Possible reasons why your Sky broadband is not working

The first thing you need to do before proceeding further is to connect a traditional phone handset straight to the broadband phone socket on the wall. Connect it straight into the socket - remove the microfilter.

You should hear a dial tone. If you hear a cracking noise or it's silent, contact Sky as the fault appears to be with the broadband internet connection line.

If you hear the dial tone continue reading this Sky broadband troubleshooting guide.

We have provided a checklist of the essential things that might have caused your Sky broadband internet connection to stop working.

There is no silver bullet (one tweak fixes all) to fix your specific problem however, the checklist below will help rule out (or rule in) possible causes or reasons as to why the Sky broadband is not working.

Make sure that its not your PC or smart device that has the fault

Before we start investigating the problem with your Sky broadband, we will need to rule out your device to confirm that its not the problem.

Are you seeing similar issues on a different device?

If the Sky broadband has stopped working on your PC/device, do you have the same problem on a different device? Are all members of your household having the same issue on their device(s)?

If everybody has the same fault then it is likely that it is the Sky broadband internet connection that is not working.

Similarly, if it is just one device that's having the issue then the problem is with that device as opposed to the Sky broadband internet connection being at fault.

Is the problem still present when you change between a wireless and a wired connection?

Check if the problem with your Sky broadband is still present when you switch between wireless and wired connections.

Find a device that has a network port and connect it straight to the Sky broadband router. The majority of broadband providers include an ethernet/network cable in the box that the broadband router came in.

The issue may be with your Wi-Fi network if you find that your Sky broadband internet connection is working fine when you connect using an ethernet network cable.

If the issue is still present when connected wirelessly and wired, continue reading this troubleshooting guide to try to find the reason why your Sky broadband is not working.

Is it a particular app or website that is not working?

Attempt to access a different website or app to test if the fault on your Sky broadband internet connection is still the same.

It you discover that you can’t get to any websites at all or the problem is the same across different apps and websites, carry on to the next part of this Sky broadband troubleshooting guide.

Have you recently made any changes to your Sky Broadband internet connection?

Think about any technical or physical changes that might have stopped your Sky broadband from working.

• Have you added any new electrical equipment to the house?
  Devices such as Televisions, monitors, microwaves, toasters, halogen lights, Wi-Fi devices, and dimmer switches can obstruct or interfere with your Wi-Fi signal. Extension leads can also cause interference.
• Have you moved the Sky broadband router or positioned furniture or ornaments in front?
• Has anyone recently logged in to the Sky router and changed any settings?

A recent change may be the reason why your Sky broadband is not working. Undo all recent changes.

My Sky broadband is working but slow

Broadband Traffic Management

You might notice that your Sky broadband is getting slower during peak times. Peak time tends to be evenings and weekends.

This is the reason why some broadband providers or broadband packages have 'Traffic Management' (also known as Traffic Shaping).

That is when your broadband provider will start prioritising certain types of internet traffic in a bid to stop other customers from using up all the capacity.

Check or get in touch with Sky to find out if there is traffic management on the broadband package.

Is your broadband internet connection overloaded?

Do you need to consider upgrading your Broadband package or switching?

• What broadband speed do I need?
• Best Broadband Deals this week

Has your Wifi network been hacked?

If you are sure that have sufficient bandwidth for your home, ensure that it is not being used by unauthorised guests or your neighbours.

Log into the Sky broadband router and there will be a section to see a list of all the devices that are logged on to your broadband.

Are there any device names that you do not recognise?

Restarting your Sky router will disconnect all the devices connected.

After restarting, if the unrecognised devices re-connect, you will need to investigate what they are.

Some wireless devices or smart devices have weird names that you may not recognise.

The best way to identify them is to power off all your wireless devices e.g. Amazon Alexa, Google Hubs, Smart speakers, etc and then restart your Sky router and check if the unrecognized devices still re-connect.

If they re-connect, your options are to either check if your router model/version has the capability to block or blacklist devices (this is usually done by blocking their *MAC address). Alternatively,  you might have to change your wireless password.

*All internet-capable devices have a unique MAC address which you will be able to see on the Sky broadband router when the device is connected.

If you want to take it a step further, you can also change the wireless network name (the SSID) and hide the wireless network so it is not broadcasted and visible to anyone.

To add devices to your Wifi network in the future, you can unhide the wireless network briefly whilst you join the new device. The alternative is to enter the details of your Wifi network into the new device.

Are you seeing a high number of Wi-Fi networks in your house?

Slow Sky wireless speed may be caused by occupying overpopulated Wi-Fi channels.

Overlapping with your neighbour may cause issues on both of your Wi-Fi networks.

You can use applications such as Wi-Fi Analyzer (Android) or Network-Analyzer (IOS) to check what channel your Wi-Fi network is operating on and how busy the channels are.

You can then switch the channel to a less busy one by logging into the wireless settings section on your Sky Broadband router.

Your Sky broadband router may be already set to automatically select the best Wi-Fi channel.

We do not recommend changing if it is already configured to automatic.

If you manually change it, you may find that you are always in a cat-and-mouse situation of repeatedly having to change it as and when the neighbouring wireless networks increase or change their channel settings.

