MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
We just switched to Sky broadband which came with this absolute beauty:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/sky-hub-2013-review
(No gigabit, no dual-band, wifi broadcast not great).
I'd like to replace it but decent routers with built-in VDSL modems are still quite pricey, the Asus DSL-AC68U being one example at £180.
If I kept the Openreach modem I have and use a new router off that - would that be as good as using something like the Asus above? In other words, do the new built-in VDSL routers offer better performance - is that old Openreach modem any sort of bottleneck?
Wondered if people had any good router recommendations for fibre...
As long as you're using a decent router with its own WAN port you'll be fine with the Openreach modem.
The trouble you'll probably have is SKY wont give you the connection details you need to authenticate the Fibre broadband.
Bastards wouldn't when I wanted to use a Netgear router that didn't block VPNs or VoIP like the poxy SKY router did. I got around it, but it was a PITA.
Oh and with regards to routers, anything that is compatible with Cable connections will be fine.
Keep the cable between the BT modem and the master socket as short as you can(ish) - this makes a difference to the data speed.
The trouble you'll probably have is SKY wont give you the connection details you need to authenticate the Fibre broadband.
That was certainly true of the old routers. But you could work it out, there was a website which did the translation for you.
The other thing to note is that Sky absolutely do not support third party kit. If you ever have cause to ring them, you'd be well advised to put their router back in place first.
I bought an old BT Openreach modem off eBay for about £15 and run that along with the AC68U. Seems to work fine (just had a look at the modem and uptime now 154 days...).
You need to use a tool to extract your Sky username and password from the SR102 though.
You can get a TP-Link router with VDSL built in for £70. eg http://www.ebuyer.com/660501-tp-link-td-w9980-n600-wireless-dual-band-gigabit-vdsl2-adsl2-modem-router-td-w9980
Plus it has gigabit, dual band wifi etc.
Its neater to have one box plugged into the wall instead of two.
Just run a second router from the sky router
Put it in the DMZ , and connect everything to your second router
I have this setup on BT Infinity , have to use the homehub for BT Vision
I'm using a Draytek 2860, ADSL/VDSL modem built in with two additional WAN ports that you can connect to a modem and a 3G dongle for backup/load sharing, 6 x 1Gb LAN ports, WiFi, QoS and lots of other features.
A lot of people find that the router attached to the BT modem is the bottleneck rather than the modem, with lots of the lower end routers not having the grunt to handle the increased throughput that the FTTC provides.
BT Openreach are in the process of withdrawing the provision of the modem (similar to what happened with ADSL in the early days) this year so most providers will be going to an all in one unit of some description at some point (or already have)
Thanks all. Yeah the sky router is all in one and they're a bit ahead of the game there but it is pretty poor really. That Draytek sounds good but is a bit spendy, I'd rather lose the OpenReach modem if possible.
This looks promising:
? Should do what I need, support for AC as well.
Edit: Doesn't get great reviews 🙁
easiest and cheapest solution is just to get a decent wireless router with no modem built and connect to modem, you can also upgrade this as future technology improves.
Decent all in one units still might not be as good as a seperate solution and more expensive. no need to mess with wireshark either...
I went through the exact same thought process as you, after getting frustrated with the wifi quality of the sky router.
Best solution IMHO is....
Keep the open reach modem. This is not the bottleneck, the area that needs improving is the poor routing and wifi performance of the sky box
Discover your sky username and password by using wire shark ( Google how to find sky username and password, there are several guides and it's fairly easy).
Configure your wifi access point of choice with your sky username and password and connect to to the LAN port of the open reach modem - job done
I used an Apple AirPort Extreme, as I use Apple products and wanted a centralised backup via wifi solution too.
the sky box does the authentication, not the open reach modem, so whatever you use to replace the sky wifi box with, you will need to discover your sky username and passwordDecent all in one units still might not be as good as a seperate solution and more expensive. no need to mess with wireshark either...
BT routers are garbage in my humble opinion, I am doubtful sky is any better. Binned both mine as the wifi signal was atrocious and kept dropping out (on Macs). Replaced with a Draytek VDSL router- easy to set up, uber reliable and never once dropped a connection (well that I noticed anyway). Did the same for a friend as his BT router failed to reach his front room with a decent signal, whereas the Draytek gives him full signal through his whole house. Not the cheapest option I know but does the job 100% reliably out of the box.
yea my posts not that clear, not replacing the sr102 but just adding a wireless router after but cheaper and not apple..
Your method is certainly less cluttered and preferred to replace the sr102 but should have more choice and be cheaper to just add after it without performance loss.