Every now and again my Wifi seems to drop out completely. It affects multiple devices and my phone and laptop both register as still connected but there is no Wifi. This is shown as the Wifi symbol but with an ‘x’ through it. The blackout can range from thirty seconds to over an hour- at which point I tend to reset the router, which works as a quick fix. Is there anything I can do to stop this occurring altogether? My provider is Sky and this tends to happen in the evening mostly.
Hi Jack,
We actually helped another Sky customer with what sounds like a very similar issue recently. Can you please let me know which Sky router you have, and I’ll get you the instructions on what to do to get it resolved. 
Hi Jack
What exactly is it that all your devices are connecting to? A router or an extender/booster?
Awesome! Glad to hear it’s not just me.
I have the Sky Q router with three boosters placed throughout the house.
I’m connecting with my mobile, laptop and PS4 to the booster. The PS4 is the only one Wired.
Okay, so the first thing we need to do is establish:
- Is this a broadband service/line issue?
- A router issue
In order to determine step 1. Please can you follow this guide and take a screen shot of your router stats.
https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband/How-to-find-your-Sky-Broadband-router-stats/td-p/2855717
What we are wanting to see is if the WAN has the same uptime statistics as the LAN/WLAN. Now, if you have had to re-boot the entire router recently, then this may all be the same.
So, immediately after the next disconnection DO NOT reboot the router. Just wait 10 mins, and then follow the steps in the link so we can get the router stats.
If you see a discrepancy, between the System Uptime (the router) and the WAN Uptime (the connection to the Sky Internet service) then we know the reason your Wifi is cutting out is because the Internet service itself is cutting out.
You can then use this as evidence to send to Sky to get them to take action (most likely send an Openreach engineer out).
Again, if you’ve had to re-boo the router completely recently to get the Internet back on, then this should all show the same, so we will need to wait until the next time you have an outage to get the live information.
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Hi again,
Thank you for the step-by-step reply. Breaking it down as so made this very easy to follow. However, the technical side is less clear to me. There hasn’t been a noticeable blackout over the weekend but even still, this is what I found. How does this look to you?
Hi Jack,
I couldn’t help but notice the collision packet count on that snippet you sent in jack, when compared the RWT’s example, that entire column should have very low to no values whatsoever. This could indicate a potential issue with your router. Please see this thread on the SKY forum - https://helpforum.sky.com/t5/Broadband/LAN-Collision-Packets/td-p/3389118
I would recommend a healthy reboot of at least 10 minutes, and check back in 24 hours on that same page. If the collision packets column has values again, I’d consider contacting SKY and going through some troubleshooting with them, perhaps it may result in a fresh hub being sent to you.
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Thanks for this, that’s really helpful as I wouldn’t have spotted that. I will give this a go over the weekend and let you know the verdict!
Hi, I have just carried out the reboot as you instructed and it appears I still have quite a large collision packet in LAN. Should I contact Sky about this and what does this mean?
Also, I noted the collision packet was increasing as I was looking.
Thanks!
Hi Jack,
Do you have any devices that are connected via ethernet cable to your router?
In the first instance it’d be a good idea to disconnect any wired devices, reboot the router, and check back on that page. If you still see a problem, try with all WiFi devices disconnected, and connect just a single WiFi device, return to that page, and review the collision packets column again.
If this is still climbing after all that, I’d definitely get in touch with SKY.
Hope this helps,
Andrew
Hi Specialist!
No we don’t have any directly connected to the router.
So I did this and it completely got rid of the collision packets. All zero and constant. But the Rx packets are still very high. Is that normal or something to be concerned about?
I have also been in touch with SKY. Interestingly we discovered a couple of things. My superfast (FTTC) connection should be hitting 67mbps with a guaranteed minimum of 47mbps. SKY ran a couple of speed checkers on their end- one for what was coming into the property and another to measure throughput around the property itself. We were getting 52 coming in and only 27 around the property which he did not understand.
After running through the basic reboot procedure with the hub and the Q Boxes also he tried running a diagnostic test but this is where it gets interesting- the test wouldn’t work. This is the first time he had seen this. Naturally, something is very wrong with either the Router or the line in to it. He agreed to call me back over the weekend but I haven’t heard back yet.
Either way it looks like SKY are taking action which is great! I initially mentioned to SKY about the reseach I had done here with the Community and at the end of the call he said that research “definitely holds weight, it’s a good job you did that”.
Big win for the Community here, guys! 
Thanks for your help here! Going to chase SKY and will update the Community on the progress.
Sounds very promising indeed, thanks for the update!
Rx Packets is “received packets”, which just means the port on your router has received that many packets from other devices or from the internet, it is nothing to be alarmed of
Tx is “transmitted packets” and this is obviously the opposite meaning.
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Update on this:
4 calls later it’s mixed results. Each Sky Agent has had different attitudes and solutions to these issues… none providing a solid solution. In fairness, they have helped me optimise the homes mesh and signal across the property but nothing solid on the drop-out’s we have been experiencing.
On a note about their customer service, several times we were promised a call back from their complaints team after the account holder threatening to leave but we heard nothing despite confirming a time. One agent also gave us the ultimatum to upgrade to boost or essentially deal with what we have.
They seem to change their facts every time. I have now been told I am only capable of getting 57 into the property and 47 from the hub to the home leaving me with an average of 20Mbps when we’re paying for more than triple that.
Because of the drop like that I am still convinced there is a problem with our actual router as rebooting the mesh, swapping microfilters and other generic sky exercises seem to have little to no difference. Actually making it worse in some cases. They are adamant that it’s not the router and if it is then I need to upgrade to broadband boost- which as we know is a terrible deal.
3rd party router inbound to test this theory out.
Hopefully the test router will yield the results you’re looking for that will help your case with Sky.
Sorry that you’re having such difficulty getting to the bottom of the problem.
Fingers crossed eh?
Well, since then we gave Sky an ultimatum- get an engineer out to us or we leave. They did on the same day.
One problem he found with our property was multiple connections on the phone line from different hand sets and this was the cause of the collision packets.
On the inconsistently of throughput around the property, this was resolved (as we suspected) by replacing the router. Where were getting average speeds of 17-20Mbps, we’re now getting 45-57 Mbps. This is a massive improvement and means I can now do high usage activities like gaming without the need of either a hard-wired connection or booster!
Finally, the drop out issue. This is an interesting one which the engineer answered for us after only minutes of being in the house. It’s a firmware problem Sky have across the board. Nothing we can do, nothing the engineer can do- it’s just a waiting game from Sky! Really surprised they only chose to tell their engineers this and not the customers.
Six phone calls of problems resolved in one visit. I can’t thank everyone enough who has inputted on this problem and this is a massive win for the Community and I am sure there are now answers here that will help other Sky users!