New router from BT?

Hi,
We have FTTC with BT Broadband
The router we have is fine, but has recently been refusing Wifi connections until we reboot it.
Existing connected devices work fine, but someone returns to the house with their phone and it inexplicably refuses to connect to the Wifi. Also happens when my daughter switches on her laptop sometimes.
We power cycle the router and all is fine.

Any ideas?
Can I get a new router from BT?

Cheers,

Zebs

Ask BT.

Good plan there
I was kind of asking - is the BT Broadband equipment my own, and do they warranty it?

How old is it? They should swap faulty hardware, I think lately they have been asking for things to be returned end of contract so I think it's only yours if you've either had the service for a while, or if you bought the router outright.

@zebsy
Yes they'll charge you. Since Dec last year BT imposed a £43 charge for HH5 HH6 and £50 for new smarthub unless you return it to them. I would expect them to exchange a faulty router without charge because they say it's theirs so why should you pay to fix their faulty gear?

Which BT router do you have?

It's a BT Smart Hub - it's 4 years old

They should replace that for free if you report the fault, probably with a Smart Hub 2. It's just a plug in and go swap, just connect your devices to the new router.

BT now retain ownership of the equipment. If you ever leave BT in the future, you will have to return the new router, or they will charge you a fee - but they do supply you with a prepaid bag, so it's relatively painless.

For a BT Smart Hub, but not a BT Smart Hub 2, try separating the wireless channels. On the Advanced / Wireless Settings page of the SH there is a button near the top to Separate the Bands. Turn it ON. Then the 5GHz SSID will appear starting with "5GHz-" & the 2.4 GHz SSID not starting with "5GHz-".

Edited by XRaySpeX (Sat 28-Nov-20 09:50:41)

It could be the DHCP implementation on the Smart Hub being badly broken. There are numerous reports of this. The Smart Hub seems to remember all devices that have ever connected to it - you can see them listed in the admin interface. Old devices never get cleared out and after a while the system gets clogged up and has problems issuing IP addresses to devices wanting to connect - both via ethernet and Wi-Fi.

The only way to resolve the issue, at least until the list fills up again, is to do a factory reset. I've had this problem at a client site with a BT Smart Hub 2 which was recently installed hoping to solve the same problem on their previous Smart Hub. It didn't fix it.

I noticed the issue when I was testing wired connections around the house. I could plug in a network tester and it would get an IP address and connect to the internet. I could unplug it, plug it back into the same socket again and it wouldn't get an address even though there was a good physical link. I poked around on the BT support forums and found lots of posts about similar issues.

In the end I installed a firewall which acts as a DHCP server and all the connection problems have vanished completely. The client now has reliable internet for the first time since buying the house five years ago. Everything just works.

So, my suggestion would be to try doing a factory reset and seeing if this solves problems to start with. Just unplugging the router and rebooting it doesn't clear the device list. Of course, the list will fill up again but this may give you longer periods of stable connectivity.

A longer term fix would require BT to fix the firmware or you could buy your own non-BT router.