HowTo - BT Smart Hub 2 with BQM

Hi All,

It first seemed that you weren't able to setup BQM with the smart hub 2 but I did read somewhere putting the modem into DMZ could work. After a good few tries I finally managed to get it working so I thought I'd writeup how to do it.

Login to the BT Superhub at 192.168.1.254
Go to Advanced Settings > Firewall > Configuration
Scroll to DMZ and select a device to put into DMZ. For me I chose the Nvidia Shield which was connected via Ethernet so I thought this would work best.

Please read into DMZ to understand what your enabling, I'm okay as its a very temporary measure and will disable after a day or so

Save settings and go back to the smart hub 2 main page but this time select:
Advanced Settings > Broadband
Copy the Broadband IP Address.

Now when setting up the BQM Monitor use the IP address you copied and it should work fine. When I tried setting the BQM before it was giving me different IP addresses and I believe it was an IPV6 address which is okay for the Broadband Connection setup, but for the BQM the ping was all over the place, so those settings above appears to be running great, and it confirmed that BT FTTP was way better than Virgin Gigabit over docsis

Virgin Media Gig1
VM GIG1

BT 900
BT 900

Edited by MrSweetE90 (Sat 22-Jan-22 16:35:22)

Thank you for this. I used a spare mikrotik router as the target in the DMZ, first setting it up for DHCP input and plugging into output 2 of my BT Smart Hub 2. Verified that I could get internet access through it, albeit double NATed, and set up DMZ as per your instructions.
When BQM set up, it worked like a charm using IPV4 monitor . Not tried IPV6 yet as not too sure what address to use.
Great HowTo.

Terry

Now it's been running for a day :-

BQM

Edited by Terry74 (Sat 12-Feb-22 16:16:36)

Hi Terry,

Glad my HowTo helped you, the BQM graph looks really good, it's massively different to Virgin Media DOCSIS quality.

Hi there folks.

Hope all are well, and sorry for resurrecting quite an old thread.

The reason I am posting here is that this thread is probably the most authoritative one I have found on the internet on the topic of getting a BQM working with a BT Smart Hub 2 (which does not, as standard, support a BQM ping response).

I too am thinking about placing a suitable ("safe"/low risk) device in a DMZ (a so-called "De Militarised Zone"), for the purposes of getting a BQM working with my BT Smart Hub 2, under the "workaround" instructions above.

As far as I understand it, a good candidate for a “DMZ’d” device could, perhaps, be:

(1) An extra wired router from an established networking company, connected by ethernet cable, to one of the available BT Smart Hub 2’s ethernet ports. Nothing else would be connected to the extra wired router. Examples, off the top of my head, could be a unit from TP-Link, Linksys, NetGear, Mikrotik, DrayTek or CISCO (albeit, generally speaking, the CISCO units I see on marketplace sites are quite large-sized and look to be designed for enterprise applications).

(2) Some kind of “locked down” small-sized Raspberry Pi device, with ethernet connectivity, which would respond to the ThinkBroadband’s BQM ping requests only. Sadly, I am no expert, at all, on Raspberry Pi devices, and certainly not on securing them against attack, and so, I am inclined to look past this option. If anyone could advise on making that work, I would be open to suggestions and guidance however.

(3) Some other kind of stand-alone “relatively safe” ethernet-connectable device that I have not considered.

I am very grateful for any suggestions as to what kind of ethernet-connected device would be a good and safe candidate to place in a DMZ.

As a final aside, I made a post seeking advice on getting a BQM working on the official BT Community forums, here. Sadly, it was not well received.

All the best folks, and thanks again for reading my post.

Edited by unicorn555 (Sun 06-Jul-25 20:07:00)

In reply to a post by unicorn555:

I too am thinking about placing a suitable ("safe"/low risk) device in a DMZ (a so-called "De Militarised Zone"), for the purposes of getting a BQM working with my BT Smart Hub 2, under the "workaround" instructions above.

As I understand it, BT internet does dual stack IPv6, so I would not bother with a DMZ, I would just use a RasPi with whatever the default RasPi linux is on IPv6. Not going to go into how to secure it, there will be plenty of info out there on securing a linux machine and with its default linux, the fact that it is a RasPi is neither here nor there. A RasPi 2 will be more than adequate for this role, I am fairly certain it will support IPv6

Hi there DFScale.

Thanks so much for your response, which is densely packed with interesting information, a lot of which I am not familiar with, but which I am keen to learn about.

A Raspberry Pi solution -- to facilitate a working BQM when using a BT Smart Hub 2 -- is certainly one that interests me.

Granted, it could be a lot of work for me to achieve, as I have absolutely zero knowledge or experience with:

• Raspberry Pi units.
• Linux.

If I do try to implement this solution, I feel the learning process would probably be something along the lines of:

1. Learn about Raspberry Pi units generally.
2. Learn about running Linux on a Raspberry Pi unit generally.
3. Learn how to secure a Raspberry Pi, running Linux, which is visible to the internet.


First Steps

I have done some very basic initial research on acquiring and setting-up a Raspberry Pi.

From my initial Google searches (“Raspberry Pi”, here, and “Raspberry Pi buy”, here), it seems like the two best places to begin are:

• https://www.raspberrypi.com -- Seemingly the official Raspberry Pi site. Lots of recommendations on hardware, plus extensive documentation and forum resources.
• https://thepihut.com -- Seemingly among the most well-regarded sellers of Raspberry Pi equipment and accessories. If I proceed with this project, I will most likely buy one of the Raspberry Pi starter kits, here or here.


Education Process

Looking ahead, I have saved the following searches, which I hope to get a chance to go through, as I proceed to educate myself from a starting position of absolutely zero knowledge on how to make a Raspberry Pi based "Smart Hub 2 BQM solution" happen. (On this point, I hope these searches are useful to other people who have a similar starting point.)

Here are my searches, at time of writing:

• “DDNS networking”: Google search here, YouTube search here.

• “Dual Stack IPv6”: Google search here, YouTube search here.
• “Dual Stack IPv6 secure”: Google search here, YouTube search here.
• “Dual Stack IPv6 secure BT”: Google search here, YouTube search here.

• “Raspberry Pi internet secure”: Google search here, YouTube search here.
• “Raspberry Pi internet secure linux”: Google search here, YouTube search here.
• “Raspberry Pi IPv6 secure”: Google search here, YouTube search here.
• “Raspberry Pi IPv6 internet secure”: Google search here, YouTube search here.

• “Raspberry Pi ping respond”: Google search here, YouTube search here.
• “Raspberry Pi ping respond secure”: Google search here, YouTube search here.

• “Raspberry Pi BQM respond”: Google search here, YouTube search here.
• “Raspberry Pi BQM respond secure”: Google search here, YouTube search here. Interestingly, the Google search finds an enquiry from someone who has already attempted this type of project in the past, here.

All things considered, I estimate that if I proceed with this project, it will most likely take me a long time to complete it. So, I am undecided on whether I will take it on, given other commitments.

Nonetheless, I hope my tentative initial research is useful for any other BT Super Hub 2 user who is considering making an attempt to get a BQM working successfully, facilitated by a secure Raspberry Pi unit.