Quality of BTInfinity router/modem

I keep being invited by BT to sign up for Infinity but so far I have refused. My main concern is the quality of the supplied router/modem.

I currently have a Netgear DG834G which is a few years old and might be responsible for disconnects as nothing wrong could be found with my line. I would prefer to buy my own gear but I understand this isn't possible with Infinity.

I run 4 PCs and one remains on 24/7 to upload weather data to various internet sites so reliable connectivity is very important to me.

Can Infinity users advise if they are satisfied with the quality of the Infinity r/m please?

You know it's two pieces of kit? - a VDSL modem (in fact an OpenReach badged Huawei Echolife HG612) and a separate BT Home Hub.

Can't speak for the Home Hub but the modem's been fine for me since April and the only downtime caused by local power cuts (must get a UPS!) , there have been reports of problems and I suspect it's not as reliable as OpenReach would like but I suspect it's not all that much in %age terms.

There's a new version now, anyway, which will hopefully be more reliable.

Its a 2 box setup. An Openreach VDSL modem , and specifically for BT Infinity, a Home Hub 3. AFAIK the HH3 is a reliable piece of kit, but there have been issues with some of the Huawei VDSL modems. There is a new version out which may prove to be more reliale. Time will tell. Not heard any bad reports on the ECI version, probably due to the relativeley small number of ECI equipped areas.
There is no reason why you could not use an alternative router in place of the HH3. Would need to a cable type router not an ADSL router, capable of PPPoE

Thank you gents. I wasn't aware it comprises 2 bits of kit. That makes it far less appealing. I really want a one-box solution and preferably kit I choose and buy myself. Call me old fashioned but I just don't believe in free lunches.

So is it not possible to connect to Infinity with your own modem - integrated or separate?

There are a couple or more VDSL routers, think there's a Billion and Draytek. Search the Fibre section for specific models. Quite pricey though.

And it is out-with the Ts&Cs of FTTC to use them (although some have successfully done so - see threads passim in the Fibre Broadband forum)

It is possible to get combined VDSL2 modem/routers like your Netgear but the standards don't seem to be fully defined, so the three or four that have been tried by people on these forums all have issues of various levels of importance. The current flavour seems to be a Fritz box, so search these forums for "Fritz".

If you do have any line problems Openreach would expect their supplied modem to be in use. They do not support anything else being the modem component.

Are you aware that Infinity is just BT Retail's name for the FTTC product they sell, which is based on the BT Wholesale product, based on Openreach (GEA) FTTC.

Many other ISPs sell their own products based on the BT Wholesale one, just like they do on ADSLx, and of the LLU suppliers TalkTalk sell their own product avoiding the BT Wholesale one but still using the Openreach GEA. The Infinity Home Hub is only with BT Retail FTTC of course. WIth other ISPs you have to buy a cable router off the ISP or provide your own.

In all cases the Openreach modem is the standard kit.

For more info read my FTTx page, and the suppliers page below it. That has a link to a spreadsheet by orly and yarwell with a summary of details of the products available.

Ribble, thanks for the info. Take your point about price.

Mr Bean, Sadly it looks like I would breach the warranty if I go with independent kit.

Roberto, it looks like BT don't want you to use other kit, only their own. Infinity has been around for a couple of years now so it's disappointing the standards haven't been defined yet.

I really do prefer a single box solution but at the same time I don't want to tie myself to BT hardware-wise. I don't need the speed of Infinity and this post was an enquiry to see what had changed in the last year or so. It seems very little has.

Thank you for all your replies.

I have used a DG834GT and a DGN2000 over the past good few years, and i've found the Homehub3 to be equally as good on the wireless and had no issues so far... the quality of the VDSL modem and Homehub3 seem to be fine... Also not lost connection since i had Infinity insalled, 48day uptime so far..

I was a bit wary of using the Homehub3 after hearing bad reports bout previous models..

Edited by BuckleZ (Tue 30-Aug-11 19:30:20)

Thanks BuckleZ. Could you tell me how many ethernet connections the router has? I need a minimum of 3 - 2 PCs and a printer server. More would be better.

Full info on the Hub 3 is available HERE

I really do prefer a single box solution but at the same time I don't want to tie myself to BT hardware-wise. I don't need the speed of Infinity and this post was an enquiry to see what had changed in the last year or so. It seems very little has.

Strange reply ??
To decide not to take a service because it means having to have two boxes ?
Little has changed ? Well for a similar price you could be going much faster, you also mention that you upload from your server, surely 10meg upstream would make this run much better ?

V.odd.

The standard four ports, finding a router with more than 4 is very rare and expensive

Couple of years - more like 18 months since BT Infinity launch, remembering that Inifinity is just BT Retails brand name for FTTC and FTTP products.

At some point in the future the hardware will change to customer choice, but that is some time off as VDSL2 hardware and customers buying their own modem is not that common anywhere. In fact for many ADSL lines ISP supplied modems are very common.

Been using the openreach modem (like everyone else) and the older Home Hub 2 for a year and there's nothing much to complain about.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

The standard four ports,

Probably worth pointing out port 4 on the BT Home Hub3 is a Gigabit port.

There is a supplier in Beijing who is selling VDSL2 modem routers for 200 yuan (around £20). I am working hard to negotiate a minimum order of, erm, one.

These devices, which have the model number DB120-B2+ are the CPE used by ChinaTelecom. The devices use the same xDSL processor, the Broadcom 6368, as Huawei has used in its Openreach-branded HG612 model.

The Broadcom 6368 is a competent piece of kit. It's a 32-bit dual core MIPS System-On-Chip which is widely used in other VDSL2 CPE. The 6368 has been sighted in the wild in CPE used in Chile, Argentina, Finland, Red China, Romania and Germany.

