Infinity install today but HH4 delivered and ECI modem ?

Hi all,

My parents had their Infinity install today, and yesterday the postman arrived with the homehub, but instead of the version 5 and the (paid for!!) 802.11ac USB adaptor, the package contained a homehub 4.

The installer today was from Kelly's and would have had no problem (single master socket in the right location) and fitted an ECI modem, connected the HH4 and everything is working. However the cabinet is a big Huawei one.

I suspect a complaint needs to be made to get the money back for the 802.11ac USB adaptor (£20!) but strange to get a HH4 now.

Would it be worth (performance wise) to get a Huawei HG612 modem instead of the ECI ? Given they're supposed to be on max sync? (getting about 72megabit/sec downloads, and 18 uploads right now).

I reckon you've got a case for what was ordered not being supplied.
As for the modem, it's get what you are given, I'm afraid.

You need to check what was actually ordered, they have been switching over to the HH5 in stages was not standard on all the infinity packages for new orders until a week or so ago

On the modem, both should be fine, which works best for the line is done to experiment, and the order will never have specified the model of the modem.

Run the BT Wholesale speed test there and then the Further Diagnostics. Divide the IP Profile by 0.9679 and you get the sync within a few kbps.

At least that will tell you more than download speed tests do .

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

I reckon you've got a case for what was ordered not being supplied.
As for the modem, it's get what you are given, I'm afraid.

Thought as much, thanks - told them to get in touch with customer care and ask for their £19 back.

The HH4 is working fine, they love the speeds, and its a massive upgrade, from about 8megabit to 70megabit, lucky sods

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

You need to check what was actually ordered, they have been switching over to the HH5 in stages was not standard on all the infinity packages for new orders until a week or so ago

It was ordered new years day, and definitely said HH5 as it was the AC one, and thus why they were offered an AC USB dongle.

On the modem, both should be fine, which works best for the line is done to experiment, and the order will never have specified the model of the modem.

Ok, that sounds good - would like to swap for a hacked HG612

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

Run the BT Wholesale speed test there and then the Further Diagnostics. Divide the IP Profile by 0.9679 and you get the sync within a few kbps.
At least that will tell you more than download speed tests do .

Nice - thanks!

In which case chase them.

I do know some of the listing changes since I got back from New Year were to put HH5 onto more of the infinity products, but they have so many varied offers you may have been on a special deal page

That sync calculation only applies to the downstream, by the way. Upstream IP Profile is always 2; 10; or 20 depending on the product.

Edited by RobertoS (Wed 22-Jan-14 20:28:59)

In reply to a post by jchamier:

It was ordered new years day, and definitely said HH5 as it was the AC one, and thus why they were offered an AC USB dongle.

Do they have that in writing?

As the actually paid some money, a consideration, for the AC dongle which is appropriate for HH5 but useless for HH4, I reckon BT have breached contract and need to remedy their breach by replacing HH4 with HH5. For all you know AC dongle is in post.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

For all you know AC dongle is in post.

Unlikely, they come in the same box with the HH5.

I get better results with an ECI modem on a Huawei cabinet. Now everything is bedded in, I doubt if there is much to be gained from matching cabinet and modem.

There's possibly more variance in the component quality of the electronics of batches of each modem than there is difference in the specification of them.

In reply to a post by RobertoS:

There's possibly more variance in the component quality of the electronics of batches of each modem than there is difference in the specification of them.

Component quality will have most effect on things such as termination impedance and the line impedance at diffecerent frequencies and thus attenuation and SNR. It will have little effect on the way the DSLAM and Modem interface.

The implementation of the algorithms in the DSPs is where the initial problems of interfacing a Huawei DSLAM to an ECI modem (and vice versa). Initially, the manufacturers will tweak the firmware at both ends to obtain the best results and only when the competing systems are in the field and their is a chance to get real live data from mixed supplier systems will they start to tweak their firmware to get the best all round performance.

In reply to a post by XRaySpeX:

Do they have that in writing?

Web page was printed I believe, and an order acknowlegement emailed with all the details. I'll find out at the weekend the latest status. (FWIW, you always pay something for the postage, it was around £6 for my HH3 last year.

In reply to a post by MHC:

I get better results with an ECI modem on a Huawei cabinet. Now everything is bedded in, I doubt if there is much to be gained from matching cabinet and modem.

Ah, good to know its a non issue. Thanks.

Come on!

Any circuit board depends on the quality and closeness to spec of every component on it. Given that cheapo-product manufacturers buy in batches of stuff from the lowest priced supplier on the day and chuck them in the parts bin, the product performance is variable.

Take the absolutely simple case of dangly filters. Same make, in the same router outer. Sync speeds of the modem/router consistently different depending on which "identical" filter you use.

That's what I'm talking about. The performance of the individual OR modems of either make will vary considerably. The sync speeds will be consistently different independent of what is in the FTTC cabinet.

I was simply suggesting that those variances will be greater than the difference between the median or mode performance of the two makes. In other words, which OR modem performs best for a given user depends on the modem itself. Not its make.

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

In which case chase them.

After chasing, HH5 and AC USB dongle have arrived today, with a pre-paid box to return the HH4.

Here comes 1300Mbps wifi

Theoretical Will be interesting to test the Core i7 PC over the gigE switch to the HH5 when I next get there.

Fairly old PC's can pull GigE over an Ethernet LAN with no great issue, even my little Mac Book Air manages a decent speed.

Switches can make a difference, so some fiddling around to find the best options from your box of backup kit is always worth a go.

Well done! Contract breach remedied!

In reply to a post by MrSaffron:

Fairly old PC's can pull GigE over an Ethernet LAN with no great issue, even my little Mac Book Air manages a decent speed.

Yep, agreed. I did some tests (to show a client) in the office about 5 years ago. A Pentium 4 (3 Ghz) machine with a Gigabit network card, and a decent hard disk (with plenty of RAM) could actually copy files (Windows XP) from a modern server at a high rate. I think I saw upto 800 megabit/sec.

This was intended to show the client that even old machines can do better than 100megabit. Sadly most of that era machines were sold with 100megabit on-board NICs and only PCI slots, rather than PCI-express.