Best router for BT Full Fibre 500

Hi all

I am new here and need some help please (although I appreciate that I may be overthinking this...).

We are currently on Unlimited Fibre 1 (FTTC) with Zen. They gave us the excellent FRITZ!Box 7530.

Next week we will switch to BT Full Fibre 500 (FTTP) which comes with the Smart Hub 2.

We also have a TP-Link Archer VR600 (AC2100) and a BT Smart Hub 1 in the cupboard.

Which one of the above routers will give us the best full fibre experience?

We will not be using Complete WiFi/Mesh or DECT. Our house (3 bedrooms) is comparatively small. The main user (our son) will be connecting via ethernet to the router. Most other devices (fewer than 30) will connect via 5GHz (some via 2.4GHz; we are aware of the Smart Hub 2 not allowing band splitting).

Any guidance is much appreciated.

PS: Regarding the Smart Hub 2, is it true that this is now loaned to BT customers for as long as they stay with BT rather than given to keep?

I recently used a BT Consumer Hub on a Business 300 connection and it was fine - no problems/issues at all. Stick with the SH2.


Yes, equipment is now "loaned" - BT is trying to be environmentally concious as most euipment is just dumped at the next upgrade. My BT account lists the items they believe I have, and is actually correct.

I was similar. Moved from Zen to BT FTTP initially on 330 then upgraded to 900 when they enabled the area.

I had the 7530 and generally good though WiFi a bit older. Used SH2 and Complete WiFi and generally pleased - performance was good and digital voice worked well.

Two features meant I needed to change. BT allowed me to vary the contract as they sent an engineer who said they had no solution.

First was various wireless services mainly on Apple - AirPrint, AirPlay. They just did not work and engineer said they were aware and had no fix. That was a major issue for me as I have all Apple and lack of print from iPad and iPhone was a pain. AirPlay devices also reported (correctly) that the SH2 did not allow peer to peer WiFI.

Second was the WiFi-5 would not approach anywhere close to speed of the FTTP. I wanted to look at WiFi 6 and while I was at it WPA3.

An additional issue was I like to manage my own DNS to filter ads and so on. Initially PiHole and now on NextDNS.

Moved to use ASUS RT-AX82U. I have two and run in mesh mode. Superb performance. They just work. WiFi6 and WPA3 also works. Seamless roaming. Many nice features and a super interface. Two rooms away from AP and AppleTV reports just over 800mbps download as does iPad. IMac in same room saturates the FTTP and can see speeds just under 900mbps most of the day - the same speed and latency as Ethernet to router reports.

Setup was easy. IPv6 native just worked. I could configure DNS. WiFi setup was easy. ASUS adds some nice features - priority, device management and so on.

The only thing I lost is digital voice but as I have WiFI calling via O2 it is no big deal.

I can recommend ASUS. Happy to answer any queries you may have.

Many thanks for your reply. The Apple issue is interesting as we also have various Apple devices that like to print, etc. In how far did BT vary your contract then?

So, it turns out the Smart Hub 2 is an absolute pain when it comes to printing from Apple devices. Having tried all the routers we have laying around, it seems that on wired and wireless connection the TP-Link Archer VR600 is the fastest.

The Archer has been set to reboot every 3 days. However, after the second day the wireless connect, whilst still fast, is almost half the usual speed. This then recovers to full speed after the reboot on day 3. What exactly causes this and is there anything I can do (maybe by fiddling with the settings) to stop this from happening?

Many thanks in advance.

I was a netgear guy back in the ADSL2+ days with my own router on every ISP.

I got a Nighthawk XR1000 from Netgear last week and sent it back, awful.

Can't say enough for the current ASUS RT AX88U - pricey though, but I guess all the models are good

You can't separate the WiFi Bands/SSIDs on the EE SH2. Prefer the EE SH1 which can.