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

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Level 1

23 points

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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Answer 1

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?

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Answer 2

onedigital Author

Level 1

23 points

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

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Answer 3

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.

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Answer 4

onedigital Author

Level 1

23 points

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

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Answer 5

onedigital Author

Level 1

23 points

Jun 8, 2016 1:14 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

....... still on phone to Sky....😠

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Answer 6

Jun 8, 2016 1:24 AM in response to onedigital

Good luck! Fingers crossed

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Answer 7

Jun 8, 2016 3:40 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

any luck with them??

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Answer 8

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).

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Answer 9

onedigital Author

Level 1

23 points

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

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Answer 10

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

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Answer 11

onedigital Author

Level 1

23 points

Jun 8, 2016 3:58 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

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

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Answer 12

Jun 8, 2016 4:34 AM in response to onedigital

Okey dokes thanks for trying

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Answer 13

Jun 13, 2016 1:01 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

any luck with a fix from Sky Specialist team??

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Answer 14

onedigital Author

Level 1

23 points

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 Link	Downstream	Upstream
Connection Speed	36141 kbps	5761 kbps
Line Attenuation	24.4 dB	0.0 dB
Noise Margin	5.8 dB	6.6 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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Answer 15

onedigital Author

Level 1

23 points

Jul 18, 2016 4:56 AM in response to TiSwAs_uk

UPDATE...... The saga is over, we've kicked Sky out, they simply couldn't solve the issue, we were still having problems with unstable fibre, and after speaking to some neighbours they were experiencing similar problems to us and this kind of made our minds up that it was the service from Sky that was to blame. We decided to go with BT Infinity, and their TV package too, huge £20 per month saving over Sky. We switched over on the 7th July and we have had no problem with video calling, or buffering since, we now have very stable fibre, much better wifi and zero stress from trying to sort it out..... thanks BT, great service 😀..... and good riddance Sky, total nightmare 😟

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