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Author Topic: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?  (Read 8749 times)

xreyuk

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Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« on: April 25, 2013, 10:59:25 PM »

So,

We've decided to move to Sky from Be* to save a bit of money, and wondered if there is anything I should know regarding Sky's service?

I've read something about Sky's DLM making it so I cannot adjust the SNR Margin with the DMT tool, is this correct? Is it advisable to make sure it runs it's training properly?

We have a very short line to the exchange, so short that we don't have a street cabinet, so I'm expecting high stats, because by tweaking Be*'s line, I got very close to 24Mb download. If I'm not allowed to tweak Sky's line, I'd like to make sure I get the best speed!

Also, do we know what chipsets the Sky equipment uses? Should I try and match the chipset, or go for a specific chipset for a short line? I'm planning on using my own router/modem but understand that this will require me to extract my login details from Sky's router somehow.

Any help appreciated if you think I should know anything else!

Thanks
xreyuk.
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kitz

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #1 on: April 29, 2013, 06:16:01 PM »

Sorry, only just seen this, but I think Ive answered some of your questions about routers and chipsets here.

Rizla is probably one of the best 'in the know' about the sky DLM and what its currently doing.. and theres a thread about his latest observations here.

HTH :) 
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xreyuk

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #2 on: April 29, 2013, 09:56:32 PM »

Hi Kitz,

Thanks, i've already been speaking to Rizla and saw that thread!

Thanks!
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snadge

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #3 on: April 29, 2013, 10:58:22 PM »

some stuff about sky:

1) the max speed you could get on sky via DLM is 22Mb, but sky have made changes recently and this may no longer be valid as ive heard of 23Mb syncs but this could be a 21Mb line on a 3db Noise Margin as sky support 3db noise margins now (as well as g.INP which is dynamic error protecion).

2) Sky's ISAM uses broadcom chipsets, theyre may be some older Globespan DSLAMs about still, one can use the vendor id command in telnet to find out what your connected too (providing your router allows telnet) - I wouldnt say its always true that matching the chipsets is best, each line and firmware is different, but I do know that long lines are best on Broadcom as they are good at keeping connections afloat on noisey lines.

3) Sky fix speeds to 'profiles' ..e.g. 16Mb profile... you can adjust your SNRM to get slower speeds but nothing 'higher' than your fixed profile speed... reps used to be able to set 20Mb profiles so those on lower speeds could tweak 'up' to higher speeds....but im sure rizla said they can only set 18Mb profiles now and i think this is right because I can not get above 18Mb on my line anymore when I play with the SNR, I used to be able to get 19Mb, my line speed is 16.5 on the default SNRM of 7db dependant on my current router, Iam on 18Mb profile...so I can tweak it UP too 18Mb.

4) Sky's DLM used to be pants - but apparantley its a lot better now, it used to sync really fast lines with quite low speeds... i seen a few 22Mb lines getting 12-13Mb etc - it was a common thing too, my 18Mb line ended up on15Mb, my friends 20Mb line ended up on 16Mb etc etc - one could get this amended with quick call to sky (sometimes) - but I think that DLM doesnt do this any more...I think!

5) during the first 10 days line training its best to leave the router turned on 24-7 so it can do its re-syncs at 2-4am (upping your speed every night by 2-3Mb until it reaches max)

6) yes you can generate your own login details to use your own router...the problem is you can not use the sky-hubs details to generate a login, it must be the older routers details.. you could buy a 2504N from ebay for £5-£10 just too use its details, what you do is enter the routers LAN MAC Address and WiFi password into here and it will give you a useable login which will work.

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xreyuk

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #4 on: May 01, 2013, 12:07:57 AM »

Thanks for the information Snadge. :)
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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #5 on: May 01, 2013, 11:17:04 AM »


3) Sky fix speeds to 'profiles' ..e.g. 16Mb profile... you can adjust your SNRM to get slower speeds but nothing 'higher' than your fixed profile speed... reps used to be able to set 20Mb profiles so those on lower speeds could tweak 'up' to higher speeds....but im sure rizla said they can only set 18Mb profiles now and i think this is right because I can not get above 18Mb on my line anymore when I play with the SNR, I used to be able to get 19Mb, my line speed is 16.5 on the default SNRM of 7db dependant on my current router, Iam on 18Mb profile...so I can tweak it UP too 18Mb.

4) Sky's DLM used to be pants - but apparantley its a lot better now, it used to sync really fast lines with quite low speeds... i seen a few 22Mb lines getting 12-13Mb etc - it was a common thing too, my 18Mb line ended up on15Mb, my friends 20Mb line ended up on 16Mb etc etc - one could get this amended with quick call to sky (sometimes) - but I think that DLM doesnt do this any more...I think!

5) during the first 10 days line training its best to leave the router turned on 24-7 so it can do its re-syncs at 2-4am (upping your speed every night by 2-3Mb until it reaches max)

6) yes you can generate your own login details to use your own router...the problem is you can not use the sky-hubs details to generate a login, it must be the older routers details.. you could buy a 2504N from ebay for £5-£10 just too use its details, what you do is enter the routers LAN MAC Address and WiFi password into here and it will give you a useable login which will work.


