BT Home Hub - Is it all it's cracked up to be?

[sladmin]

Hey,

After having the BT Home Hub for a couple of months now I can honestly say it's a load of rubbish. Our internet keeps disconnecting and it's really quite annoying! :angry

Has anyone had any experience with this hyped up rubbish?

[Mark Voss]

I used a BT Business Hub (2700HGV) for a couple of weeks and that did the same thing.

I ebayed it and bought a Speedtouch 780WL instead which holds my connection for days at a time.
If you don't need VoIP, the Speedtouch 585v6 is the one to go for.

The beauty of the Speedtouches is that if you have line/sync problems you can tweak the SNRM settings with the DMT tool (http://66.249.93.104/translate_c?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://dmt.mhilfe.de/&prev=/search%3Fq%3Ddmt%2Bdsl%2Bmodem%2Btool%26hl%3Den%26 sa%3DG)

[sladmin]

Ohh right thanks Spanner, I'm glad its not just me! I was thinking about getting a proper router instead of these crappy ISP ones. What router would anyone recommend?
We plan to use voIP shortly too, so that is a must.

[Mark Voss]

The Thomson Speedtouch 780WL (http://www.speedtouch.co.uk/products/Details.asp?ProductID=528) is pretty good (and v.cheap for what it does) - VoIP works well and is easy to setup.

Other alternatives include the DrayTek Vigor 2700/2800VG or the FRITZ!Box Fon range

[Andrew Taylor]

I've heard the Draytek router are some of the best out there in terms of reliability

I use linksys myself, but went for 3 seperate boxes (router, modem and wireless) in the hope that they will be more reliable (less to go wrong), it has 2 VOIP ports in it, but haven't tried them yet as I have an external VOIP adaptor

[FOD]

I use an excellent French ISP box which will do just about everything including free telephone calls to 49 countries (and TV / multimedia if my exchange supported it) - with speeds as fast as my line will manage - with no land line (saving 10 GBP a month) - all for 20 GBP a month. the only problem with the box is the in built router does not have quite the firewall I would like - so I use a netgear wireless router.

I have always used Netgear or Linksys - I has trouble once with a friends Linksys router and experienced excellent, knowlegeable support from Mumbei - I really like the "Don't worry sir we will solve this problem together within 10 mins sir ..." (which he did).

David.

[Cris]

Ohh right thanks Spanner, I'm glad its not just me! I was thinking about getting a proper router instead of these crappy ISP ones. What router would anyone recommend?
We plan to use voIP shortly too, so that is a must.


You can not go wrong with a netgear adsl router; 845 is the model number I think?

[Carl Shepherdson]

I use a Linksys Wireless/Wired Cable-DSL Router (http://www.broadbandbuyer.co.uk/Shop/ShopDetail.asp?ProductID=2210) in the office, 2 machines are plugged into it, and a Snom 300 Voip phone.

All works great. ;)

[Andrew Taylor]

You can not go wrong with a netgear adsl router; 845 is the model number I think?

I've had a few Netgear routers and they haven't been massively reliable, the last one rebooted every time there was a loud noise

We use them at my other place of work too (not my choice) and they have a habit of crashing and need unplugging and re-plugging to start up again

[Ben Collier]

they have a habit of crashing and need unplugging and re-plugging to start up again

I'll second that!

Also the homehub does not allow port forwardings, as a bug in the latest firmware (which it updates itself) sets the firewall to high and any changes you make appear, but do not come into affect.

Damage.

Ben

[sladmin]

Looks like it's going to be a new router for me then. So it's going to be either a Linksys or Draytek. Anyone use an Asus unit? I heard these were pretty good routers.

[Ben Collier]

Looks like it's going to be a new router for me then. So it's going to be either a Linksys or Draytek. Anyone use an Asus unit? I heard these were pretty good routers.

I'd say linksys- plus they look comercial and durable!

Good luck!

Ben

[Andrew Taylor]

You should be fine with either, remember Linksys are the consumer part of Cisco so they should all be pretty good

[Carl Shepherdson]

I'd go for a Linksys.

[sladmin]

Right Linksys it is then! Problem now is too choose a good one.

Thanks for all your help guys :thumbup1:

[Ben Collier]

they have a habit of crashing and need unplugging and re-plugging to start up again


I've just had to restart mine as it stop ftp from working :S

How ironic!

Ben

[sladmin]

lol it wasn't my fault :whistle:

[Cris]

I've had a few Netgear routers and they haven't been massively reliable, the last one rebooted every time there was a loud noise

We use them at my other place of work too (not my choice) and they have a habit of crashing and need unplugging and re-plugging to start up again

Ok Andrew;

I can only say that we have nearly 100 commercial network installations and excepting where we need to use Cisco we have installed Netgear. To date we have never had a failure or problem.

We are also a Nildram partner and once again we nearly always supply Netgaer where required.

IMHO their equipment is reliable, easily configurable and value for money. Obviously I am not saying that others are any less so just relating our experience.

[Carl Shepherdson]

You can't go wrong with a Linksys IMO with them being so close to Cisco the world provider in networking equipment.

[Steve G]

I use'd a Linksys WRT54GS when i was at home on my cable line.

Brought it to uni with me and it works on my uni lan connection so now i have 4 Lan and WiFi connections instead of 1 Lan :)