Infinity concerns - HH3, Router, Access Point, etc.

I work abroad, but going home to the UK for a couple of weeks this summer. Due to growing web needs of my family, I ordered BT Infinity 2, which will be installed whilst I'm in England. My family is not technically inclined, hence I want to ensure that things will go 'right first time', - during the 2-3 weeks that I'm at home... I'd like to ask for help/advise regarding some concerns :

(1) How important is it that the Homehub 3 be installed near the BT main socket? Is placing the HH 10 meters away going to have any adverse affect?

(2) Having read about HH issues, what alternative routers (good WiFi & 3-4 Ethernet ports) should I consider as replacement?

(3) What (particular) 'access point' product/s can I install in some weak spots in the house?

(4) Kindly advice about other issues (teething or otherwise) that I should be concerned, i.e. what to check/ensure with the Eng'r. during the installation, how to do a thourough test during the first weeks, etc.

Thank you so much for your help.

Openreach supply a modem at the time they install the FTTC connection. They also connect the BT Home Hub which should arrive a few days beforehand.

In most installations the modem has to be very close to the Master Socket. A standard ADSL modem cable is used. The modem is not connected to an extension.

However the engineer can install a Data Extension Cable he should have with him, to allow the modem to be up to 30metres from the master. Also, if the current extension wiring is CAT5 he will usually be happy to use that instead of the data extension cable, and make suitable adjustments to the rest of the setup. That seems to be discretionary, depending on his opinion of what he finds.

The Home Hub is connected to the modem using standard ethernet cable. A short one is supplied with it but you can replace that with any length you like, up to 100m.

I can't advise on Q2.

Q3 three similarly, except any WAP can be attached to the HH. It's just a question of which is best.

Q4 - just make sure you don't start playing the the modem for 48 hours after the day it is installed. (I'll check later perhaps, or someone will correct me, that may be 24 hours after the day). The reason being the DLM at the cabinet is particularly active during that period and can react to disconnections or re-syncs by banding the line at a lower speed than it can attain.

(2)My NetGear WNR1000 seems to be doing fine so far.

http://www.netgear.co.uk/home/products/wirelessroute...

Er, you asked most of these questions last week and got answers!

Edited by kasg (Tue 03-Jul-12 10:15:52)

Post deleted by knerdz

Post deleted by knerdz

Post deleted by knerdz

Q4. Basically dont turn it off/on a lot or try fiddling with the wiring too much.

Just leave it to do its job.

The Home Hub is connected to the modem using standard ethernet cable. A short one is supplied

What is the actual length of the supplied short cable?

I've been using a Netgear ADSL router for years, and it has been very reliable. I'm considering Linksys or Asus routers, but Netgear will be on top of my list.

For list of routers, see this thread on BT forum. http://community.bt.com/t5/BT-Infinity/List-of-Route...

Thanks. I hope I can become a happy Infinity user like you.
Might it be more appropriate to replace the word 'to' with 'that can' in the title, as it's not really 'that important' to replace the HH?
What performance upgrade are we looking at if we replace HH3 with say today's top-of-the-line lineups from Netgear, Linksys, Asus, etc? In other words, how terrible really is the HH3?

Cheers.

My opinion so far is that the HH3 is not that terrible. I don't plan to replace it but am keeping my options open.

Upsides:
- Free,
- Maybe saves some discussion hassle if you need to talk to service.

Downsides:
- Serious firmware bug that means some people find their wired connection drops to below 1Mb until they take action (opinion varies on the best action).
- Some features not available (eg ability to change DNS settings).
- Wireless performance not the very best; but it's giving me a 65Mb connection in the attic (3rd floor) of a tall Victorian house with the HH3 in the hall on the ground floor.
- Only one gigabit ethernet port.

Downsides: re modem rather than HH3 router. Some HH3 alternatives will replace both in single box, some still require modem.
- Two boxes, separate modem/router (also applies to some of the other solutions).
- Modem locked so no stats, and people say you can get slightly better performance by unlocking and removing QoS, or using alternative.


