Sky Fibre Max Upgrade Issues

iwb100

On Thursday we were automatically upgraded to Sky Fibre Max for free as part of Sky's roll out.

The day later I set up our new Sky Q router as instructed by Sky ahead of our Q TV engineer visit next week.

Our download speed is syncing (according to the server) at 58.5. We were told to expect 60-80 with a minimum acceptable speed of 54. Now given we are at 58.5 we are above the minimum. (Previously was 39.999 connection with wired speed of 38 on Fibre unlimited).

We get over wired 56MBps which is what you'd expect and about 52MBps over wifi (on average as obviously it fluctuates wildly).

I didn't think too much about the upgrade, didn't even know it happened as Sky said it would within the next week. Wasn't till I installed the Q hub router that I realised - only thing being that unplugging the old router probably impacted the DLM process.

The connection speed, whilst not in the expected range is not much of an issue - however, my pings have gone higher. On local speed test servers before sky fibre max we had a ping of 10-12ms. Now its 25ms consistently.

I understand this is probably due to interleaving applied by DLM, but what I don't know if whether this will ever resolve itself? Again its not a massive issue, except some of the games I play are now reporting higher latency and the odd latency error - things I never saw on the old (slower) Fibre connection.

Given we have a lowish connection speed and higher pings - does that suggest there is an issue on the line that means we are stuck with DLM and interleaving - or is there a chance this will resolve itself?

I know our SNRs are 6.3 for all downloads and 6.2 for all uploads (get upload sync of 19 something).

Chester

How are you conducting your ping test?  Are you doing this over WiFi or over wired Ethernet for example?

If that's cabled to a node on your ISP's (Sky's) network, that's pretty bad.  For example, a ping to a node on my ISP's network is sub 8m/s consistently.  But since local equipment has changed as well as service, you're better off getting advice from another Sky customer.

Still, let's rule out WiFi first.  Cheers...

iwb100

Ping is the same using ethernet or wifi.

And my previous 10-12ms ping was from wifi.

EDIT: Plugged the old router back in just to check and the ping is the same with that router. So whatever has caused the increase it isn't the local equipment in my house.

Chester

Ah OK.  Most likely points to the service then.  I'm not sure if there's much you can do.  It will be interesting to know if other Sky customers on the same service get the same latency as you.

Jackass

Crikey was thinking of changing from BT Fibre to Sky Fibre Max with their deal on just now.
But reading all these issues from others is making me think twice.

iwb100

It isn't that big of a deal. Our pings are a bit higher but this might resolve itself once DLM ends. The speed might also improve, but we are a fair way from the cabinet so I guess they might not.

Sky upgraded us for free so we've gone from (throughput) 35MBps to ~ 54MBps. For free. Can't complain even if the speed doesn't improve.

Chester

Your SNRs look OK, but what's the line attenuation?  That will give you an idea of copper cable length/quality.  Can you determine if your router is noticing errors or line disconnections?  If so, you may be right about DLM in which case waiting it out for 9 or 10 days seems to be the only thing you can do.

From what I've read, DLM thresholds can be adjusted which would result in a similar behaviour of re-profiling an ADSL service (as I used to ask for frequently a while back).  It's just a way of automating the system to find the best line speed with configured acceptable problems, like line drops.  I find this a little strange because I don't know that many people that think even 2 line drops during the day is acceptable, let alone something like 20!

So if this persists, I'd definitely get in touch with Sky to make adjustments.  It's not about complaining, it's about optimising, and in my experience it's much better to reduce the error rate to as close to zero as possible rather than driver the line harder.

Trollslayer

I just did a ping check (on ADSL at the moment) and www.yahoo.com was 34ms, google.com 28ms so what you are pinging can affect results.

Chester

Yeah, better to ping something on your ISP's network for more consistent results.  Otherwise ping tests may be traversing hell knows what, and that's dynamic too!

Trollslayer

Those pings were with IPv4, jsut tried pinging Sky (with them for broadband) and got an average of 27ms with IPv4.