Sky Q incompatible 802.11ac causing dropout connection issue

[embleton]

Under extended wireless testing of the Sky Q router under the wireless standard 802.11ac it was found it was not fully compatible with the 802.11ac wireless standard. The wireless standard should fully support the wireless band A (channels 36-64 frequency 5180Mhz-5320Ghz) and band B (channels 100-140 frequency 5500Ghz-5700Ghz) automatic channel selection known as Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS) to avoid interference in the UK from other systems using the 5Ghz band A & B. And band A would not switch to the other wireless band A & B automatically which is in the 802.11ac standard. Single Channel Architecture (SCA) is the only method that the Sky Q wireless system deploys. Multi-Channel Wi-Fi is not supported and thus this causing issues with interference and restriction with bandwidth available to the whole 5Ghz wireless system of Sky Q Wi-Fi mesh system.

It was found that the Sky Q router would not switch channels on the 5Ghz band to anything other than between the range manual channels 36-44 when 2.4Ghz or 5Ghz interference is causing an issue. Without fully supporting the wireless 802.11ac standard it will dropout wireless devices from its wireless network when 2.4GHz or 5Ghz interference is encountered which is more of an issue these days because of the high utilisation 2.4Ghz and of the 5Ghz band A manual channel selection of channels 36-44 (80Mhz) in the UK especially from Sky's wireless Sky Q equipment itself. The Sky Q wireless system does not support DFS and only support Single Channel WiFi (20Mhz-80Mhz on the 5Ghz band), 2.4Ghz wireless channel steering propriety technology.

It is believed the Sky Q system uses an SCA 5Ghz system that shares the channel on a Time Domain Slicing and Bandwidth system across the Sky Q boxes employed on a 5Ghz single channel (80Mhz wide) and a 2.4Ghz control channel with QoS (Quality of Service). It uses 2.4Ghz control channel that slices the 5Ghz SCA single 5Ghz channel (80Mhz width) by using Request to Send (RTS) and Clear to Send (CTS) under single channel access 80Mhz on the 5Ghz band across the Sky Q boxes MAC or DSCP snooping on QoS MAC or DSCP address and controlling this frame. When the 5Ghz wireless channel slices are too large concurrently and in a stream, a drop on an alternative wireless device will occur. This will also occur if the slices are incorrectly coordinated because of excessive jitter on the 2.4Ghz wireless control channel and slices accordingly allocated on the 5Ghz sharing wireless SCA system.

The 2.4Ghz control channel is believed to work by snooping on the Media Access Control (MAC) layer address or the Differential Service Control Point (DSCP) in QoS frame of 2.4Ghz & 5Ghz wireless clients and then by blocking it passes it through another wireless AP route. This is then used to steer the wireless client by blocking on the Access Point (AP) Sky Q box the MAC or DSCP address and allowing it through another wireless AP route. For another manufacturer's wireless router to work effectively correctly, it must be configured it is believed in bridge mode it must not be routered or an ethernet managed switch employed between the Sky Q router and another routed manufacturer wireless AP to get the maximum bandwidth available for those client routes. An alternative method would fully use DSCP but that necessities QoS support in all equipment on wireless & LAN. The MAC or DSCP address control blocking and unblocking and routing should be allowed to be done by the Sky Q system on both cabled ethernet and wireless ethernet 802.11ac which is really not conforming to its standards but a workaround so it works on 802 IEEE ethernet standards, and it is believed this has caused issue with Sky Q and some other routers & some ethernet switches.

The later iPhones are the wireless devices that encounter issues because of this none conformity to the wireless 802.11ac DFS standard and its proprietary wireless SCA 5Ghz system controlled on the 2.4Ghz wireless band. If the 2.4Ghz wireless band encounters any form of interference that blocks the control 2.4Ghz wireless band channel it will fail on the 5Ghz channel to coordinate with its own 5Ghz wireless SCA Sky Q sharing wireless system on a single SCA 5Ghz system.

It is believed that randomization of the MAC and UUID on iPhones and later Andriod smartphones have caused an issue which would be eliminated by using the DSCP in QoS frame.

For improving their Sky Q system it should employ DFS and Multi-Channel Wi-Fi something it doesn't do currently and likely a design issue, and one should ensure that the 2.4Ghz is encountering the lease level of interference from itself and other 2.4Ghz wireless systems by selecting the 2.4Ghz channel selection carefully on the 2.4Ghz on each Sky Q box for doing otherwise will cause endless issues on 5Ghz SCA Sky Q system. One should also ensure that every Sky Q box can see others on the 2.4Ghz band without this it with fail wireless steering on the 5Ghz 80Mhz width channel during steering.