I didn't know EE were doing one, thanks , and agree with your other two points.

I think I saw a post the other day that one of the ones "illicitly" in use is to, or does now, have vectoring-capable firmware available for download. Vectoring support being one of the requirements.

Edited by RobertoS (Thu 07-Nov-13 15:38:12)

In reply to a post by trolleybus:

Similarly on Virgin media you may wish to ditch the supplied "all in one" cable modem/ router with a separate router and cable modem. Personally I believe trying to do that will run into all sorts of issues. However as it happens the newer "all in one" from Virgin can be downgraded to modem mode only, something that apparently is not an HH5 feature.

The all in one only started when they switched the network to DOCSIS 3.0. When I had cable back in 1999 I had the original 3Com CMX which was DOCSIS 1.0 and I had to pay for outright, costing £150. To activate me, they had to take the cable side MAC address, which was separate to the Ethernet side. Then they had several models of DOCSIS 1.1, and 2.0 modems, until the "superhub" arrived - and it took them ages to get a firmware for thIs that did modem mode.

Cable is quite dramatically different to any xDSL (ADSL or VDSL) service as your modem being faulty can really affect the service to others, plus on Virgin and other EU networks, a lot of the speed limiting is actually done by a configuration set at the modem. So as you can guess there is a lot of security to stop people trying to hack, which gets more and more complex.

The xDSL services don't have this complexity.

My understanding is the main selling point of the home hub 4 is it is not just dual band but concurrent dual bands. So it can have connections to it using 802.11g and 802.11n at the same time.

Many 802.11n routers can only do one at a time so if one person connects at 802.11g everyone has to meaning you probably won't be able to use the full speed of a good fibre connection and are not really any better off than with the 802.11g box most of us probably have already.

Most providers do not offer this. You could of course buy one off the shelf that does this but they are still £50 and up generally. While most routers can be picked up off ebay for £10-£20 quid easily the concurrent dual band ones still command a premium. (you will be lucky to sell a plus.net fibre single band router for £5 on ebay...)

Oh and watch out, dual band does not seem to always mean concurrent dual band...

Other than this it seems to be the standard slightly [censored] Bt product. They clearly start with the premise that they want a really shiny box and then stuff in the cheapest build possible. But that said they still basically work. They are just a bit annoyingly non standard and probably under perform slightly compared with a third party white box with a bunch of antennae sticking out the box.

Still well done them for getting concurrent dual band in, its genuinely something useful I think.

In reply to a post by mnbvcxz:

My understanding is the main selling point of the home hub 4 is it is not just dual band but concurrent dual bands. So it can have connections to it using 802.11g and 802.11n at the same time.

I think the change for the 4 was the WiFi as you say, and the 5 was the same as the 4 but with the internal VDSL modem.

Oh and watch out, dual band does not seem to always mean concurrent dual band...

Yes, as the first Virgin Media Superhub shows. Switchable is pretty useless to most homes as we all have something that is G only.

The reason I dislike the HH 5 is the lack of "modem mode" - so when people start getting these and no Openreach VDSL modem (or the equivalent with Sky and TalkTalk) it won't be possible to replace with your own router. I'm personally using an ASUS RT-N66U and very happy with it. Concurrent dual band and 3 stream, so 450megbit/sec on each channel - so advertised as "900".

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I think the change for the 4 was the WiFi as you say, and the 5 was the same as the 4 but with the internal VDSL modem.

Home Hub 5 also supports 802.11ac.

In reply to a post by Oliver341:

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I think the change for the 4 was the WiFi as you say, and the 5 was the same as the 4 but with the internal VDSL modem.

Home Hub 5 also supports 802.11ac.

Interesting! I guess with such a quick revision that BT's supplier had not expected to get AC ready so fast.

The benefits of AC are unclear to me, its improving the 5GHz band to go faster, but my experience of 5GHz is that its useful to avoid congested 2.4, but it doesn't travel very far around the home compared to 2.4.

Has anyone any real life AC experience to talk about?

The 0,35 in the log was interesting.

0,35 was what used to be put in the dial up entry for the original ADSL USB modems, isn't it the VPI/VCI setting ??????

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

The 0,35 in the log was interesting.

0,35 was what used to be put in the dial up entry for the original ADSL USB modems, isn't it the VPI/VCI setting ??????

We used to put 0,38 and they are the VPI/VCI for the BTwholesale network. Some other LLU use other attributes, noticeably BE/O2.

and I don't think even that should yet be being fitted stand-alone by OR contractors.

Well I've found two sitting waiting for me on installs in the last two weeks, I don't do many FTTC installs, so it can't just be me that's seeing them.

Yes, that was it ......... it's been a long day !