BT Hub/Wi-Fi

[Infrasonic]

After a couple of months of things working well it all went bad again a few weeks ago. I logged into the hub and rescanned both ranges and all fine now. The hub is a BT Smarthub and I wonder whether it resets … perhaps on doing some sort of update.

I realise I treat technology as if it doesn’t need maintenance which is, of course, absurd. Most of the maintenance is done so seamlessly that I’d forgotten the screwdriver and oil can

Best wishes,

Steve

ISP supplied routers are 'free' so are never going to be the best tech available as they are built to a price. Often they have a limited number of advanced options networking settings wise to stop people fiddling and getting themselves into trouble.

You might want to look at putting the ISP modem/router into modem only mode and using your own router/mesh/ WAP system for the WiFi side of things. I've seen a lot of comments on line from people who have done just that and it solved the majority of their WiFi issues. There's loads of online tutorials showing how to do it.

[Peltiq]

After a couple of months of things working well it all went bad again a few weeks ago. I logged into the hub and rescanned both ranges and all fine now. The hub is a BT Smarthub and I wonder whether it resets … perhaps on doing some sort of update.

I realise I treat technology as if it doesn’t need maintenance which is, of course, absurd. Most of the maintenance is done so seamlessly that I’d forgotten the screwdriver and oil can

Best wishes,

Steve

ISP supplied routers are 'free' so are never going to be the best tech available as they are built to a price. Often they have a limited number of advanced options networking settings wise to stop people fiddling and getting themselves into trouble.

You might want to look at putting the ISP modem/router into modem only mode and using your own router/mesh/ WAP system for the WiFi side of things. I've seen a lot of comments on line from people who have done just that and it solved the majority of their WiFi issues. There's loads of online tutorials showing how to do it.

This is not possible if you have a BT Homehub 5.

https://community.bt.com/t5/Archive-Sta ... 96#M101090

Karen

[didds]

This is not possible if you have a BT Homehub 5.

https://community.bt.com/t5/Archive-Sta ... 96#M101090

Karen

one could though just leave the BT wifi in place then, but still run a 2nd router in access mode cabled to it provising the "real" wifi you use presumably?

and just ignore the BT wifi. You may be able to hide its SSID to avoid any "confusion"

just thoughts off the top of my head

didds

[Peltiq]

This is not possible if you have a BT Homehub 5.

https://community.bt.com/t5/Archive-Sta ... 96#M101090

Karen

one could though just leave the BT wifi in place then, but still run a 2nd router in access mode cabled to it provising the "real" wifi you use presumably?

and just ignore the BT wifi. You may be able to hide its SSID to avoid any "confusion"

just thoughts off the top of my head

didds

You are 100 per cent correct and this is precisely what we have done. Our HH5 is connected to a TP-Link Deco mesh system which works fantastically well in our 200-year-old, thick-walled house.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Deco-M5-Covera ... r=8-2&th=1

Karen

[Infrasonic]

If you do go with your own router/mesh/WAP set up make sure it has regular firmware updates as part of its feature list that go on for a decent time period - routers have been one of the worst offenders for built in obsolescence over the years and as effectively the front door to your home network the last thing you want is it getting hacked via a WAN breach. (You'll see from router logs that port scanning by third parties is a regular everyday occurrence.)

If you really want to push the boat out you can get bonded routers with built in multi WAN capability (FTTP/Cable/satellite/3/4/5G modem or SIM) so that you'll have failover capability and/or load balancing across more than one ISP - handy for a business or home working scenario.
DrayTek are one of the better known brands but there are plenty of others. Brand new they aren't cheap though...

[Peltiq]

If you do go with your own router/mesh/WAP set up make sure it has regular firmware updates as part of its feature list that go on for a decent time period - routers have been one of the worst offenders for built in obsolescence over the years and as effectively the front door to your home network the last thing you want is it getting hacked via a WAN breach. (You'll see from router logs that port scanning by third parties is a regular everyday occurrence.)

If you really want to push the boat out you can get bonded routers with built in multi WAN capability (FTTP/Cable/satellite/3/4/5G modem or SIM) so that you'll have failover capability and/or load balancing across more than one ISP - handy for a business or home working scenario.
DrayTek are one of the better known brands but there are plenty of others. Brand new they aren't cheap though...

If I wanted to replace my existing BT Homehub 5 with something better, what would you suggest? Please bear in mind that the existing BT Hub connects directly to a TP-Link mesh system and no wi-fi from the modem/router is required. Everything comes from the mesh system.

I particularly like the look of the DrayTek equipment which was mentioned in the previous post by Infrasonic.

Karen

[nautical]

The option to "Forget Network" enables you to delete a stored profile for a particular wifi network.

https://support.my.uq.edu.au/app/answers/detail/a_id/2509/~/how-do-i-remove-or-forget-a-wifi-network%3F

While wifi profiles created during previous connections to routers & access points make it easy to automatically reconnect to those same wifi networks in future, over time it's possible the information held within a profile, such as settings/configuration details, are no longer optimal for that network. As such, where settings may change after a profile was originally creating, continual use of it to connect to e.g. home wifi may compromise wifi performance.

Once "Forget Network" has been used, a device will rescan and report available wifi networks. By connecting to a network and ticking the "Connect Automatically" checkbox (in Windows), a new profile is created for that network with the latest (optimal) settings.

[stewamax]

If I wanted to replace my existing BT Homehub 5 with something better, what would you suggest? Please bear in mind that the existing BT Hub connects directly to a TP-Link mesh system and no wi-fi from the modem/router is required. Everything comes from the mesh system.
I particularly like the look of the DrayTek equipment which was mentioned in the previous post by Infrasonic.

A few factors worth considering:

- if your house is long or has several storeys or has thick solid internal walls, you may find powerline adaptors more effective, and you may be able even to use them in conjunction with the TP Link mesh system (e.g. their Deco P9; the Deco M9 and M5 don’t support it) such that the back-channels to the router are powerline and not wireless. This frees up wireless channels for communicating with PCs / phones / tablets.

- the fastest powerline systems use the G.hn standard but typically these do not interwork with older homeplug devices

- if you use may WiFi devices, WiFi 6 (aka 802.11ax) access points may help.
The very recent WiF 6E adds the 6GHz spectrum, but I’m not sure if this licensed in the UK yet and device support is scant although Qualcomm et al have released suitable chips

- DrayTek make fine routers. You could also look at Fritz! routers from German AVM