Sky Phase 1 Firmware upgrade confirmed!!!!

[Topkidben]

Oh i thought i read a thread that said they had 390k customers.... Thread could have been made last year i suppose.

[Kaoscontrol]

Well i've just been on the phone to a nice irish chap after my router had a hissy fit.
i asked if he could confirm a date for our local exchange receiving the update....
Apparently the Sky firmware is being withdrawn at the moment due to a few nitty gritty issues they've had with a few exchanges but this should be finished by the end of the week and put back into cycle....theres also no estimated date given anywhere either, apparently the exchanges are being chosen at random.

[Topkidben]

May aswell to sit back and wait then. Thanks for the information Just asking but do you know which exchanges had the nitty gritty issues? hope it's not mine

[Kaoscontrol]

Afraid not...didnt ask that much :P!! but certainly a helpful chap.
Its no official word thats for sure, its only what the guy told me afterall .

[Tonytronic]

One (primary) reason for this upgrade is that, for some people, the original Sky router 'dies'/locks-up when Noise Margin dB drops and it cannot recover except through a reset or power cycle.
Given this failure mode (and I believe is acknowledged by Sky as a known problem?), it is unreasonable to expect these particular customers to maintain a 24hr connection in the hope that a firmware download will be successful.
To be frank, of all the ways one might choose to fix such a problem, doing it by downloading it - via the very connection that keeps failing! - must rank as downright STUPID. This method invites failure because of the very nature of the problem, most likely before the download can occur, or worse still, during the actual download process itself.

The only practical solution for those Sky customers with this particular problem is to provide the necessary firmware update via a Sky web page, or on a CD, in any case requestable only by known Sky customers via a Sky web page, so that it can be performed locally, and therefore not dependent upon an unreliable internet connection. This is the only way to ensure the update is truly 'available' to these particular Sky customers.

As far as I am concerned, until Sky choose to provide this alternative update option then regardless of any condition in their 'contract', I believe that it is 'reasonable' to provide one's own router to support the Internet Service that one has paid for, on the basis that the router they have provided is faulty (i.e. has faulty firmware) and no reasonable method has been provided to enable correction of the fault.

To illustrate this, when I swapped in the old Sky router today it locked up after just 1 hour of use. I had to cycle its power to restore the internet connection. I believe it locked up due to the noise margin dropping from 7.0db to 5.6db, as is usual around 8:30pm here. By contrast, my own router (Netgear DG834N) has NEVER dropped out in this way, like 5 months without a single drop-out is typical (and it was a power cut that stopped it after 5 months).

Come on Sky. If you REALLY give a blind **** about this, you have GOT to provide a good workable solution for ALL customers, including those like me who suffer with this particular fault.
And while we're at it, it would also help your cause greatly if you actually bothered to TALK to any of us when you intend to do anything like this! No, not just through SkyUser forums - I mean directly. Is that really asking too much???
And save the trees - an email in our Sky email accounts would be wonderful. And dont forget to include a link to the webpage with the firmware update!

Tonytronic.

[guysteruk]

hi folks last night my connection stopped working and the orange tick started flashing but the internet light didnt go out i didnt know what the hell was going on so i unplugged it for a minute then plugged it back in i logged into the router webpage to find my router had the V1.03.87 firmware. is this orange tick flashing normal for when sky are upgrading the routers firmware and has anyone else experienced this

[James67]

Blimey, you were lucky not to "bork" your router. The power and the tick lights flash simultaneously when the router's flash memory is being rewritten - not a good time to unplug your router's power connection.

[petergreenfield]

My router was upgraded during the early hours of today (8 April). New software version V1.03.87. However, I had to reboot the router before getting a connection. Took me a while to realise I needed a reboot as the router was located in another room. The wireless connect lights were continuously flashing. I can't say I notice any change in performance.
Peter

[Skycarp]

Mine also updated at approx 2.00am this morning as I found out when I logged on and checked via my router stats page. Router had rebooted it's self and all seems ok.
Only difference i can see at the moment is that my noise margin seems to have dropped from what normally was about 9.2 at this time of day to about7.8.

[Monday]

every on the new FW seems to be reporting steady SNR of 7 throughout the day..