Troubleshooting a friend's Sky Broadband remotely

I have a friend with some form of Sky Broadband with dreadful performance and I'm trying to figure out what that problem could be remotely.

I can't go around just yet (will be able to in a few weeks) but want to rule out as many things as possible beforehand.

Facts:

1) the postcode seems to be in a Sky enabled exchange area
2) the phone number is not recognised by the BT line checker
3) the phone number is not recognised by the Sky line checker
4) the router has Sky branding (here's a link to a photo of the router)
5) IP geolocation identifies the line as Sky broadband
6) the line speedtests at 0.61 down and 0.21 up.

So I'd first want to make sure it's on-net Sky BB and not the BT wholesale one, but this seems almost certain if the line is fully signed over to Sky. But if that's the case, why doesn't the Sky checker recognise the line?

If it is on-net Sky BB which I understand has a pretty good reputation, then the most likely scenario is some sort of horrendous technical problem like internal wiring causing it to sync at less than 1mb despite a 530m straight line exchange distance. I won't be able to find that out without going there though (unless anyone has an *extremely* simple method for getting line stats from this router)

Thanks in advance

If it is Sky's own kit, then speed tests should show an increase straight away if having your friend find their NTE and connect the router directly in to the test socket.

The slowest BB I ever saw, was due to Sky having fitted multi-room with no filter on either. 6Kbps downstream ! Unfiltered Sky boxes are THE single most common cause of BB iffiness.

A traceroute may show if it's on-net.

Good point, and they do have Sky TV, I'll take a couple of extra filters when I do finally get to go and have a look at it.

Any way of being absolutely sure that this is on-net Sky BB? I'm still a little bemused by the fact that not a single line checker on the internet understands this phone number.

There's no cable or FTTC in their area, but assuming they ever did want to leave Sky, how would they migrate away with a number like that?

This is me tracing their IP (or what it was three days ago)

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms 192.168.0.1
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 * * * Request timed out.
4 9 ms 10 ms 9 ms 10.1.4.249
5 11 ms 13 ms 16 ms be1.er11.enslo.isp.sky.com [195.66.237.234]
6 14 ms 9 ms 12 ms ip-89-200-131-239.ov.easynet.net [89.200.131.239
7 * * * Request timed out.
8 66 ms 67 ms 63 ms 02dc6257.bb.sky.com [2.220.98.87]

Easynet implies on-net I guess?

If upstream sync speed is 288 Kbps then can be pretty certain if it is OFFNet and often suffers from poor throughput

First step is to see what the sync speeds, attenuation and noise margins are

Yes, looks like it.

If it is Sky's own kit, then speed tests should show an increase straight away if having your friend find their NTE and connect the router directly in to the test socket.

You are wrong here. Sky DLM sets a physical cap on the sync.

Say you are connected via an extension socket. DLM runs and sets a speed of say 2Mbps. This is a physical upper cap.

If you now plug into the master socket or TEST socket the speed will ALSO be 2 Mbps.

This sync stays at 2Mbps regardless because DLM has set a maximum sync of 2Mbps on the line.
The only way the speed would be better in the test socket is if DLM was disabled, DLM was re run or the sync speed was manually changed by SKY.

If they left it in the TEST socket for several days / weeks eventually DLM will automatically re-run but this takes lots of time. It would then give better speeds.

Speeds will not change straight away purely because Sky DLM sets an upper cap on the sync.

Even manually tweaking SNR via DMT tool or custom firmware etc will not work.

In reply to a post by bezuk:

Any way of being absolutely sure that this is on-net Sky BB? I'm still a little bemused by the fact that not a single line checker on the internet understands this phone number.

Usually once on full LLU via SKY the line checkers don't work. This is because they rely on BT having details which they don't on sky's full LLU.

To switch it would go through the same as a new line install and then number can be taken over with this. This is similar to all full llu operators.

To get statistics is not too hard

Open internet:
type in 192.168.0.1 (type this where you type websites e.g. www.google.co.uk)
Click maintenance
username: admin
password: sky
scroll down
Click show statistics

Some sky routers it's done differently:

Open internet:
type in 192.168.0.1 (type this where you type websites e.g. www.google.co.uk)
username: admin
password: sky
scroll down
Click show statistics

Phoning up and being persistent but polite seems to work

OK, point taken. To be fair, I'm usually looking for an increase in actual sync rate.

