Sky's got a new broadband router, which it claims gives customers the best range of any major provider.
Dubbed the Sky Hub, this Internet-spewing box beats rivals when it comes to spreading signal over the furthest area -- handy if you're a fan of surfing the web from atop your neighbour's roof, or watching Netflix while ensconced in your solid steel panic room.
Sky says its best-range verdict comes via third-party research that compared its own toy with the likes of BT, TalkTalk and Virgin Media in a home environment.
I've asked Sky for more information on what exactly would make its router more capable than those of rival services and I'll let you know if I hear anything. I've also contacted BT for a response.
Update: Sky's been in touch to explain its testing procedures -- a third-party organisation pitted the range of Sky's device against BT's Home Hub 3, Virgin Media's Netgear VMDG480 and TalkTalk's Huawei HG533.
Speed was measured in various locations in an occupied house, with files sent from a server to a laptop via the router. During the tests, Sky says the location of the laptop and the orientation of the router was changed repeatedly.
The first test involved signal travelling from the most obstructed room in the house through two floors, a wall and an intervening room. The second test saw a 19m distance across a garden. On average, across both locations and router positions, Sky's Wi-Fi-pumping gadget was faster than its rivals.
The router itself is a monolithic block and sports four 100mb Ethernet ports for wiring in gadgets that need a cabled Internet connection.
The bad news is that getting your hands on this box isn't cheap. You can get it free if you join or switch to Sky Broadband from 18 October, but existing customers will need to fork out £39.
That price is only for a limited period, after which the cost jumps to £69. You'll also need to pay £2.18 for delivery.
At that price you could also consider getting something like the Netgear Wi-Fi Booster, which you can plug into the wall in rooms or parts of the house that don't receive great wireless signal. It can currently be snapped up for £35 at Maplin.
How's the Wi-Fi in your domicile? Can you download apps at the bottom of the garden or do you browse hunched over your router? Tell me in the comments or on our Facebook wall.
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Comments 15
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billfred 15 October, 2012 13:06
Seeming that when we tried to sign up with them they never even sent us a sodding router or engineer....
JohnsonDion1 15 October, 2012 13:54
I hate sky we are on it now and we dont even get half a megabyte a second!!!
anonymous 15 October, 2012 15:04
Yet another example of Sky ignoring their long standing and 'valued' customers. Cant wait for BT infinity to become available in my area then its adios sky broadband, TV and all the other over charged products that I am current buying from them.
anonymous 16 October, 2012 00:02
Sky was crap, was paying £50-£60 per month when new customers were paying £20 or £30 for same package - ok this was a few years ago but put me off sky for good and BT, who brag about their new cheap prices for broadband, but you have to pay extra for line rental (which is deliberately mentioned in small print) & who owns the line?............BT!!
anonymous 16 October, 2012 20:12
Pointless as Sky can not be bothered to update their own technology in the BT boxes. Had Sky for years but even though I'm BT infinity enabled (fibre) SKY just couldn't offer it to me, but could take my money to upgrade...
PS : BT infinity - not as good as they make you beleive.
anonymous 10 November, 2012 16:52
i am a coomplete novice just used to basics. i have sky hd and broadband package and use a lap top dow stairs.i have a compaq pc upstairs.what do i do or rather need to get sky to work on my pc ?
Lenzflair 13 November, 2012 18:01
I signed up for Sky Broadband a couple of weeks ago and was told I would receive the new hub, instead the Sagem router arrived, I complained and after some wrangling the Hub was duly sent out with eager anticipation I plugged it in yesterday and wish I hadn't bothered. The wired connection promptly dropped from 2.7mb to 2.2mb a long way off the 5mb that was promised as for the wireless capability I struggled to connect my phone to the hub in the next room. Better than the 0.8 mb connection I was getting on Talktalk but still pretty poor.
anonymous 15 November, 2012 00:08
Unfortunately the Sky Hub is not as good as you are made to believe. To reduce the black spots in my house I have been piggy backing a Netgear router on the back of the, incredibly lame, Sky Sagem Router which has been successful-ish.