I'm not convinced that the Sky tier 2 support staff can set profiles above 16Mbps now (might be 18) - the reason being that they were just slapping profiles onto lines to hit their metrics (ie get the customer off the line ASAP).

As a result lots of people were ending up inappropriate profiles and that'd cause de-syncs. After a couple of DLM sample periods the speed would plummet back down. Cue clueless customer calling up again to say "you fixed it yesterday, do it again" - which in a lot of cases was exactly what happened. As you can imagine this isn't doing Sky or the customer any good.

So manual intervention is limited now and you won't get tier 1 support to do it at all.

The new DLM is the dogs wotsits  :)  Sky are gradually reprofiling all the lines again with the new DLM module.

I was under the impression that you could use wireshark to grab the auth details from the SR101 but as my SR101 is in bits* I have no idea if that's true or not. I guess you'd have to factory reset it so it goes back to autodetect ADSL/VDSL, can't see how you could sniff packets on the ADSL port - easy enough to grab them from the WAN ethernet port.

*best condition for it IMHO  ;D
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snadge

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #6 on: May 01, 2013, 03:38:06 PM »

actually Rizla you may be right about sniffing the packets for login from sky-hub, because use TableLeg has done so but i dunno what the score is there because he still uses the hub instead of his Netgear which he wanted to use??

to the OP in regards to your PM - In my experience MER isnt forced.. you can use either (if that isnt true then it is only certain exchanges/equipment that MER is forced on ADSL connections) - Sky routers will use MER if its enabled at the exchange, but put a 3rd party router in and it automatically switches to PPPoA, thats what happened to me and many others, also now my sky routers no longer use MER, they use PPPoA and we dont any FTTC at all...  but dont worry about it, Im pretty sure you will be able to use your own router on the connection.

I havent got any newer routers but ive tested a few and the Sky Hub was the fastest sync of them all...

here were my results (before DLM and/or ISAM firmware was changed which upped the speed further)

SPEEDS - ROUTER - CHIPSET
17.2Mb - Sky Hub SR101 - BCM 6361
16.9Mb - Huawei HG521 - Trend
16.8Mb - Sky Router 2504N - BCM 6362
16.4Mb - Huawei HG612 - BCM 6368
15.8Mb - Netgear DG834N - BCM 6358
15.3Mb - Netgear DG834GT - BCM 6348


Now I no longer have the hub but since upgrades at the exchange I get 17.4Mb on the 2504N (0.6Mb increase) and 16.5Mb on the DG834N (0.7Mb increase) - currently using the Netgear DG834N so i can access advanced stats and use RS-W on it - I can access 2504N stats too and it syncs nearly 1Mb faster but I seem to get more CRC's on it too and I cant use RS-W
« Last Edit: May 01, 2013, 03:41:18 PM by snadge »
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Aquiss - 900/110/16ms - TP-Link AR73

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #7 on: May 01, 2013, 04:23:20 PM »

You just clone the SR101 MAC to whatever router you're using and input the username/password that (I presume) gets sniffed when the router broadcasts a DHCP request over the ethernet connection.

The SR101 does have a JTAG connector for those of you who tinker.

Shame they didn't spend a few more pennies, put GigE on the ethernet ports and fit four antennae rather than two - although at least they are orthogonal with reasonable separation so the coverage doesn't suffer from as many "blind spots" as the Sagems. As I said in the beta-test forum, the router would be great if the year was 2010 - for 2012/2013 its not that capable.
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snadge

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #8 on: May 01, 2013, 04:32:49 PM »

@ Rizla - hehe @ 2010... I was under the impression that it did have 4 antenna?... Mind I did find that odd when I read it

Sent from my Sony Xperia Miro on Tapatalk

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Aquiss - 900/110/16ms - TP-Link AR73

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #9 on: May 01, 2013, 04:47:58 PM »

It doesn't have four antennae - that nonsense comes from a review Andrew over at TBB did last year. No idea why he said it had 4, at that point in time Sky were telling beta-testers it had 2.

It has two antennae labelled ANT3001 and ANT3002 and two cables connecting them via strain-relief to J3901 and J3902 respectively.

They are at least orthogonal and not obstructed by anything within the router. Decent first shot at designing a router, shame they designed it for 2010 is all :)
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snadge

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #10 on: May 01, 2013, 10:47:13 PM »

ah yes thats where it was.... wonder where he got that info from..
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Aquiss - 900/110/16ms - TP-Link AR73

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #11 on: May 02, 2013, 02:52:08 PM »

ah yes thats where it was.... wonder where he got that info from..

Ask him. He doesn't bite (Seb does that :P).
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snadge

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Re: Joining Sky Broadband - Anything I should know?
« Reply #12 on: May 02, 2013, 09:57:42 PM »

ah yes thats where it was.... wonder where he got that info from..

Ask him. He doesn't bite (Seb does that :P).

hmm, i cant find it on the review but I do remember reading it as it stuck as a selling point when i flogged it on fleabay hehe
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Aquiss - 900/110/16ms - TP-Link AR73
 

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