New BT HomeHub 4

Hay Guys,

Just thought I would share my experiences with the new BT Home Hub 4.

First experience with it was a total failure. Connected it all up. Blue light appeared indicating all OK, but absolutely nothing. Tried to PING the unit, and only successfully pinged once every 20 tries!

Ripped it all out and put back the limping HomeHun2. At least that worked for the internet. Wireless on it has had it!

Tried again the next day. Blue light again, and pinged before doing anything and YAY successfully every ping

Right now the internet. OMG, wants me to set up the connection sort of thing. Three pages. First page is welcome, next page is setting up filter, and last page takes me to BT log in page. I just want to get on the internet. Close page and try again. it is forcing me to go through these pages before it allows me to to the internet!

YAY eventually got there.

Then connect laptop up, and WHAT, I get the same page. OK just do it. Connect table up. again have to set up this page, but this time they know Im using a tablet and are trying to force me to install software onto the tablet!

What the most annoying thing is every 24 hours on the tablet Im presented with this download page trying to force me to install their software

What is up with this HomeHub4. Why are BT trying to force this.

If this continues I think I will chuck the HomeHub4 into the bin where it belongs and buy my own one.

And one last thing. For us IT Techies out there, there are no flashing lights on the front, which shows us something is happening. All there is is that blue light. Under there there is a Broadband light and a wireless light, but they disappear when all is OK. Wish there was an option to have these flash when data was flowing around

Oh and one thing to be away of if you use BT Broadband Voice (The VOIP Phone). They will disconnect your service as they think you wont want to use it any more. I have an external adapter that I was going to use. Sadly not any longer, they cant reconnect my number which infuriated me. So be aware on that front.

BT advertise that this HomeHub will fit thought most letter boxes. Well sadly mine was not. The fatness of the long box is 1.5 inches. So measure your letter box just to make sure.

Simon,

Yes, the Smart Setup wizard that runs whenever you first connect (by cable or by wireless) a new piece of equipment to the HomeHub 4 is a bit of a pain for people who know what they're doing and what they want.

But it can be turned off easily enough by going to Advanced Settings, Home Network, Smart Setup.

p

Does not knowing how to disable it show someone does not know what they are doing?

In reply to a post by gomezz:

Does not knowing how to disable it show someone does not know what they are doing?

You may have something there, gomezz!

I dont know about the hh4 box but the NDA box I got whilst it is smaller than my letter box, it couldnt be posted as the letter box only opens when the bottom of it is pressed against.

Further to Home Hub 4. Always wondered why BT has 5M free hotspots. On installation found BTwifi and BTwififon appeared in connection list. So they are not free just paid for by every BT BB user in monthly fee.
Must admit it was easy to install HH4 on PCs and then disable auto with instructions supplied

Yep but you can use anybody else's.

So say you go on holiday to a cottage and a neighbour has BT - you can use their BTWiFi
It works quite well actually and your standard broadband takes priority so you shouldn't see much of a slowdown when someone's using the hotspot.

Having a small amount of your monthly home broadband sub going towards paying for having wi-fi access all over the country sounds a pretty good deal to me. Unless you are completely housebound.

In reply to a post by flippery:

... it was easy to install HH4 on PCs ....

Uh? A CD?

Yep and it can be great. It doesn't cost anything so you just lose a tiny bit of bandwidth.
Like now I'm away from home but I've been using my laptop on BT WiFi today. They clearly have infinity and probably weren't using it during the day as I was getting 3 Mb/s!!