Sky UK Issue New Sky Broadband Booster to Guarantee Home WiFi UPDATE

After yesterday’s Sky Broadband ISP news (here), which saw them soft launch a new range of ultrafast broadband packages, it’s worth noting that some of the provider’s Sky Q customers also appear to be receiving a new Sky Q Booster style device, which is essentially a WiFi extender for your home (set to form part of a new Sky WiFi Guarantee).

The new model is almost certainly intended to complement their new Hub (Sky Hub 4 / Sky Q Hub 2 / SR203) router, which will be sold alongside Sky Broadband’s aforementioned ultrafast packages. Previously Sky has always released a new wireless booster device in order to go alongside new generations of their router hardware and this time looks to be no different.

The booster adopts a similar styling to the new Sky Broadband Hub and stands up like a tower rather than sitting flat, although on the back it only features a power connector and single Gigabit Ethernet port (at least we assume it’s Gigabit speed). A Wi-Fi Protected Set up (WPS) button is also present to help with linking the booster into your network of Sky Q devices (Hub, Box and Minis).

At the time of writing we weren’t able to see how much Sky will charge for this updated add-on as the related product page has been taken down and it’s not at present listed under their accessories (here). We have asked Sky to clarify what’s changed with this device and will report back, although it’s probably safe to say that they’ll be using a more advanced WiFi chip like the new Sky Broadband Hub (we’re still awaiting full specs for that too).

UPDATE 22nd August 2019:

We’ve been looking into why the new extenders aren’t being sold on Sky’s website any more, although some customers have been given one for free by Sky’s own engineers as part of an unrelated service upgrade. Apparently the reason for this seems to be hiding a new product / service add-on, which Sky hasn’t yet officially announced (they promised us a reply yesterday but we’re still waiting).

According to one of our sources, Sky are currently preparing to add a new feature to their Sky Broadband Boost add-on (+£2.50 extra per month). The feature is effectively a WiFi Guarantee (similar to BT’s Complete Wi-Fi feature). The new feature is due to be introduced from early September 2019.

The guarantee will promise to deliver WiFi speeds of at least 3Mbps to every room in your house and if you can’t get that then the boost kicks in. At this point customers will first be offered an upgrade to the Sky Broadband Hub router and if that doesn’t work then Sky will send you the new Sky WiFi Booster 4 device above (supplied either as part of a Tech Team engineer visit or separately).

One catch here is that existing Sky Broadband Boost customers will only be able to benefit if they re-contract both their broadband and boost add-on for another 18 months (this is not an issue for new users who take the boost once the WiFi guarantee is added). Personally we think this is a bit mean as the boost feature is already quite new, but obviously it is an extra cost that the ISP will have to balance somehow.

However if you take the Sky Broadband Boost add-on after 20th August then the WiFi guarantee should be added for free. At least this is all our understanding from sources and Sky has yet to officially confirm.