Restarting the Sky Broadband router will cause it to analyse and change to the best possible channel.

• How to find the best WiFi Channel

7 Steps to fix your Sky broadband internet connection

Follow these steps to fix (or help determine) why your Sky Broadband is not working, is slow or keeps disconnecting. For this trouble-shooting guide to be useful, ensure that the suggested actions in the above sections have been performed.

1. Reboot your Sky broadband router

You are probably sick and tired of hearing this but it is a must. Broadband routers are just mini-computers which need a restart to clear down any issues after they have been operating for long periods.

This also allows them to re-establish and negotiate a new connection with Sky.

Your Sky broadband router may take 3 - 5mins to run thru the restart and broadband negotiation reconnecting cycle. It might take longer if it is performing an update on reboot. Please be patient.

Important: Do not switch off your Sky broadband router for long periods or continually restart it.

Standard broadband (ADSL) and Fibre-To-The-Cabinet (FTTC) broadband run a process known as Dynamic Line Management (DLM) which tries to stabilise a broadband line by reducing the line speed to make it more stable.

Continually restarting the broadband router or switching it off for extended periods makes DLM think that you have an unstable connection and thus slows it down.

2. Check the Sky broadband router LED lights

If any of the Sky broadband router status lights are red or amber, this is a sure sign that there is a fault with your Sky broadband line.

You should contact Sky customer services to report this problem. Ensure that all the cables from the wall socket to the Sky broadband router are firmly connected before contacting customer services.

3. Check your Sky Broadband Phone Line

If you still have a landline handset, connect it directly to the wall socket and check if you can hear a dial tone. If all you hear is noise or silence, there is a fault with the line.

Get in touch with Sky to report this fault.

4. Are there any known problems with Sky broadband in your area

Check if there are known issues on the Sky network that might be causing your Sky broadband to stop working.

Check if other Sky customers have reported faults with their broadband.

• Check Sky Broadband Status on Downdetector website
• Check Sky Broadband Internet Status on Is the Service down website

5. Check if your device has an IP address

All devices need an IP address to be able to connect to the internet.

This is something that takes place in the background when you connect to any broadband wireless or wired network.

The Sky broadband router is set up (by default) to assign your device(s) an IP address automatically unless you have manually changed the settings.

If your PC/device doesn’t get an IP address, it will not be able to connect to the internet or any other devices that you connect to in your home (e.g. smart speakers, Amazon or Google devices, gadgets, etc).

The screenshots below are where you would check to see if your PC/Laptop has an IP address on Windows and MAC OS.

Windows

Go to Start > Control Panel > Network and Internet > Network and Sharing Centre.
Click on the name of your network connection and click the Details button. Your IP address will be displayed.

Apple MAC

Go to System Preferences and click on the Network Preference pane.

Your IP address will be displayed as per the screen shot below.

You can search How to Find my IP Address on YouTube to find videos on finding the IP address on different make/model devices and operating systems.

If your IP address starts with 169, it is not a valid IP address. It's a way that your device tells you that it was not allocated an IP address so defaults to a 169 address.

If you are not getting an IP address or your IP address starts with 169, log into the Sky broadband router and look for the section that refers to DHCP.

DHCP stands for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol and is the process that is responsible for allocating IP addresses. Ensure that it is enabled.

Contact Sky Broadband support to assist in correcting problems on your DHCP service if you are uncomfortable or do not have the knowledge on how to do this.

If you do get an IP address, make sure you also have a Default Gateway (or Router IP) and a DNS server IP address as per the image below.

IP address
IP address has already been explained in the above section.

Default Gateway or Router IP address

This is the device in your network that is the ‘gateway’ to the outside world/internet. In most cases, this is the IP address of the Sky broadband router.

This is also referred to as a Router address on Apple Macs.

DNS Server IP address

This is the device that translates any website name that you type into your internet browser e.g www.google.com to an IP address.

Computers and internet-enabled devices ‘talk’ to each other using IP addresses.

When you type www.google.com into your browser your PC/device asks the DNS server for the IP address for that web page.

If you are missing a DNS server in your IP address configuration, you will not be able to get onto the internet because your device will not know the IP address for the website or anything else that you’re trying to get to.

It is like trying to send mail to your friend John Smith’s house but don’t have his home address.

6. Check if you can connect to the internet by ‘Pinging’ google.com

If you have followed the above section and confirmed that your device has an IP address, you can test internet connectivity by Pinging google.com

PING, is a diagnostic tool that tests connectivity between devices.

• How to ping a website

If you do not have connectivity to Google, check that you can ping the default gateway.

If you can ping the Default Gateway but not Google, this indicates a problem with your BT broadband as that is the route to Google.

7. Get in touch with Sky Broadband customer services

If you have followed this troubleshooting guide to this point. It is time to contact Sky Broadband support and tell them that you have completed the above checks.

The fault that has caused your Sky broadband to stop working is outside of your property and control.

We hope this Sky broadband troubleshooting guide has been useful.

If you are planning on switching your broadband internet connection, you can check out:
Top 6 broadband internet deals this week.

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