BT Smart Hub

bt hub latest  flawless  

Got a free upgrade to Smart Hub last week, it worked fine for 5 days then packed up. Orange light of death. Good whilst working, but my advice to anyone thinking of Smart Hub would be to hang on to your HH5 as a back up. I'm glad I did.....

As if by some cruel twist of fate I came downstairs this morning to find the orange light of death on the Smart Hub. Rebooted and was greeted by a solid green light for 20 minutes. Looks like this one has gone the same way as the other 5. Not impressed! Plugged the HH5 in and all is OK.

Good  idea but poorly executed....three have lasted precisely one week

audio1946 posted:

bt hub latest  flawless  

Providing it dosnt go tits up!

Some have the lifespan of an anorexic mayfly. I've installed a fair few DG834s in my time & can't recall any failures & had  a client who BT wouldnt provide broadband being 5.8Km from the exchange. Decent Netgear with a few tweaks & got excellent speeds, better than his office 2.5Km from exchange.

Of course if you decide not to use a BTHH, it's best use an optimised ADSL or VDSL modem for connection to BT Openreach MSANs and line cards. Performance and reliability of the connection between your modem and cabinet line card is crucial, and its best to use supported and or validated devices. If you look at the BT Shop you will see DSL modems for sale including the DrayTek Vigor 130.. so if you want to use your own router set it up to talk PPPoE to your modem and connect to your modem such as the 130... this way you have more control and most likely get the most reliable and optimal connection. A generic DSL interface in a standard consumer router/modem might not be optimised for BT and give a less than optimum performance. Always check a third party modem/router has modem firmware tested and validated for connection to BT.. should be in firmware release notes.

Ravenswood10 posted:

As if by some cruel twist of fate I came downstairs this morning to find the orange light of death on the Smart Hub. Rebooted and was greeted by a solid green light for 20 minutes. Looks like this one has gone the same way as the other 5. Not impressed! Plugged the HH5 in and all is OK.

Good  idea but poorly executed....three have lasted precisely one week

You have to hold the worlds record for failed hubs,  I would make this point to BT & question if an engineer visit to check for line problems is required.    I was talking to a BT/Openreach engineer yesterday & he says although they did have problems when first introduced, he believes they have solved those issues.  I see the BT customer support (community.bt.com)  have no new posts on this,  Jan 2017 is the last thread date.

Sorry to read of the issues with the Smart Hub folks - no fun at all. 

I’m currently still using a Home Hub 5. Although a few months back I was going to order a Smart Hub. Before I did I had a quick check on the BT forum and the number of problems made me hold back until either a revised version came out or for the next itineration. Glad I held fire on actually buying one. 

Near BT contract end I did try to blag a free one but no joy. Contract now expired and so reviewing options. No Virgin in this area, so BT are probably still the best / fastest supplier.

For now, I’ve temporarily solved the HH5 Wi-Fi limitations with a BT Wi-Fi extender to create a second Wi-Fi network in the office dead spot. A sticking plaster repair I know, but its all relatively stable for now, esp since the introduction of new ethernet switches. 

Mike-B, Encouraging news from the Openreach bod if that’s correct. May well be the time to plunge.

Yetizone posted:

Mike-B, Encouraging news from the Openreach bod if that’s correct. May well be the time to plunge.

He is Openreach (the network) engineer manager rather than a BT man with a toolbox so it's more what he hears around the office rather than hands on.  Also he's had a trouble free HH6 since first introduced.     I would be more inclined to spend a while browsing the BT Community Forum; it seems the plethora of posts about reliability were in 2016 & next to nothing in 2017.     

Sadly I'm not alone with this number of failures and the line is fine. I dropped a note to my friendly exec complaints chap at BT Newcastle earlier today so let's see what transpires. I'm back on the HH5 and all is fine. I'm glad I kept it!

I may just stick with the HH5 - anything but try another HH6! 