On your initial point 4, it seems to be a matter of luck. My install was very smooth, with around 60/20 connection. However, that dropped to 3.5/20 after a couple of days. After discussion with service they arranged various things and it has gone to 11/20. They arranged an engineer call yesterday (exactly 1 week after initial install) that should have resolved things, but a promised callback didn't happen, and I'm still on 11/20. If nothing more today I'll contact service again, and maybe try contacting the mods (UK email service with a better reputation than phone Indian service). There are quite a few people in the BT forum (http://community.bt.com) with worse issues than mine that have gone unresolved for months. You can join the forum without signing up to BT.

Edited by StephenTodd (Tue 03-Jul-12 12:05:32)

Maybe the move from BE to BT fwas quite a big change hence the (teething) issues you are having, that is NOT to say that mine will be better coming from a BT LLU.

I'm curious about the 1-box alternative to modem-HH3. In this case, will it be preferred to install it near the BT master socket? Or it doesn't really make a difference?

Thanks.

Edited by deleted (Tue 03-Jul-12 13:53:09)

Post deleted by HEARTLY

With a single box option, that box will usually need to be installed near the master socket; eg where the modem is installed by OpenReach. You can get them to do FTTC extensions in some cases; in that case they will install the modem near the extension, and you could replace it with a single box there.

I'm not sure which routers on the list I referenced above are suitable to replace the modem as well; just read the discussions there very carefully.

I don't know what you posted then deleted, but re point 4, the Openreach documentation says:-

On the first day of operation, DLM will intervene if severe instability is detected.

Otherwise, DLM will wait until the day after provision before intervening, provided that the line has been trained up for at least 15 minutes during the preceding day.

If DLM intervenes it will set a capped profile with a maximum rate ....

If it sets a capped profile, an engineer visit is needed, (for no good reason, but the rule is inflexible), to get it uncapped.

I hope that helps.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 03-Jul-12 14:43:42)

In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

With a single box option, that box will usually need to be installed near the master socket; eg where the modem is installed by OpenReach. You can get them to do FTTC extensions in some cases; in that case they will install the modem near the extension, and you could replace it with a single box there.

I'm not sure which routers on the list I referenced above are suitable to replace the modem as well; just read the discussions there very carefully.

So far as I am aware only the Draytek 2850 and the Fritz Box provide a single box solution.

In reply to a post by greenglide:

So far as I am aware only the Draytek 2850 and the Fritz Box provide a single box solution.

The Cisco 887VA does too. I'm using one now

In reply to a post by HEARTLY:

The Home Hub is connected to the modem using standard ethernet cable. A short one is supplied

What is the actual length of the supplied short cable?

At a guess around 1.5m, but given that you can replace it with one of any length it's fairly unimportant. Am I unusual in having a cupboard full of the things??

At a guess around 1.5m, but given that you can replace it with one of any length it's fairly unimportant

If the supplied cable is only 1.5m, and the HH3 and modem need to be apart by more than 1.5m, who supplies the required cable? If it's the customer, than this info is fairly important.

So then really, there's not a lot of single-box solution available yet at the moment. Right?

It appears there's not a lot of single-box solution available...

Not too important for most people, though for you with a limited time slot you will need to make sure you have the right cable ready. Ethernet cable costs very little ordered online, but can be pretty expensive if you just go out to a local shop.

In reply to a post by HEARTLY:

At a guess around 1.5m, but given that you can replace it with one of any length it's fairly unimportant

If the supplied cable is only 1.5m, and the HH3 and modem need to be apart by more than 1.5m, who supplies the required cable? If it's the customer, than this info is fairly important.

It's just an Ethernet cable, pretty much a commodity item these days (which is probably why I have a cupboard full of them!). Maybe the BT people come equipped with cables of different lengths, I don't know, as I don't use BT as my ISP, sorry.

In reply to a post by StephenTodd:

Not too important for most people, though for you with a limited time slot you will need to make sure you have the right cable ready. Ethernet cable costs very little ordered online, but can be pretty expensive if you just go out to a local shop.

Well OP, said he had 2-3 weeks which should be plenty long enough to get, say, a 10m cable from Amazon for less than £2 delivered.

