Using a Smart hub 2 instead of an AX Router

We recently migrated to BT 900Mbps FTTP from Zen 900 Mbps FTTP which means that we get a BT Smart Hub 2, / (SH2).

We were using our usual RT AX88u while we were with Zen because of the poor wifi range of the Fritzbox 7530 and the RT AX88u has been great but these days, (since the house was wired with Cat6a cable a few years ago), we use very little wifi.

Last week we had an issue on the BT line and we needed to get the SH2 out of its box while BT carried out their line tests for 4 days and we were surprised how good the SH2 seemed to be, (after we opted out of the somewhat ridiculous SH2 hotspots).

Our house is fully wired with Cat6a Ethernet Cable so we have very few items connected by wifi and that is the reason for my query.

Overall the RT AX88u is a better router that syncs at a higher internet speed than the SH2, (over 900 Mbps for the RT AX88u as opposed to 870 Mbps for the SH2). - Not significant as the SH2 is free.

The wifi range of the SH2 that we have was good but obviously the wifi is slower as it is not an AX router but it seemed livable.

The Asus RT AX88u has guest networks and we would miss those, it also has game features and QOS that we have not needed to use and we suspect that these are mostly for wifi and not ethernet.

We are not sure about the management of the Ethernet LAN in the house as we did not notice any issues while using the SH2 but we were not pushing it hard with multiple ethernet devices and it could that the RT AX88u would be better for the Ethernet LAN. - Is it?

Is using the SH2 instead of the RT AX88u likely to give inferior ethernet performance on the household LAN?

Is the difference mainly just the wifi performance?

One positive about the SH2 is that is links to BT system and any issue are dealt with and that is another reason for my query.

I was hoping that someone would know if there would be a noticeable performance difference with regard to ethernet.

Personally, I suspect if the broadband speed was slower, and/or capacity was tight then the faster quad core CPU in the RT-AX88u could be significant but since the ethernet is 900 Mbps I suspect that any difference would not be noticeable or is that me being nieve ?

Obviously with regard to wifi: the RT-AX88u should be twice as fast but with only three items using the wifi half speed should be fast enough.

At present the line with the RT-AX88u it is working well and I am loathe to swap it for the SH2 because, I suspect that swapping routers can cause line performance deterioration. - (Yes, I know that the is no DLM with FTTP and swapping routers should not create a deterioration but irrationally I still feel that it could).

In reply to a post by Fido:

I was hoping that someone would know if there would be a noticeable performance difference with regard to ethernet.

I've only just seen this so i'm replying now.

In reply to a post by Fido:

Personally, I suspect if the broadband speed was slower, and/or capacity was tight then the faster quad core CPU in the RT-AX88u could be significant but since the ethernet is 900 Mbps I suspect that any difference would not be noticeable or is that me being nieve ?

Obviously with regard to wifi: the RT-AX88u should be twice as fast but with only three items using the wifi half speed should be fast enough.

The Ax88u is very powerful consumer wifi router unit, and most probably has a more powerful cpu in there (i'm saying probably because i don't know the specs of the cpu in the sh2).

In reply to a post by Fido:

At present the line with the RT-AX88u it is working well and I am loathe to swap it for the SH2 because, I suspect that swapping routers can cause line performance deterioration. - (Yes, I know that the is no DLM with FTTP and swapping routers should not create a deterioration but irrationally I still feel that it could).

There would be no line degradation if you swap routers as a) its optical and b)the ont is handing the translation from optical to Ethernet. The only reason you may need to use the sh2 is for digital voice.

I'd never use the stock ISP router over your own - I did try the SH2 and it doesn't come close to the 88U

In reply to a post by Fido:

We were using our usual RT AX88u

I've been using an RT-AX88U since late 2019 when I moved to Virgin Media's service. I can't see why you would use an ISP router, when there is a choice, unless you lose a service such as Digital Voice. It includes hardware PPPoE acceleration so can keep up with high WAN speeds such as your Gigabit FTTP service.

With either ASUS or RMerlin's firmware, the AX88U is insanely stable, and very configurable for a consumer router, and on a 160 MHz WiFi 6 channel has easily achieved over 850 Mbit/sec in testing in other forums on this site.

I doubt any ISP free router will be as good or capable.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Fido:

We were using our usual RT AX88u

I've been using an RT-AX88U since late 2019 when I moved to Virgin Media's service. I can't see why you would use an ISP router, when there is a choice, unless you lose a service such as Digital Voice. It includes hardware PPPoE acceleration so can keep up with high WAN speeds such as your Gigabit FTTP service.