Getting the SkyHub I was looking forward to a solution that would mean a decent signal around the house. I was not looking to stream HD content at the bottom of the garden just wanted a good signal in my modest sized house. FAIL! and at £40 it's a bit of a joke
Wes Pete 20 November, 2012 08:03
I am a long-standing customer and called to ask them for the router for free. They said it would be £39 so I asked to be put though to the 'Retentions Dept' and told them I would switch to BT if they didn't provide the router as my existing router didn't work well in my house. They were happy to send me the router free, I just had to pay the £2 odd delivery charge... worth it I think!
Doreen Jackson 16 December, 2012 16:41
While I am prepared to be convinced that the new Sky Hub carries over a great distance and
through obstructions like doors, walls etc. I am concerned about remarks made on Sky's Forum that some people have found that the Wireless connection is poor to non existent for periods of time and in some cases it just flickers and dies.
I have had my present Sky Router for over 4 years but we had to move it closer to the main socket following a breakdown with outside cables, consequently the signal will not reach the
end of our bungalow, otherwise the signal is perfect.
Therefore I am looking for something that I can easily fit to either replace it or a Booster perhaps
I am not technically minded so am looking for a fairly easy option, hence my concern with new Sky Hub. Any suggestions please.
Simon Mallinson 17 December, 2012 02:55
I've had the new Sky Hub for about a month now and am very peased with it. Certainly the range (both horizontally and virtually) and reliability is much better the old Sky netgear router, a Belkin Wireless pre N router I had used for many years, and a couple of other routers I had bought from Amazon which promised the earth but didn't deliver. Works out the box, easy to change SSID/ wireless password etc. Recommended
anonymous 20 December, 2012 21:15
i gave up on using any kind of equipment supplied by sky and bought my own solution much cheaper than the hub too.
anonymous 5 February, 2013 12:39
If just switched from virgin to SKY and now on my kindle fire all my social networking sites half upload ... not impressed I'm using a wireless on the hub .
anonymous 12 February, 2013 02:57
I just dont want my xbox nat type moderate anymore it has to be open so I know im getting what I pay for so far ive a face that you wouldnt like SKY come on all that money and nothing to show for it. Valued customer.ha ha means nothing get a grip.
anonymous 8 May, 2013 17:36
I have just signed up to sky and received this rather camp looking device.
I am not impressed at all, to start off with it has no LED's showing connection status of the Ethernet, also it is only 100Mb/s Ethernet, iv had a 100Mb/s router for over 10 years now and I'm sick of it, I'm amazed that it isn't 1Gb/s like my 6 year old laptop.
I phoned sky and they said. . . 'Its intended use is to provide internet to computers, and because no internet is faster than 100Mb/s there's no point having faster' . . .what a load of bull, if it was called a router then that description would fit, but they call it a hub, you would think for a reason. The word HUB suggests a central point of data communication between multiple computers, but this thing fails with just 2!
Try and find a 100mb/s Ethernet only hub on a pc component website, if you do it will be a old model
Now If i stream a movie to my PS3 from my PC and download on my PC at the full speed of my internet e.g. a large driver update or HD YouTube buffering, it will interfere with the PS3's video playback. If you fast-forward video at more than 10x speed the PS3 locks up until the data can be transferred thru the crap router
I used to get round this my having the PS3 on WiFi and play the video off my my PC which is on Ethernet, but makes no difference with the hub.
I dunno why but this used to work without a hick up on my old Net-gear router AOL gave me 8 years ago, and the old net gear sky router both of which are wireless G+
The 'new' sky hub is wireless N whereas ye olde PS3 is wireless G or B?, perhaps the hubs backwards compatibility with G is crap? this is a shame because most people will use G not N.
TIP: BUY A PROPER ROUTER MADE BY A PROPER COMPANY, not outsourced by some iron brew drinking fools