My last call to India played back the usual mantra that HH6 don't work on ADSL/Copper. If this is the case one could say that BTs current advertising is misleading.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Of course if you decide not to use a BTHH, it's best use an optimised ADSL or VDSL modem for connection to BT Openreach MSANs and line cards. Performance and reliability of the connection between your modem and cabinet line card is crucial, and its best to use supported and or validated devices. If you look at the BT Shop you will see DSL modems for sale including the DrayTek Vigor 130.. so if you want to use your own router set it up to talk PPPoE to your modem and connect to your modem such as the 130... this way you have more control and most likely get the most reliable and optimal connection. A generic DSL interface in a standard consumer router/modem might not be optimised for BT and give a less than optimum performance. Always check a third party modem/router has modem firmware tested and validated for connection to BT.. should be in firmware release notes.

Agreed,

BT also infrequently vanalise ahem, 'update' the home hub overnight, sometimes resulting in despair. I daresay not beyond a hard reset &/or firmware re-load but not everyones a techie. Using your own router should prevent this although they may load their own firmware - anyone confirm?

The DrayTek routers are some of the very best, if not & well worth it. The only BB companies I would trust to provide a decent free router are Andrews & Arnold, IDNet or Zen.

Be interesting to dig out an old 834, flash it & see what speeds it provides when connected to BT tho, I get a perfectly 9.5 down & 1 up Mb/s here about 3.5Km from exchange in rural France - soon to be FTC'd.

</derail>

Ravenswood10 posted:

 

My last call to India played back the usual mantra that HH6 don't work on ADSL/Copper. If this is the case one could say that BTs current advertising is misleading.

That really is boll*cks - I went from copper to fibre and the speed became worse. Evidently fibre performance falls off a cliff at a certain distance from the cabinet. I am now back on copper but all that aggro resulted in my hefty discount and keeping the Smart Hub which works fine with copper. Another beneficial side effect was that all the attempts to get fibre to work optimised my line to the extent that my speed is now about double what it was before the changes (although still only half of the advertised maximum).

Couldn't agree more but that's the mantra the call centre people as spouting. There's also talk that the HH6 prone to ADSL line noise vs. HH4 and 5 although how true this is I don't know.

Yetizone posted:

 

For now, I’ve temporarily solved the HH5 Wi-Fi limitations with a BT Wi-Fi extender to create a second Wi-Fi network in the office dead spot. A sticking plaster repair I know, but its all relatively stable for now, esp since the introduction of new ethernet switches. 

This is my permanent solution. It works. I'd rather flip between access points than be on the edge of a flakey WiFi signal. Most of our devices stay in the vicinity of a particular repeater, so the need to flip doesn't crop up much. Maybe we are unusual in that regard.

Pev posted:

Ravenswood10 posted:

 

My last call to India played back the usual mantra that HH6 don't work on ADSL/Copper. If this is the case one could say that BTs current advertising is misleading.

That really is boll*cks - I went from copper to fibre and the speed became worse. Evidently fibre performance falls off a cliff at a certain distance from the cabinet. I am now back on copper but all that aggro resulted in my hefty discount and keeping the Smart Hub which works fine with copper. Another beneficial side effect was that all the attempts to get fibre to work optimised my line to the extent that my speed is now about double what it was before the changes (although still only half of the advertised maximum).

I presume you're talking about FTTC, where you are still dependent on the existing copper infrastructure from cabinet to home. Speed is known to drop off with increased distance from the cabinet, and crosstalk is a common issue, especially if there is a large number of users. Then there's the quality of the copper cables themselves, many of which are years past their sell by date with corroded connections, etc. 

Ravenswood10 posted:

.............      There's also talk that the HH6 prone to ADSL line noise vs. HH4 and 5 although how true this is I don't know.