With either ASUS or RMerlin's firmware, the AX88U is insanely stable, and very configurable for a consumer router, and on a 160 MHz WiFi 6 channel has easily achieved over 850 Mbit/sec in testing in other forums on this site.

I doubt any ISP free router will be as good or capable.

It was not a slight on the RT-AX88u which is a really good router.

It was whether, (when using very little wifi and mostly using ethernet for almost everything), that an SH2 could cope. - We know that the wifi speed of the SH2 is inferior but the wifi range of the SH2 is good.

I tried the SH2 against the RT-AX88u as a comparison and as it turns out, for the most part, the SH2 seemed OK but the SH2, that we had, had a few foibles in that the browsing seemed to slow intermittently and when the SH2 was factory reset it capped the UP speed at 50 Mbps until BT reset the profile and the same procedure was needed when/if we factory reset the SH2 again.

Since almost everything in the house uses ethernet and only a few items use wifi: overall, I would say that the SH2 was OK and the main difference is the ability to cope with multiple devices using wifi which we do not need but there was some intermittent slow browsing on wifi, (reasons unknown), that could have been cause by the SH2. - Not at all sure.

Why consider using the SH2 instead ?

(1). The SH2 costs nothing.

(2). When/if there is an issue then BT seem to insist on using the SH2 for testing purposes.

(3). The wifi range of the SH2 is at least as good as the wifi range of the RT-AX88u even though the wifi speed of the SH2 is slower.


That said: we have put the SH2 back into its pack and we plan to keep using the RT-AX88u which can definitely cope and it is very reliable,

In reply to a post by Fido:

It was whether, (when using very little wifi and mostly using ethernet for almost everything), that an SH2 could cope.

You'll also want to ask in the BT forum as I guess many in this forum not using BT's broadband service.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

In reply to a post by Fido:

It was whether, (when using very little wifi and mostly using ethernet for almost everything), that an SH2 could cope.

You'll also want to ask in the BT forum as I guess many in this forum not using BT's broadband service.

I use the SH2 and no issues with it apart from Wireless. I there use an additional wireless point (a repurposed router) to deal with those shortcomings. In the event of any broadband problems, your isp will invariably ask you to check with their router anyway.

In reply to a post by Fido:

It was not a slight on the RT-AX88u which is a really good router.

It was whether, (when using very little wifi and mostly using ethernet for almost everything), that an SH2 could cope

I would certainly expect it to cope well enough, given that BT sell a 900M service, and this BT-supplied router is specifically designed to be used with that service (and to keep customers happy).

I use the SH2 and no issues with it apart from Wireless. I there use an additional wireless point (a repurposed router) to deal with those shortcomings.

Have you tried their ‘whole home wifi’ access points … these provide a very good mesh service.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Have you tried their ‘whole home wifi’ access points … these provide a very good mesh service.

They are excellent, but the version for any ISP seems discontinued The rented version for use with BT SmartHub's may still exist, but with ongoing rental??

In reply to a post by candlerb:

In reply to a post by Fido:

It was not a slight on the RT-AX88u which is a really good router.

It was whether, (when using very little wifi and mostly using ethernet for almost everything), that an SH2 could cope

I would certainly expect it to cope well enough, given that BT sell a 900M service, and this BT-supplied router is specifically designed to be used with that service (and to keep customers happy).

That was my view and was why I asked for views about using the SH2 in this thread.

As I understand it; the SH2 has a 1Ghz 2 core CPU and thr RT-AX88u has a 1.8 Ghz 4 core CPU so both should have been able to cope with the ethernet and I did not notice any ethernet issues but with 900 Mbps I did not expect that I would. - However, with Wifi, I did notice that Wifi browsing intermittently hung on the SH2 which may have been due to it being busy looking after ethernet but obviously that is subjective.

The Wifi Range of the SH2 was really good but some web pages hung. - (Possibly because the SH2 was busy with ethernet. - I do not know).

Also, the theory that using the SH2 would enable BT to keep a contemporaneous record of BT SpeedTests Carried out via the BT App appears to be junk since BT Customer Services have told me that every new BT App Speed Test overwrite the previous test.

One of the reasons that we asked about the feasibility of just using the SH2 was that we were considering uprating and buying the new RT-AX88u Pro, (virtually not difference to the RT-AX88u with a slightly faster 2 Ghz 4 core CPU), and we did buy one and after we installed the RT-AX88u Pro no issues whatsoever.

We are now using the RT-AX88u in Access Point mode to give better Wifi to the rear garden.

Presently cooking on gas.

As well as worrying about the GHz of a processor you should look at the family. For example a modern intel i5 11th generation at 1.0 GHz vastly outperforms a 3rd Gen i5 and 2.4 GHz. Clock speed is not really a measure of performance anymore.