BT Business - Urgent help needed

So I was with Plusnet business for 10+ years. The package was FTTC and 5 static IP addresses. With Plusnet wanting to move their business customers to BT and then telling me that they were discontinuing my landline I had no choice but to move now, rather than the end of the year.
So I spoke to BT Business and explained what I had and what I would still need. They offered me a package which I accepted.
Yesterday they installed and a very neat job they did.
BUT.......
I have tried to setup the static IP block. Their instructions are good, to a point. Entered all the data and pointed each IP address to a specific computer within my network, Mailservwer, webserver, etc.
I also updated the MX and DNS records. 24 hours later still can't get to the servers.
After an hour on the phone with BT they said "even with a block of static IP addrsses you will always have a dynamic address for the router. We don't work the same way as PlusNet and others"!!!!!!!!!
They have said I can have:
1. a single static IP address. This wouldn't work with a mailserer and separate webserver.
2. go and buy a high-end router that 'should' work.
Does anyone have any advice? This is now urgent as my primary email address is not working.
Do I need a high-end router? Could I setup pfSense to work? or are BT talking c**p.
Thanks for any guidence.
Simon

To add a bit more information my static address range given is:
xxx.xxx.xxx.169-173
with xxx.xxx.xxx.168 defined as "network address"
and xxx.xxx.xxx.174 defined as "hub address"
But my router status says that my:
boardband is 81.139.xxx.xxx
and gateway is 81.39.xxx.xxx
I always thought that the boardband and gateway addresses were the addresses either side of the block. Known as gateway and broadcast.

I can tell you that I have settings that matches what you have been told will happen

so,

81.139.x.x - IP
81.139.x.x - gateway

then 5 IP`s in range of

81.150.x.x

Not sure why you need a "high end router", is it because you have nowhere to specify additional IP addresses in your current device?

Thanks for the explanation. But if I enter the URL for my webmail or any of the in-house hosted websites then I get "The connection has timed out"
also any email sent to me that goes directly to my mail server does not get through.
The MX and DNS records reflect the new IP addresses and I have waited 24 hours to ensure propogation across the internet.
It is the Business Smarthub2. And I have setup the first three static IP addresses to each point to a different computer within my network. This computers have not changed setting since they were disconnected from the Plusnet system yesterday morning.

Edited by dancingbear1965 (Thu 15-Jun-23 14:26:09)

Many business services use one set of addresses for the WAN connection then route additional addresses over that connection. You don't need a high end router but you do need something which can handle this type of setup, unfortunately many commodity residential/SOHO routers have limited or simple user interfaces which don't expose enough functionality.

Draytek have supported this type of setup since their early models, Mikrotik routers are completely configurable but require a separate modem. I'm not overly familiar with pFSense but it should be possible https://docs.netgate.com/pfsense/en/latest/firewall/...

Firstly, the BT Business Forums can be very good for getting to the right people at BT support. The forum itself not so much, but the BT employed moderators are very good at summoning the troops.

I don't know what to suggest with the SmartHub, we use Drayteks in various places with multiple IP`s from BT and that works fine.

I assume you have checked NAT/Port Forwarding/Firewall settings on the SmartHub?

Does a tracert show it going in the correct direction?

I would be looking in the firewall settings in the Hub - you've allocated IPs from your static range to devices which should be sorting out the NAT (in fact if you go to a "what is my IP" site or similar on one of the servers you've allocated an IP to, you should see it using that. But you haven't mentioned creating firewall rules for the services.

It looks as though the BT Business Hub should be able to do what you want - https://help.business.bt.com/app/categories/guide/a_... by setting the router address to xxx.xxx.xxx.174 and subnet mask to 255.255.255.248.

By default the hub appears to provide the routed public subnet on the same wired and WiFi interfaces as the private 192.168.1.0/24 LAN. The documentation suggests you can use the inbuilt DHCP server to assign static addresses to devices, or you can simply statically assign them on the devices themselves. Alternatively there is MultiNAT which translates traffic destined a routed public addresses to a private IP of your choosing.

It isn't clear what default firewall rules there are, likely any outbound traffic is permitted but inbound blocked so you would have to add rules for your mail and web traffic.

After two days of trying to get knowledgable support from BT I gave up. The pfSense community came to my rescue and I now have a working router/firewall that allows me to get email and expose the self-hosted websites to the outside world.
BT line speed good - their detailed tecnical knowledge not so good.

Also depends on what level of BT Business you have ... they have an all inclusive package which offers full tech support over and above teh normal connection issues.