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New Sky Hub promises better wireless connectivity
Monday 15 October 2012 12:23:28 by Andrew Ferguson

The existing Sky Sagem 2504n routers are now last years model, as Sky has launched a new device that is promising better wireless coverage for ADSL2+ and fibre services.

Hub is ~15cm high (Click image for larger version)

The new Sky Hub will be supplied to all new Sky Broadband customers from 18th October, and existing customers wanting to upgrade will have the option to buy one for £39 (plus £2.18 delivery - price rises to £69 in three months time).

Other than looking very different to the exist model the main changes are that the new hub includes 2 MIMO antenna supporting a single 802.11n WiFi certified channel and has dynamic wireless channel hoping to try and avoid interference in the crowded 2.4GHz spectrum. Unlike most consumer routers that use a power brick the power supply is built into the router which is based on a Broadcom 6362 chipset. The four port Ethernet switch is apparently still only a 10/100 device, which with Gigabit Ethernet becoming more common on home networks is a bit of a disappointment, as is the lack of 5GHz wireless.

The same router will be used on the Sky Fibre services, with the ADSL2+ port being disabled and one of the LAN ports re-purposed as an Ethernet WAN port. We are endeavouring to get hold of a review unit, so we can test the wireless speed and coverage claims and delve deeper into the various configuration options of the hub.

[ Topic: Hardware | 23 comments | link to this item ]

Comments

Posted by FlappySocks 7 months ago
What are Sky doing to compete with BT & TalkTalk with their YouView boxes? This doesn't look like it.

Posted by Termina24 7 months ago
Still no Gigabit very poor come on Sky.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) 7 months ago
@FlappySocks

The Sky+HD boxes offer the main catchup systems now, in addition the Sky channels, and the Sky Movie store, this is across all broadband providers.

So not sure what more you expect the broadband router to do in this respect? Interested to hear though.

Posted by adslmax 7 months ago
Without a gigabit lan and without 300/450 megabir wifi and without IPv6 is very poor by sky overall.

Sky is going backward to 20th century!

Posted by mitchja 7 months ago
£69 for that router....are Sky for real??

Agree with others, no gigabit LAN or dual band WiFi - yet more Sky broadband router junk.

Posted by pcoventry76 7 months ago
Skyuser have known about this (and been discussing it) for the last 6 months. Why are you always one of the last to know?

Posted by Kr1s69 7 months ago
Do BT/Talktalk routers do gigabit LAN?

Posted by wayneandleanne 7 months ago
If i remember correctly the homedud 3 had gigabit ethernet

Posted by snadge 7 months ago
the info says BCM6362 chipset, when in fact its a BCM6361 chipset (same but without DECT compatability) - I have been testing this router for months..nothing special, it syncs a touch faster than the 2504N, the wifi is a little bit better but not a great deal, its "basically" a 2504N with an extra antenna & auto channel selection (that runs checks continously rather than once at startup like previous routers)

£69 is a joke! and all the testers were disapointed too see no 5Ghz, 40Mhz mode or 1Gbit Lan

Posted by adslmax 7 months ago
@ mitchja - can purchase your own router rather than rubbish sky router! Only if sky allow to tell you what is your dsl username and password is.

Posted by chris6273 7 months ago
Posted by Kr1s69 about 1 hour ago
Do BT/Talktalk routers do gigabit LAN?

Yes, the BT HomeHub 3 has a Gigabit port on it.

Posted by mitchja 7 months ago
@adslmax, yeah I do already have these details, although I only use my Sky router (2504N) as the ADSL modem and nothing more. I use an Apple Time Capsule for the WiFi which does offer gigabit and full dual band 450 mbit/s WiFI

Posted by andrew ( staff member) 7 months ago
@pcoventry76 Have known about the SR101 for some time, just not had official launch dates/pricing to now.

If I did every rumour/price offer we would have 30+ items a day

Posted by izools 7 months ago
So they've replaced a router that is limited to only 2.4GHz Wireless and 100Mbit LAN with a router... that's got the same limitations. I'm confused.

Sky: Once cheap crap, always cheap crap. The only time I'd ever go for Sky is if I was on an exchange with no 24CN and no Fibre and the only LLU provider was them...

Posted by speedyrite 7 months ago
Have been beta testing SR101 on Sky Fibre since June. Agreed that it's no better spec'd than the Sagemcom 2504n that it replaced, but one good plus for me was that I found the SR101's wireless signal strength better around the house than the 2504n. And it's got the "smiley face" Sky+HD light - ohhh, bless!

Posted by chrysalis 7 months ago
ouch, sky followed BT and VM then making horrible stand up routers (I want mine flat). Can people still use their own router's on sky FTTC?

Posted by zyborg47 7 months ago
why is it that any router that comes out we are told that the wi-fi is better and can go further? there got to be a limit and if it goes any further I will be able to receive a signal down the end of my road. i want the signal in my house. I also seen else where sky saying about WPS, I have never ever got WPs to work, i always had to to it all manually.

Posted by Spectre_01 7 months ago
^ WPS works fine for me, suggest your PC is the issue.

LOL at the Sky hub, looks like the BT Hub 1.5 from several years ago.

Posted by phead 7 months ago
@adslmax, this is incorrect, you can work out what the username/password is, the limitation is that only some routers support the auth method used.

I use a TP-Link TL-WR1043ND Gigabit Router, running dd-wrt (on fibre)

Posted by jroadley 7 months ago
So guess who just got SKY Broadband.. and has the Sagem router.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) 7 months ago
Hope to have a mini review ready for Thursday/Friday. As in do the usual performance testing to see how the wireless manages

Posted by slackshoe 7 months ago
@adslmax

Despite only being 150mps, the Sky Hub has the best throughput of any other major ISP's router, see http://www.sky.com/shop/terms-conditions/broadband/sky-hub/

For the vast majority of users, Gigabit ethernet is not even remotely important.

ipv6, why is this an issue? Nobody needs it for their home/private network. If/when Sky shift their backbone to ipv6, they'll do a firmware upgrade, if the routers don't support it already.

One thing I do agree on, is the price. £40 is barely justifiable, £69 is ridiculous. Will be interesting to see if they stick to that come january.

Posted by andrew ( staff member) 7 months ago
We have run one of the new routers through its paces and put a review online already.

http://www.thinkbroadband.com/hardware/reviews/77-sky-router.html

Includes a comparison to the Sagem 2504n on wireless performance.