to go back to my Hub3 when I have some time.

[Snooky]

Hi all
Sorry to raise an old thread but looking at a mesh network.

With Virgin but my deal is about to come to an end and price is going to shoot up. Looking at switching.
One of the benefits of being with Virgin and O2 was free wifi pods which created a mesh. If I stay with Virgin these become a subscription cost

So looking at switching to another provider. Now that I have full fibre in my area I can get speeds as good as Virgin (circia 500) at half the price.
But i need a mesh network

Any recommendations on mesh networks?
I was looking at the TP-LInk Deco S4.

I'm with Virgin and use a TP-Link mesh system, but with M5s rather than S4s. They're very similar (see https://www.tp-link.com/uk/compare/?...C35616%2C35611).

It's worked well. Really easy to set up, a bit of trial and error placing the units to get them all talking to each other efficiently and also providing good coverage. They offer a decent app to control it all. The only thing I noticed is that I needed more units than they suggested to cover my property. It's a 5-bed with mostly block internal walls, they suggest 3 units, I've ended up with 5 to make sure I have strong Wifi right through. Probably could have got away with 4 but there was a deal on Amazon.

I initially tried a Google Mesh system but it would only work if I put the router in modem mode (not a big problem but TP-Link doesn't need that) and then it was very flaky - units constantly becoming unresponsive etc. By comparison TP-Link is brilliant.

Re: leaving Virgin, I let their prices creep up without doing anything about it, mainly through inertia, until their most recent attempt to increase them made me do something. So I rang them and said I was planning on leaving, the customer service people offered the best they could but it wasn't enough so I asked them to cancel the contract. Assuming you're not still tied into a longer contract, that puts you on a 30-day notice period before it all comes to an end. Within a couple of days one of their UK-based retention people was on the phone and I managed to haggle them down to less than 50% of the current price, and immune from the increase they'd told me was going to happen. I now pay £30pcm for M125 and Talk Anytime calls. I wanted to keep Virgin because it's been virtually bulletproof in all the years I've had it, all the way back to when it was NTL/Telewest. So if you're happy with Virgin apart from their price, it might be a good idea not to sign up to something else immediately when you cancel, let them have a week to come back to you and offer you a much better deal.

[MonkeysUncle]

Hi all
Sorry to raise an old thread but looking at a mesh network.

With Virgin but my deal is about to come to an end and price is going to shoot up. Looking at switching.
One of the benefits of being with Virgin and O2 was free wifi pods which created a mesh. If I stay with Virgin these become a subscription cost

So looking at switching to another provider. Now that I have full fibre in my area I can get speeds as good as Virgin (circia 500) at half the price.
But i need a mesh network

Any recommendations on mesh networks?
I was looking at the TP-LInk Deco S4.

[d000hg]

I miss the days when tellies took ages to warm up coz they had valves in them, rather than taking ages to boot up coz they've got microcontrollers in them.

Or telling you "you have to accept the updated terms to watch the TV"

[DoctorStrangelove]

I miss the days when tellies took ages to warm up coz they had valves in them, rather than taking ages to boot up coz they've got microcontrollers in them.

[d000hg]

Interesting thoughts guys, thanks.
People walking around the house will have all 4 SSIDs configured on their phones/laptops, so will automatically connect to the strongest available signal.

This is the area I've had problems and ended up using mesh. It may be things have improved but I recall Android had a specific bug where it wouldn't switch if it still had a connection (someone even showed me the code). Modern phones seem much better at this - they'll 'fill in the gaps' using 4G as well.

We were always finding we had to keep turning WiFi on and off on our phones/tablets as we changed rooms but if it's working, your setup does sound good for fixed devices. It's a fair point that most of your smart-plugs and TVs don't need to be jumping between mesh nodes.
One thing that really irritates me with the BT hub mesh thingies is you cannot tell a specific device to lock/prefer a given disc. You can go in and see which disc each device is connected to and sometimes things mess up - I think if a disc has a brief blip devices 'jump ship' and then don't return. Being able to have a mesh but override for individual devices would be a great idea IMHO.

[ChimpMaster]

Interesting thoughts guys, thanks.

My fibre speed is just shy of 67mbps on hard wired connections and on 5GHz wireless. It drops to around 20mbps on 2.4Ghz.

I've made a few changes recently and it seems far more stable. As mentioned in previous posts, I have a Sky Q router and 3 TP Link EAP225 APs which can act like a mesh. These are hard-wired to the Sky Q router via a POE switch.

I have given all APs unique SSIDs and the router has its own (different) SSID. I then went in and gave each of these its own wireless channel to operate from. So there is no crossover of channels on each of the 3 APs and the router, and each AP is uniquely named.

I then walked around the house and assigned my smart plugs and lights to the AP closest to it. I did the same for the Sky Q boxes and other 'fixed' devices. This spread the load across all the APs. I have very few devices now connected to the main router directly.

People walking around the house will have all 4 SSIDs configured on their phones/laptops, so will automatically connect to the strongest available signal.

This set-up has been running very well over the past 10 days or so. I don't think it's ideal because at some point the 64 device limit will be a problem again, but for now it appears to be stable.

