onedigital

Q: Face Time and Sky Hub problem... Help!!

Hi, we have a Sky Hub - SR102-Z for our broadband connection. Speeds are great, no connection issues except for FaceTime on iPhone, iPad and iMac too.

 

Our connection speeds are -

 

Upstream (Kbps) 5676

Downstream (Kbps) 30816

 

We get broken connections, video freezing, pausing, audio dropping in and out, total nightmare!!! This only happens on our Sky network at home, we have no issues anywhere else, either on wifi or 3G or 4G. The problems happen with a wired and a wireless connection.

 

I have spoken to Sky and they say that some ports that FaceTime require will be blocked on the router firewall. Has anyone else had this problem, and have you been able to fix it. Apologies if this has already been covered, just hoping for some help.

 

Have just downloaded Skype and it works fine, no problem, but would rather use Face Time if possible.

iMac (21.5-inch, Late 2013)

Posted on May 26, 2016 6:39 AM

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Q: Face Time and Sky Hub problem... Help!!

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  • by TiSwAs_uk,Helpful

    TiSwAs_uk TiSwAs_uk Jun 8, 2016 12:59 AM in response to onedigital
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 8, 2016 12:59 AM in response to onedigital

    i have the same issue with ipad/iphone on the sky hub - as well as at my friends house who has sky internet

    my pings are low and my connection up and down stream is great - just facetime

    my phone and ipad wok fine on our works ADSL (Demon provider) picture is clear as day so its not the devices.

     

    would be interesting to find out why Skys connection is poor with Facetime, if the port was blocked then it wouldn't work?

  • by onedigital,

    onedigital onedigital Jun 8, 2016 12:58 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac App Store
    Jun 8, 2016 12:58 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

    Just on the phone to Sky now, I don't think it's anything to do with ports being blocked, but it's very definitely something to do with Sky. We've had a BT engineer check the line and that is perfect, he thinks we have a broadband service problem, I'll update here when I know more

  • by TiSwAs_uk,

    TiSwAs_uk TiSwAs_uk Jun 8, 2016 1:05 AM in response to onedigital
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 8, 2016 1:05 AM in response to onedigital

    i did find this - but cant look at the router till tomorrow as i'm away.

    possibly can manually configure the ports on the router.

     

    Be interesting to know what Sky say

    Cheers

    About firewalls

    Some networks use firewalls for security. Firewalls block certain Internet traffic from entering or leaving a network. Internet traffic moves through a firewall using ports. To use FaceTime and iMessage behind certain firewalls, you might need to ask your network administrator to enable these ports:

    FaceTime

    • 80 (TCP)
    • 443 (TCP)
    • 3478 through 3497 (UDP)
    • 5223 (TCP)
    • 16384 through 16387 (UDP)
    • 16393 through 16402 (UDP)

    iMessage

    • 80 (TCP)
    • 443 (TCP)
    • 5223 (TCP)

    Depending on the NAT configuration for your router and network, additional ports might be used to send and receive video. Some router features and configurations, such as port mapping, SIP dropping, or dynamic opening of media ports might interfere with FaceTime and iMessage. Contact your network administrator if you need help with port forwarding.

  • by onedigital,

    onedigital onedigital Jun 8, 2016 1:13 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac App Store
    Jun 8, 2016 1:13 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

    I don't think this is the issue, I have had an IT company log into our router and there is nothing stopping video calling in the firewall

  • by onedigital,

    onedigital onedigital Jun 8, 2016 1:14 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac App Store
    Jun 8, 2016 1:14 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

    ....... still on phone to Sky....

  • by TiSwAs_uk,

    TiSwAs_uk TiSwAs_uk Jun 8, 2016 1:24 AM in response to onedigital
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 8, 2016 1:24 AM in response to onedigital

    Good luck! Fingers crossed

  • by TiSwAs_uk,

    TiSwAs_uk TiSwAs_uk Jun 8, 2016 3:40 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 8, 2016 3:40 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

    any luck with them??

  • by TiSwAs_uk,

    TiSwAs_uk TiSwAs_uk Jun 8, 2016 3:44 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 8, 2016 3:44 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

    can you try this to see if this helps?

    It has been reported that changing your DNS settings fixes this issue: Settings > Wi-Fi > then select the blue arrow next to your current Wi-Fi network and then tap the “DNS” field and enter the DNS servers; 8.8.8.8 (Google’s Public DNS).

  • by onedigital,

    onedigital onedigital Jun 8, 2016 3:45 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac App Store
    Jun 8, 2016 3:45 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

    Ok, just been on an epic 2 hour call, they have tried everything to make sure it is nothing here that is causing the problem, and it's not!! They ran some tests on the line that seemed to indicate that we aren't getting the correct speed??? We have fibre, and 36Mb download, they were getting fluctuations with their tests. They have passed it on to the Sky Fibre specialists, who will look into it

  • by TiSwAs_uk,

    TiSwAs_uk TiSwAs_uk Jun 8, 2016 3:51 AM in response to onedigital
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 8, 2016 3:51 AM in response to onedigital

    heck!!! thats sometime!

     

    thanks for keeping me posted - hopfully the other team can get some quick results on this

    I have ADSL not fibre so wondering if the same applies to me.... but having said that my mate is on ADSL too and he gets the same poor connection too.....

    if i find out anything i will post and let you know


    Cheers

  • by onedigital,

    onedigital onedigital Jun 8, 2016 3:58 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac App Store
    Jun 8, 2016 3:58 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

    Tried changing the D.N.S. didn't work, still crap

  • by TiSwAs_uk,

    TiSwAs_uk TiSwAs_uk Jun 8, 2016 4:34 AM in response to onedigital
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 8, 2016 4:34 AM in response to onedigital

    Okey dokes thanks for trying        

  • by TiSwAs_uk,

    TiSwAs_uk TiSwAs_uk Jun 13, 2016 1:01 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk
    Level 1 (9 points)
    Jun 13, 2016 1:01 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

    any luck with a fix from Sky Specialist team??

  • by onedigital,

    onedigital onedigital Jun 13, 2016 1:16 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac App Store
    Jun 13, 2016 1:16 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

    Still ongoing, they keep checking and saying everything is fine, and I keep telling them it isn't!!! Just about had enough, and nearly binned them yesterday, but they are sending a BT engineer tomorrow to check what is going on with the broadband service. So hopefully will know more then. We've already had a BT engineer check the line and that is perfect

     

    One thing I have checked is the downstream noise margin, it does vary between 4dB and 6dB, and according to everything I have managed to read this is incredibly low, and can cause serious problems, our router stats are below

     

    Broadband LinkDownstream Upstream
    Connection Speed36141 kbps5761 kbps
    Line Attenuation24.4 dB0.0 dB
    Noise Margin5.8 dB6.6 dB

    This might not have anything to do with it but something isn't working, we've even had every device in the house with wifi switched off and plugged the router into the test socket, changed the password in the router so literally nothing could be connected to it, Sky have then ran a speed test and it came back as 18Mb and said that an application was using some bandwidth, to which I replied that isn't possible, nothing is switched on in the house and nothing can possibly be connected to the router because the password is changed... they had no reply to this...

     

    Lets see what tomorrow brings

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