The Huawei, of course, is best known for getting hot, very very hot.

The ChinaTelecom VDSL2 modem-router by contrast exudes pure communist class. It is in a slick black metal enclosure, runs as cool as a cucumber, boasts 4x gigabit ethernet ports, sports unrivalled 802.11n WLAN and a USB 2.0 port.

And with twice the RAM and twice the flash capacity, this magnificent little beauty of Beijing leaves the smoldering bourgeois beast from Openreach for dust.

Even the retail price of the DB120-B2+ is only 258 yuan (£25). So the crippled and steaming hot Huawei HG612 must have cost BT Openreach considerably less, perhaps even less than a packet of 10 counterfeit fags.

For some photos of the DB120-B2+ see here...

http://www.wifizoo.net/viewthread.php?tid=43049&extr...

Why does everyone seemingly knock the poor old BT/OR Modem?

Mine runs just warm to the touch and is far cooler than the HH3.

Don't know what the revision status of my Modem is, but it's about 10 weeks old.

Upside is, if it breaks, BT/OR come and replace it for free.

And is the router accredited for use on a british telephone connection? If not then it would be illegal to use it in this country.

In reply to a post by asbokid:

The Huawei, of course, is best known for getting hot, very very hot.

Mine stays as cool as a cucumber - as does my Sisters and my next door neighbours. True these are all presumably latest models as they are all less than three months old, but to continue to tar ALL as getting very hot is just not accepting reality..........

This earlier thread clearly gives some evidence that the later models are not prone to overheating:- http://forums.thinkbroadband.com/bt/f/4019624-bt-inf...

Edited by Garyilka (Thu 01-Sep-11 14:58:17)

We have one of the "older" ones and it gets warm but I wouldn't say it's any worse than other kit we've had in the past. We had a speedtouch 530 once that you could cook an egg on.

The openreach modem has been pretty much flawless for us so far (after 13 months)

Got a DGN 2200 running here and that feels like a hot water bottle.

Spend £25 on an unknown Chinese import, that may or may not get through customs, may or may not work for a long time, or let Openreach keep replacing their modem...mmmm.

A reason they've gone two box on this, is that the FTTP lines will need a terminating box, and thus ISP's can supply the same router to customers for both FTTC or FTTP.

Four HG612s (two Rev.1s, two Rev. 2) hav been running almost continuously for the last two months. One of them periodically overheats. It reboots and then hangs at the bootloader. Once cooled it runs fine for a while.

The 6368 processor at the heart of the HG612 is in a BGA (ball grid array) package.

According to Wikipedia..

A disadvantage of BGAs is that the solder balls cannot flex in the way that longer leads can. As with all surface mount devices, bending, due to a difference in coefficient of thermal expansion between PCB substrate and BGA (thermal stress), or flexing and vibration (mechanical stress) can cause the solder joints to fracture.

Thermal expansion issues can be overcome by matching the mechanical and thermal characteristics of the PCB to those of the package. Typically, plastic BGA devices more closely match the PCB thermal characteristics than ceramic devices.

Thermal stress of the solder ball joints in the 6368 is perhaps the main cause of faults of the HG612.

It would be interesting to keep log the core temperature in the Huawei. Maybe there are CPU registers like there are in an x86, holding real-time core thermal data but if so, Broadcom doesn't make the specs public.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Strange reply ??
To decide not to take a service because it means having to have two boxes ?
Little has changed ? Well for a similar price you could be going much faster, you also mention that you upload from your server, surely 10meg upstream would make this run much better ?

V.odd.

Surely a single box solution is better than two? Does each require a power connection?

Regarding my weather uploads it only involves a few hundred bytes every few minutes so Infinity isn't really required. Sledgehammer / nut!

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Couple of years - more like 18 months since BT Infinity launch, remembering that Inifinity is just BT Retails brand name for FTTC and FTTP products.

At some point in the future the hardware will change to customer choice, but that is some time off as VDSL2 hardware and customers buying their own modem is not that common anywhere. In fact for many ADSL lines ISP supplied modems are very common.

I've never used a BT supplied modem. Always preferred Netgear. But if all of you are saying the supplied kit os okay I may review that decision especially when commercial kit is still some way off.

Yep.


Modem uses it's own power and connects to the phone line.
Then it's networked by cable to the Home Hub or other router which also needs it's own power.

I believe if you only have one computer you can just connect directly to the modem.

You almost certainly could connect direct if with one PC but don't forget the router does a pretty good job as a firewall and so you would need to make sure your PC is especially secure if you are connecting direct.

I am 4 months in for BT infinity service - as per other members experiences the first BT Openreach box packed up within the first couple of weeks

BT were quick enough to replace the unit for another HG612 unit - this new one is perched on the windowsill, on its back/side (lan/power ports down) held in place by a lump of blu-tak. The idea being it keeps cool and so far for approx the last 3 months or so it's been working perfectly and doesn't get hot at all

I pretty quicker ditched the BT HH3 for a Netgear WNDR3700 and this works flawlessly

I'm getting 35814 Kbps down and 8225 Kbps up from the speedtester website no downtime since the HG612 was swapped out

Can't speak for the Home Hub but the modem's been fine for me since April and the only downtime caused by local power cuts (must get a UPS!) , there have been reports of problems and I suspect it's not as reliable as OpenReach would like but I suspect it's not all that much in %age terms.

There's a new version now, anyway, which will hopefully be more reliable.

Sigh - spoke too soon, modem died over the weekend and OR engineer hopefully bringing a shiny new one later this morning.

Mounted vertically and never seemed to get that warm but the connection became flakey and dropped out most of Sunday (didn't notice as we were out), then picked up a bit overnight before finally giving up the ghost yesterday morning.

It's a good job I had picked up a spare...