Broadband wireless router

[Spice Cat]

Good evening everyone,

I am calling out to the great and good for advice on computer stuff again. This is particularly annoying as instead of spending the day finishing off my Bird Dog, I have been wrestling with a wireless router.

This is the problem;

I went into Maplins and came away with a Netgear N600 wireless router having explained to the sales assistant that I was a Sky broadband customer. He advised me that I would have problems getting a password out of Sky as they want you to buy their stuff.

At home, the router was fired up, all lights were go and the initial screen asked for a username and password.

I tried my normal Sky log in and it threw me out.

I went on line to help and support; explained it was a Netgear router and was duly issued password etc.

It didn't work.

Phoned up Sky to be told only their routers work. I had a brief argument with the chap on the phone explaining I had already been issued a password for a non Sky router so either he was wrong or the on line advisor didn't know what he was doing.

Anyhow, after going round in circles, I hung up. (probably what they wanted)

Has anyone else had this problem???

Regards.

PS A flying friend tried to switch his phone from Sky to another provider and had to shift heaven and earth to do it. I should have been warned.....

[Dave Bran]

Look Here:-

**LINK**

[WolstonFlyer]

I am sure the sky T's and C's say you have to use the router provided by them for your account.

Sky use 2 authenticating methods, PPPoA the old one which allows you to connect any ADSL router to the internet using the correct details and MER, MAC Encapsulated Routing, which is gradually being introduced.

Unfortunately before a router can connect using MER, it needs special firmware, as far as I understand it.

Edited By WolstonFlyer on 18/06/2013 19:05:26

[IanR]

Spice Cat

PM sent

Ian

[Spice Cat]

Many thanks, specially to Ian regarding this. Unfortunately it's no go at present. I have tried to find the T&C's for this but they seem to be buried somehwere.

Thanks again.

[Craig Carr]

Hello spice cat,

In the latest of "pc pro" mag one of the contributors mentions this very problem, confirms its one sky's terms and oonditions.

But he did find a sort of "fudge" way around it, unfortunately I don't have the mag anymore, can't recall what he said/did.

Its the current issue that's still in the newsagents.

Craig

[Spice Cat]

Done it!!!!!!

Here is a link to a youtube video that explains all. The password issued to me by Sky on line was slightly wrong (methinks a deliberate ploy) and the advice that I couldn't use a non Sky router was pants.

[Piper Cub]

Of course you can use a non sky supplied router on their service.

They just wont support any issues you have if you contact them about it. This is why you should retain the sky modem (and BT's \ Virgin's if you're using them) so you can reconnect and get them to fix any service issues.

[John Privett]

Craig, I have a copy of the mag here in front of me. It's actually "last" month's (July!) as "this" month's (August!) arrived several days ago. I think subscribers get them a good week or so before they hit the newsagents' shelves, so the July issue might still be on the shelves in WHSmiths.

Basically Sky "don't officially support" non-Sky routers and generally refuse to tell you the username and password. The workaround outlined in PCPro is to use a packet-sniffer like Wireshark to monitor the connection and look for the string @skydsl. The userid turns out to be the router's MAC address with the colons removed @skydsl and there's a six to eight char password following a | symbol after the userid.

From a quick look at SpiceCat's youtube link it seems somebody has cracked the password generation and made it available on a website - saves the bother of packet-sniffing!

[Craig Carr]

Posted by John Privett on 18/06/2013 23:45:35:

Basically Sky "don't officially support" non-Sky routers and generally refuse to tell you the username and password. The workaround outlined in PCPro is to use a packet-sniffer like Wireshark to monitor the connection and look for the string @skydsl. The userid turns out to be the router's MAC address with the colons removed @skydsl and there's a six to eight char password following a | symbol after the userid.

 

Thanks John I knew there was a reason I couldn't recall what he had said

Edited By Craig Carr on 19/06/2013 06:45:04