Different Router

Hi All

Sky broadband is working fine but the wireless is pretty awful. Won't reach my room which is not far at all.

I have tested other wireless routers which work fine including the 1800 Hub. I have spoken to Sky and they cannot give a username or password?

Is it simply they will not allow you to use a different router or do they have a username and password you can use to connect to Sky broadband albeit I know it would not be supported?

Should have searched

Found it

Sky use the MAC Address from their supplied router to generate the user name and password. Try this I found on another forum, works brilliantly.

Zub Says: November 20th, 2006 at 1:58 pm
To get your real login info for your broadband just enter this into your web browser:
http://192.168.0.1/setup.cgi?todo=pi...%2Fnetgear.cfg
then wait a while and then type in:
http://192.168.0.1/netgear.cfg
it should bring up a save file prompt. Save it somewhere. Then open it with wordpad or something and hey presto there is your login info. Each new subject field is seperated by pppoa.
so you should end up with:
pppoa_username: (yourMACaddressOff Sky's router)@skydsl
pppoa_password: 1234567aa1
pppoa_idle=0
pppoa_ipaddr=
enjoy, and get yourself another router, at least one better than the crappy netgear router that has constant connection drops and needs constant re-booting!

Remember that if you use anything other than the supplied router to connect to Sky's network that you are technically breaking the Terms and Conditions you signed up too.

"Remember that if you use anything other than the supplied router to connect to Sky's network that you are technically breaking the Terms and Conditions you signed up too. "

show me where it says you are breaking TC's using a different router ??????

Try searching through my comments on the "Alternative Router" thread and you will find the precise quote from the T&Cs.

Or alternatively, go and check out the Terms and Conditions yourself.

Remember that if you use anything other than the supplied router to connect to Sky's network that you are technically breaking the Terms and Conditions you signed up too.

no where in their TCs does it say that you are breaking their TCs by using a different router. have you submitted yourself for drug testing lately ?

Go and read my comments on the "Alternative Routers" thread and you will see the direct quote, I believe I even included the section numbering.


Edit - I don't normally edit my posts, but this is just an addition to say that the precise part of the T&Cs is 3d) which reads:

"Sky Broadband must only be accessed via your Broadband Box."

The "Broadband Box" being the router they send you.

Edited by deleted (Sun 17-Dec-06 23:24:46)

i cannot find the part which says

"Sky Broadband must only be accessed via your Broadband Box."

point it out please

3. The Broadband Box
(a) As part of the Sky Broadband service SHS will supply one Broadband Box to you under this Contract.
(b) You can choose to either install your Broadband Box yourself (�Self Install�) or have SHS install it for you (�Home Installation�). If you choose Self Install, SHS will send your Broadband Box to your Address and you must comply fully with all reasonable installation instructions and advice SHS provides to you. If you choose Home Installation you should read the terms and conditions for Home Installation (set out at the end of this Contract). You may have to pay for Home Installation. We will tell you the amount of this fee before charging you.
(c) Your Broadband Box (except the software in it) will become your property on installation
if you choose Home Installation, or on delivery if you choose Self Install. The software in your Broadband Box is owned by or licensed to SHS or another member of the British Sky Broadcasting group. You must allow this software to be updated. Updates will happen automatically at no extra charge.
(d) Sky Broadband must only be accessed via your Broadband Box. Your Broadband Box is not supplied as being capable of being used to access any other Internet service.

Edited by movie (Sun 17-Dec-06 23:36:08)

Thank you movie!

It wasn't that difficult to find was it!

afaik Sky want you to use their router and their router only to:

1) be able to support it by their staff

2) VOD etc coming soon

I understand some people are more internet savvy / technical and personnally do not care if you use your own or theirs. But it is part of their T and C's.

Also, keep in mind Sky have a track record of enforcing this. Look at the telephone connection requirement for the first 12 months of a sky contract. The use of the sky box is arguably even more important to the long term strategy of bskyb, so I'd guess they may start checking if people are using the router (remotely, obviously) and send out nasty letters if they don't.

I suppose though it's only going to be a very small fraction of people not using the sky box, just the technically savvy.

Well, the only way I see Sky actually being able to detect whether customers are using the supplied box is by reading the MAC address of the ADSL modem on the router (unless there are other ways, but my network is fully locked down to inbound connections); most ADSL routers now-a-days provide a MAC spoofing field to show whatever MAC address the user wants; i guess there's always a way if people are determined.

One thing that I did notice on movie's post is clause 3c, where it mentions the router software is updated automatically; is that why the default setup allowed the router to respond to pings; I've unchecked this option in the WAN setup so that the router doesn't respond to pings, would that make a difference in the automatic updates, and have Sky sent any updates?

(sorry if this sounds like a stupid question :-D )!

Fred.

afaik

Sky have not sent any updates

I would imagine there is one on its way to help sort the UPnP problem, which some people may or not have.

I would also imagine that the Netgear router that is used at the moment will be replaced for a better more robust (and works better) in the not to distant future.

Sky have not decided to give free / cheap broadband for them to look good, they have done it to make money. If your router (if not the Sky one) is not capable of what Sky have planned for the future, you are stopping them from making more money from anything you may buy on demand.

There are a lot of exciting things happening and you will soon see, that Sky BB is the one that everyone wants. All they need to do is sort their customer care / communication out and they are over half way there.

In reply to:

---

I would also imagine that the Netgear router that is used at the moment will be replaced for a better more robust (and works better) in the not to distant future.

---

Well I think the point I have been trying to make, albeit quite subtlety, is that it *could* be the firmware on the Netgear that is rubbish, rather than the actual hardware.

If that is the case then surely keeping your box connected, and getting the update may help.

I also think that not reporting the problem and just replacing the Sky router with your own doesn't give Sky the full size of the problem.

Numbers always matter.

I think an update to the firmware is on the cards, nudge nudge wink wink

Sounds like you know something we don't :-)

Lets just say, watch this space, I am sure there will be more routers from Sky before long that are not Netgear

That could be interesting, if they decide to start sending out other routers too.

Mind you if they are being run by the same people who run UKOnline, at first they enforced their router on anyone taking the 8Mbps service, but they have dropped that now.

hmmmm it'll certainly be interesting to see what they do.