OK considering ADSL noise ..........  getting back to your post this morning re Orange light,  it means the hub is working but having a connection problem; this might be noise.   You say the line is OK,  but has it been checked by BT ???  I know of two instances were an extension that was not wired correctly & unused extensions caused issues.  My son had a lot of issues with his new Infinity service,  a BT engineer visit found a hidden extension installed by the previous house owner,  the fix was to remove it.   I had BT remove all my old phone, fax & telex extensions over two separate lines & my broadband line speed improved significantly,  the engineer said these T joints add line impedance & collect noise.     I'm  just thinking it would be worth adding a request for a free engineer visit to your 'friendly exec complaints chap at BT Newcastle' 

ChrisSU posted:

Then there's the quality of the copper cables themselves, many of which are years past their sell by date with corroded connections, etc. 

We have this issue.  Quite apart from having ancient aluminium lines running from the road across the fields to the house, at least one engineer identified our noise problem as being caused by corrosion to the contacts in a junction box down the road.  At the time he cleaned them up and things were great for a few months.  However, after a bout of rain, as things dry out the line gets really noisy and an internet connection longer than a few minutes becomes impossible.  It appears BT are happy with the status quo of me ringing and ringing, going through all the usual hoops before they eventually send out an engineer, and then you need one who is patient enough to hang around to trace the source. It really is like banging your head against the wall...

A familiar story, Richard! Open Reach are more or less constantly tracing faults for us and our various neighbours down to the nearest box. They must be running low on sticking plasters, as they have told us we can have FTTP in a couple of months.

Richard Dane posted:

ChrisSU posted:

Then there's the quality of the copper cables themselves, many of which are years past their sell by date with corroded connections, etc. 

We have this issue.  Quite apart from having ancient aluminium lines running from the road across the fields to the house, at least one engineer identified our noise problem as being caused by corrosion to the contacts in a junction box down the road.  At the time he cleaned them up and things were great for a few months.  However, after a bout of rain, as things dry out the line gets really noisy and an internet connection longer than a few minutes becomes impossible.  It appears BT are happy with the status quo of me ringing and ringing, going through all the usual hoops before they eventually send out an engineer, and then you need one who is patient enough to hang around to trace the source. It really is like banging your head against the wall...

If there is a line issue then this can be usually be  quite easily identified by Openreach on a site visit - depending on the issue. One common issue is flooded ducts where through a nick or defect in the insulation  the copper can oxidise over a time - sometimes many years and eventually produce an oxide junction. This may well produce whistles or noise on the line but DSL will still work albeit with reduced performance.  If you are confident the fault is not your side of the consumer box then you can always call for a fault.. and the on site test equipment will normally identify it. (as opposed to the remote line checker)

Faults I have experienced where a partial service is maintained rather than a total outage are the above oxidised connection, bad ground and floating earth in the cabinet. The portable Openreach test equipment each time identified the fault - locating the fault was sometimes more of a challenge.

It is also really worth isolating your home wiring and using the consumer test socket connection and check the ADSL sync speed or voice quality from the test socket. From what I have seen many variable DSL connections can be down to poor domestic wiring and filters. If you don't use a master DSL socket but instead use discrete filters then isolating the ring wire can nearly always realise a benefit by reducing RF noise impacting the DSL - excessive disconnects after sun set is an indication of this

S

Just put the HH5 away along with my 6th failed HH6 and installed a Vigor 2860. Relatively simple to set up  (at least for me) and no dropouts - yet. Let's see if it continues over the coming days and weeks 

Just put the HH5 away along with my 6th failed HH6 and installed a Vigor 2860. Relatively simple to set up  (at least for me) and no dropouts - yet. Let's see if it continues over the coming days and weeks 

Hello, just thought I would let you know (in case you are thinking of moving to the 6) that I have just had my fifth six delivered after the last one died the green death a few days ago.  Unlike posters above, I've never had a problem getting it replaced quickly, just a problem keeping it working (it is good when it does though).  Latest one came with the assurance from India that this is a new improved unit and the old problems should have been solved.  Not had the motivation to set it up yet as the old hub 3 works fine and I'm dreading seeing that green glow again.