[WTFH]

But one assumes with that many devices, the majority are IoT smart-plugs and whatever which use minimal data. You might easily end up with loads of content devices too if you all have phones and tablets and a TV in each room (it's crazy how it adds up really) but you won't be using them all at once. And Watching Netflix in top quality needs something like 20Mbps - let's say 50, so there seems like quite a lot of headspace in terms of pure throughput. Although 600mbps for WiFi is pushing it, I would guess. Half that seems more likely on a sustained level.
For most people, the internet is the limiting factor and most of their WiFi use is just internet use.

I would agree the limits are probably quite arbitrary

Yes, there should be more than enough performance from the Wifi.

Should be...
But, I'm wondering about other factors now as well. He mentions multiple Sky-Q boxes. If these are streaming UltraHD , then each one is 30Mb (according to Sky). Equally, what is the internet download and upload speed that he's actually getting?
And what are all the devices? How many are Amazon/Google/etc devices? How many could be wired in by putting a hub in a bedroom to cover the TV, games console, computer, speakers, etc etc?

The advantage of mesh is that as you move around you just connect to the strongest signal, but if you're not moving around then the best way to get a fast connection is by cable, not wifi.

[d000hg]

But one assumes with that many devices, the majority are IoT smart-plugs and whatever which use minimal data. You might easily end up with loads of content devices too if you all have phones and tablets and a TV in each room (it's crazy how it adds up really) but you won't be using them all at once. And Watching Netflix in top quality needs something like 20Mbps - let's say 50, so there seems like quite a lot of headspace in terms of pure throughput. Although 600mbps for WiFi is pushing it, I would guess. Half that seems more likely on a sustained level.
For most people, the internet is the limiting factor and most of their WiFi use is just internet use.

I would agree the limits are probably quite arbitrary

[WTFH]

I read capacity as meaning data throughput... devices like the Eero support >100 devices. I'm not sure if your Sky router would allow 100 devices on the mesh setup or that would hit its 64-device limit still, is that what you were referring to? I couldn't say if your hub limit is on total devices or total devices its inbuilt WiFi supports but this would seem an important distinction and I wouldn't be surprised if the limit is the latter in which case you'd be OK.
In fact if most home modems had a limit of 64 devices full-stop, the Eero's 100+ Wifi device selling point wouldn't be much use

I suspect it's 64 devices connected to a single wifi connection on a router.

...and I could well be wrong, but I suspect speed will play a part here. A wifi connection of 600Mbps (on a clear day with no obstacles) should deliver that speed to 1 device connected to it. If you have 60 devices connected, does each one get 1/60th, i.e. 10Mbps, when they all try to receive data? And if there are obstacles such as walls, etc, then 600 will drop down a lot lower.
So I wonder if the limit is a throttle on the number of connections put in place by the manufacturer to stop the users complaining about poor speed.

For performance I'd say wire in what can be wired, mesh the rest, and maybe set up a network on a dedicated channel for some items that need wifi but don't move.

[Lance]

rather than trying to find a solution make it Sky's problem.
I have considered Sky an awful broadband provider for many years, but when you get internet and TV from them, and it requires their network to work, make it their problem. Just tell them to fix it or you're cancelling.

[d000hg]

My first post said The main problem is concurrent connections far exceeding the limit of 64 on Sky routers. Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but for sure the challenge I face is with capacity and the the need for > 64 connections to the 'net.

I read capacity as meaning data throughput... devices like the Eero support >100 devices. I'm not sure if your Sky router would allow 100 devices on the mesh setup or that would hit its 64-device limit still, is that what you were referring to? I couldn't say if your hub limit is on total devices or total devices its inbuilt WiFi supports but this would seem an important distinction and I wouldn't be surprised if the limit is the latter in which case you'd be OK.
In fact if most home modems had a limit of 64 devices full-stop, the Eero's 100+ Wifi device selling point wouldn't be much use

[ChimpMaster]

You hadn't mentioned capacity as an issue?
Non-mesh APs are a POS in my experience, you basically have several WiFi networks running.
There's also the capacity of the link between AP/mesh devices.

I would turn the WiFi off on my router, throw APs in the bin and buy 1/2/3 mesh units depending on the size/construction of your house.

My first post said The main problem is concurrent connections far exceeding the limit of 64 on Sky routers. Maybe I wasn't clear enough, but for sure the challenge I face is with capacity and the the need for > 64 connections to the 'net.

My APs can act as a mesh if I give them all the same SSID and apply Band Steering, but for now I prefer to keep them separate so that I can assign devices to specific APs. They actually do a really good job... it's the Sky router that is giving me headaches.

I'm playing with the config and have now assigned different bands to each AP (they were on Auto before).

I'm going to leave the router Wifi on for now, but my next test will be to stop advertising its SSID and then I will connect only a small number of devices to it. All other/new devices will connect only to the APs.

If that doesn't help then I will switch off the router Wifi and use only the APs.

[d000hg]

A mesh won't increase the capacity of the network though will it?

So in my case is it best to disable and replace the Sky router with something like Eero, while keeping my 3 Access Points running?

You hadn't mentioned capacity as an issue?
Non-mesh APs are a POS in my experience, you basically have several WiFi networks running.
There's also the capacity of the link between AP/mesh devices.

I would turn the WiFi off on my router, throw APs in the bin and buy 1/2/3 mesh units depending on the size/construction of your house.