I went there yesterday and was unable to do anything to improve this connection.

Stats were:

ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 762 kbps 249 kbps
Line Attenuation 40.5db 46.0db
Noise Margin 6.7db 6.8db

It's an old house with at least six phone sockets, of which none looked anything like a master socket and none were even in use other than the one the router is connected to. There was an unfiltered DECT phone plugged in but moving it to the router's filter made no difference. The Sky box wasn't connected to the phone line at all.

It's an old house with at least six phone sockets

Probably star wired. Rip out the wiring until there's a single socket at the end of the incoming pair with no other connections and see how it looks.

It's picking up a vast amount of noise for the speed to be so low at that attenuation.

In reply to a post by ukhardy07:

If it is Sky's own kit, then speed tests should show an increase straight away if having your friend find their NTE and connect the router directly in to the test socket.

You are wrong here. Sky DLM sets a physical cap on the sync.

Say you are connected via an extension socket. DLM runs and sets a speed of say 2Mbps. This is a physical upper cap.

If you now plug into the master socket or TEST socket the speed will ALSO be 2 Mbps.

This sync stays at 2Mbps regardless because DLM has set a maximum sync of 2Mbps on the line.
The only way the speed would be better in the test socket is if DLM was disabled, DLM was re run or the sync speed was manually changed by SKY.

If they left it in the TEST socket for several days / weeks eventually DLM will automatically re-run but this takes lots of time. It would then give better speeds.

Speeds will not change straight away purely because Sky DLM sets an upper cap on the sync.

Even manually tweaking SNR via DMT tool or custom firmware etc will not work.

There won't be an increase in sync speed as you say but the SNR will increase which will indicate issues with the internal wiring.

Not even necessarily an SNR increase on sky

As part of their green initiative they often reduce power levels on lines with SNRs significantly above 7db

This is why sky lines often sync slowly but have a 6/7db SNR
When asked to be uncapped the lines keep the same SNR but suddenly have an extra meg or so...
This is because power outputs then suddenly increased

I feared as much.

There seemed to be wires everywhere connecting all the sockets in all sorts of configurations so I wasn't even really able to tell where the wire entered the house.

There were two sockets in the living room and two more in the kitchen, plus at least two more in upstairs bedrooms.

Of the two in the living room, one was deeply recessed into the wall and had a thick white cable splitting out into many smaller wires when I unscrewed it.

The other in the living room was simply attached to the wall with the wire entering from underneath and looked like a user installed extension.

The two in the kitchen were stylized and hard to get off the wall as that room was part of an extension to the house.

I didn't really have a chance to look at any upstairs ones other than making sure none of them were master sockets.

Presumably the recessed one in the living room is the one to focus on, but I still wouldn't be sure what to detach from it to get rid of the extensions.

find the incoming cable by looking round outside, then see which socket it goes to. The cable type of external cable is usually obviously different behind the socket, and often has a different colour code to the internal wiring for extensions, but if you rip everything off terminals 2 and 5 except the incomer you can check there's still a dial tone - if you get the wrong pair then swop around until you find a dialtone.

This is a sky line, so the unfiltered phone will have made their DLM set a very low speed. Sky DLM tends to cap the speed.

At this stage it is worth phoning up sky support and tell them you have found out why the line was so slow and ask them to reset the DLM. Be polite and patient, usually takes about 20 minutes, and if they say all the line will support is the speed you were getting, emphasis you found a phone without a filter.

After that, which might get you to a reasonable speed, I would then follow the advice of a complete rewire of the property with regards to telephone. With dect no real need for lots of extensions these days

I concur, we have seen enough lines where this is the case

I have found with Sky support that if you have a specific technical request, it is simpler to use the "Contact Us" option at the very bottom on sky.com.

Use the drop-down boxes to select your query, then use the "No thanks, I'd rather contact Sky directly" button at the bottom. Choose Email contact, login with your SkyID and give the details of the request.

I did this with two phone issues (no caller ID and no voicemail) after I signed up, and again when my broadband speed was set way too low. All three times, I had replies within 24 hours and they did exactly what I requested. One was done within 30 minutes and I even got a phone call confirming it!

As long as you can explain why you want it done, they tend to be quite accommodating. It also saves trying to explain to the non-technical call-centre staff what you want done as it usual gets routed straight to the right department.