I know this is not a representative sample and we will always hear about problems and far less about kit that is faultless. However this could also be the tip of a sinking Smart Hub-shaped iceberg. Anyway, I have heard enough of failing HH6s on here to question why a massive and technologically advanced company like BT can't get a simple home hub right. I am sure they subcontract the detailed design and manufacture of the HH6 to others but surely they must specify and test the thing before releasing it on us poor souls. I was going to switch to a HH6 and am glad I didn't. I have a HH5 that seems to be OK now but I remember going through a few to arrive at a reliable one. Bu**ger, why did I say that. I so know what is going to happen now.

I do get the dreaded 'Finding Rooms' (and nothing else) when firing up the Naim app on occasion. Both Naim Customer Support and I believe the HH5 is the culprit and I have been advise to stick a LinkSys router between the HH5 and my switch. Mine is a simple wired network under very little strain and I see this as unnecessary additional cost required to make up for the deficiencies in BT's hubs. 

It does beggar belief that BT could get this rather simple (compared to their complex and sophisticated infrastructure) bit of kit so wrong, even for a minority. Come on BT, this is embarrassing.

OK I realise I am on the wrong forum for this, but it does affect us Naimees that want to stream their music but are battling with a BT home Hub - rant over. 

It does beggar any notion of good levels of service but unfortunately it does not beggar belief. Pretty basic stuff, costed to the bone and knocked out by the thousand. If it doesn't work then chuck it and send out another. I had this with HH4. So far so good on the Smart Hub.

nigelb posted:

I know this is not a representative sample and we will always hear about problems and far less about kit that is faultless. However this could also be the tip of a sinking Smart Hub-shaped iceberg. Anyway, I have heard enough of failing HH6s on here to question why a massive and technologically advanced company like BT can't get a simple home hub right. I am sure they subcontract the detailed design and manufacture of the HH6 to others but surely they must specify and test the thing before releasing it on us poor souls. I was going to switch to a HH6 and am glad I didn't. I have a HH5 that seems to be OK now but I remember going through a few to arrive at a reliable one. Bu**ger, why did I say that. I so know what is going to happen now.

I do get the dreaded 'Finding Rooms' (and nothing else) when firing up the Naim app on occasion. Both Naim Customer Support and I believe the HH5 is the culprit and I have been advise to stick a LinkSys router between the HH5 and my switch. Mine is a simple wired network under very little strain and I see this as unnecessary additional cost required to make up for the deficiencies in BT's hubs. 

It does beggar belief that BT could get this rather simple (compared to their complex and sophisticated infrastructure) bit of kit so wrong, even for a minority. Come on BT, this is embarrassing.

OK I realise I am on the wrong forum for this, but it does affect us Naimees that want to stream their music but are battling with a BT home Hub - rant over. 

The HH6 and other recent HH are actually quite advanced broadband routers, they need to be for various reasons such as for BT vision, although I can't speak for the hardware reliability issues that some appear to be having. They process multicast accurately, necessary for BT vision... however it does mean interoperability issues can arise between Naim and the HH router which would cause room not found discovery issues being persistently seen... many less advanced broadband routers largely ignore this capability aso issues don't arise, but you would be b*ggered using realively high bandwidth multicast streamed data.

One option on some routers is to disable IGMP snooping, not possible on the HH I believe .. probably because it is fairly essential for multicast video streaming. An alternative is to use a kludge and connect your UPnP media devices and Naim and a separate wifi access point to a dumb switch like a Netgear or an advanced switch like a Cisco 2960.. that way you can isolate any potential HH / Naim interoperability issue should you be experiencing one.

I actually run an IGMP querier on my home network such that it  forces correct IGMP group interoperability... I never have any discovery issues now with Naim, Apple and other items. I run the querier on one of my managed switches, a Cisco 2960.

Simon

I should not be saying anything as to do so will awaken one of the gods of retribution & my one & only trouble free BT HH6 will be cursed to a slow death of flashing lights.     But using the BT customer forum as an indicator it is very noticeable that the many HH6 complaint threads in 2016 has all but disappeared in 2017.