It's just an Ethernet cable, pretty much a commodity item these days

Sorry but I beg to disagree, many homes only use an Ethernet cable to connect their main PC to the router, and maybe to the occasional printer... and the rest is pretty much wireless.

In reply to a post by caffn8me:

In reply to a post by greenglide:

So far as I am aware only the Draytek 2850 and the Fritz Box provide a single box solution.

The Cisco 887VA does too. I'm using one now

The Billion BiPAC 8200N is another. I'm waiting for mine to come back from being repaired so I can carry on testing their SkyMER firmware.

In reply to a post by HEARTLY:

It's just an Ethernet cable, pretty much a commodity item these days

Sorry but I beg to disagree, many homes only use an Ethernet cable to connect their main PC to the router, and maybe to the occasional printer... and the rest is pretty much wireless.

I am with kasg on this - doesnt everybody have a selection of Ethernet cables? Every router you get tends to have at least 1 and many left over before wireless.

I wouldnt guarantee the OR engineer would have one as the HH in an Infinity installation is provided by BT Retail. The HH "should" arrive before the OR installation so you will have a chance to obtain a longer cable if required.

In reply to a post by simon194:

In reply to a post by caffn8me:

In reply to a post by greenglide:

So far as I am aware only the Draytek 2850 and the Fritz Box provide a single box solution.

The Cisco 887VA does too. I'm using one now

The Billion BiPAC 8200N is another. I'm waiting for mine to come back from being repaired so I can carry on testing their SkyMER firmware.

Hmm - good price but it only has 100BaseT rather than a gigabit switch and the wireless only has two aerials rather than three, both standard on the 7800N and I would have thought would be standard on a VDSL device?

Shame because the rest of the spec is good.

So it broke? And you're getting it repaired?... First time I've heard of a router getting repaired.

In reply to a post by HEARTLY:

It's just an Ethernet cable, pretty much a commodity item these days

Sorry but I beg to disagree, many homes only use an Ethernet cable to connect their main PC to the router, and maybe to the occasional printer... and the rest is pretty much wireless.

Standard ethernet cables supplied with routers are I think one metre. The HH may be 1.5, 2 or 3m, but I'd be very surprised if it's longer than that. "Many homes" will have purchased longer ones. Huge numbers of longer ones are also in use in businesses throughout the country to reach from LAN points to desks.

They are commodity items, as described.

Just make sure you get a CAT5 at least, not a real cheapo.

Edited by RobertoS (Tue 03-Jul-12 23:26:19)

In reply to a post by greenglide:

In reply to a post by simon194:

In reply to a post by caffn8me:

... nested quotes trimmed ...

The Cisco 887VA does too. I'm using one now

The Billion BiPAC 8200N is another. I'm waiting for mine to come back from being repaired so I can carry on testing their SkyMER firmware.

Hmm - good price but it only has 100BaseT rather than a gigabit switch and the wireless only has two aerials rather than three, both standard on the 7800N and I would have thought would be standard on a VDSL device?

Shame because the rest of the spec is good.

The 8200N is a fairly old router now and there's a new one coming out to replace it soon which I presume will be more along the lines of the 7800N.

TBH I don't really need a gigabit switch on the router because I only use one port on it anyway.

In reply to a post by HEARTLY:

So it broke? And you're getting it repaired?... First time I've heard of a router getting repaired.

Billion do actually repair their products. I had a 7300G 6 years ago which got fried during a storm which they repaired, well swapped out the mainboard which is the same thing really.

Can anyone suggest a 1-box (modem + router), dual-band (2.4 + 5 GHz) solution?

Thank you.

You have a couple of choices, both around the £180 mark:

Draytek 2750 or AVM Fritz! 7390

I looked at the specs for both before deciding on the Fritz! but some people have plumped for the Draytek, if you can afford it look at the specs for both to see what you need, but I will say that I have had no problem with the Fritz! box since I installed it, and it also is very useful for managing the telphone line as well, all cold callers get sent straight to the internal answer machine, and only friends & relatives can wake me up during the night