BT Home Hub 4

[speedbird591]

I'm a long time BT Internet user and have always used the latest version of their Home Hub router. I know that it's not the most sophisticated of routers and that BT haven't always had a good reputation. But I've been lucky and stuck with them for 12 years in this house alone and had a good reliable service. I've got a sort of hybrid service with a fibre broadband service (Infinity) but a bit slower than the Infinity guarantee due to distance from the street cabinet so they don't call it Infinity

I've been using the HomeHub3 for a couple of years which is fine until cyberbrat comes home with all his devices and it struggles to cope with them all - especially when he's downloading or streaming movies. I can't complain, we've got three internet connected TVs with Sky+ boxes, three laptops, two iPads, Apple TV, games consoles and smartphones. It's no wonder that it benefits from a reboot every couple of days

I've just upgraded to the new HomeHub4 and there's a noticeable improvement and it seems to cope much better with the load. No change to the download speed but the home network seems much quicker and all devices seem to run far more reliably together.

So if any other BT Broadband users out there are looking for a bit of a boost you might want to consider it. If you order it from within your BT Account you can get it for half price i.e. £35 instead of £70.

Ian

[Chris Sykes]

Hi Ian,

Most ISP's only give/sell cheaper routers, however looking at the specs on Wiki, you will be benifiting from the dual band, meaning slower b/g devices are kept on a different connection to your newer n devices, which is likely where your having an inprovement...

I personnaly wouldnt say its worth paying the £70 for one though as its still a 100mb switch... You can generally pick up better routers that are dual band and gigabit for little more than £70...

[speedbird591]

Hi Ian,

Most ISP's only give/sell cheaper routers, however looking at the specs on Wiki, you will be benifiting from the dual band, meaning slower b/g devices are kept on a different connection to your newer n devices, which is likely where your having an inprovement...

I personnaly wouldnt say its worth paying the £70 for one though as its still a 100mb switch... You can generally pick up better routers that are dual band and gigabit for little more than £70...

Thanks for the explanation, Chris. That explains the performance improvement. I prefer to use the HomeHub if I can because BT support it and it's optimised for Infinity/Fibre optic plus the OpenReach modem that comes with it. If you start trying to find routers that are compatible with all that the price gets higher and the chances of BT saying they don't support it increase.

Like I say, if you're already a BT customer you can get it with guaranteed compatibility for £35 which is worth considering. I don't know how long the deal will last.

Ian

[TSR2]

Must admit I'm tempted, but are the Ethernet ports still only 10/100? It makes it a nightmare working on large files on the server when the speed is only 100MB

[JohnD]

Plus you get free BT Sports - 3 channels on the Sky Box. Channels 413 414 and 417

My son-in-law got his hub 4 free as he has had trouble with the hub 3.

My broadband speed was a steady 2MB but is now only 1.3 for some reason. So it seems I might be calling the "Indian office"

Regards

John

[speedbird591]

No, it's not going to satisfy you or anyone looking for a tech upgrade, Ben. It's still a basic giveaway router with 10/100 Ethernet ports. I'm just saying it's giving me a boost over the HH3 so anybody who was OK with that but who has £35 to spare should see an improvement with HH4.

John. I registered with BT Sport HD and it's working fine. I'm not so interested in the football but if I'm still here next summer then I'll need it for the live MotoGP. Hopefully I'll catch a few - it would be a very nice bonus to get some of that!

Ian

[Chris Sykes]

Im with PlusNet so cannot comment on BT's wonderful support, but I use a Billion 7800N solely for the gigabit switch and wireless N. Fleabay sometimes has some cheap gigabit switches going, I got my two Dell switches for about £30 each...

[TSR2]

Picked up a little Netgear gigabit switch for £22 today, so that will do me for now. I'm keeping a watching eye on this 802.11 AC standard which should run at 700 - 800 mb and i may well venture down that road next year. That all for the info

[Chris Sykes]

I try to use the Home plugs instead of wireless as I know how flaky and a pain in the rear It can be to get right hence the 2 switches. I installed some CAT6 in the house but I really want to have all the main rooms cabled at some future point.