BT Smart Hub2 broadcasting WiFI channel with no SSID

[GuyBB]

I've been doing some rather crude monitoring of the WiFI networks in my vicinity using an Android App "NetX". The Android device only supports 2.4 GHz WiFi so I can only monitor that band. I've noticed that my Smart Hub 2 is broadcasting a network with no SSID. The last 6 hex digits of the MAC address are very close to those of my Hub's 2.4GHz User Network - however I normally have User WiFi disabled. Also BT-WiFi is disabled and anyway that would broadcast with an SSID.

I'm forming a suspicion that this hidden network may be related to the BT WiFi Discs. However I don't have any of them. My home network is nearly all wired (some via HomePlugs) with just a couple of non BT WAPs which are only very occasionally switched on to allow a couple of Media Servers to be accessed via their Remote Controls.

So, if anyone can help, I would like to know if it is possible to disable the broadcasting of this hidden network. Also there may well be a 5 GHz companion to disable as well.

[Dippu · Accepted solution]

This should explain it. https://community.bt.com/t5/Home-setup-Wi-Fi-network/Smart-Hub-2-Firmware-glitch-and-sneaky-networks...

[licquorice]

Yes, it is the backhaul for wifi discs and it can't be disabled.

[GuyBB]

Thanks for that link. Incidentally the issue with the SmartHub2 basic Status page saying :-

BT Wi-fi status: Not active

but the Technical Log saying

BT Wi-fi: Activated

persists in the latest firmware v0.30.01.08093-BT 

[GuyBB]

Many thanks for that definitive reply. It's not an ideal situation and not very green to waste an admittedly small amount of power but I guess I can live with it.

[jasonmleds12]

Yeah... Pretty wasteful in terms of energy consumption - and potentially interfering with other WiFi networks (especially since they transmit on the same channels) for no reason...

The BT SH2 is a great modem/router - but the WiFi AP element is just pretty useless if you are not using those WiFi disk (I assume the majority of people don't?)... The firmware should have an option for advanced users to turn off the disk support altogether (but I guess they wanna make sure lay people can connect their disks without hassle)...

Same applies to the "can't split SSIDs between bands" issue...

[GuyBB]

The BT SH2 is a great modem/router ....

Possibly  in some respects but it is no good for my local network which requires :-

a) The ability to preset a non dense range of IP/MAC address mappings ahead of the devices ever being connected. Just being able to fix a device to whichever IP address the SH2 allocates it when first detected online is not acceptable.

b) Support of static routing to route traffic between two discrete subnets.

I use a Draytek Vigor 2862 as my main (DHCP) router and I had been using the BT SH2 purely as a VDSL modem via the Draytek's WAN2 port connected (in failover mode) to a LAN port on the SH2.

Following these issues with not being able to fully kill BT WiFi, I've taken the SH2 out of the equation (powered down) and use the Draytek's internal VSDL modem (WAN1 port) to connect to the BT line.

Unfortunately that approach will only work up to the point where BT switch my exchange to digital telephony when I'll have to go back to the original setup.

I've got some decent quality RJ11 and RJ45 metal switchboxes so that the SH2 can be very quickly reenabled without any plug pulling should BT require it for line diagnostic purposes. But the Draytek performs superbly - at least as well as the SH2 in managing the VDSL and possibly better.

[jasonmleds12]

Do you get full speeds (900+mbit/s) with IPv6 on the Daytrek? My TP-Link wouldn't manage... Hence, I stick to the SH2 (also wanna hold on to features like remote speed testing via the app etc). But I understand your requirements.

Regarding digital telephony... I'm using a Gigaset N300A Base Station for VoIP with a SIP provider to make calls

[GuyBB]

Unfortunately I can't help with that as I am on FTTC rather than FTTP - 50 Mb/s .

Draytek's website says :-

Connecting a DrayTek Vigor router to Ultrafast full-fibre FTTP services is easy to do. The ISP supplied ONT or Optical Network Terminal is connected to the optical fibre and converts this into Ethernet, which all of DrayTek's routers can use.

Any of DrayTek's latest routers, such as the Vigor 2927, Vigor 2765, Vigor 2865 and Vigor 2866 can be connected to full-fibre broadband, with up to 950mbps of Hardware Accelerated Firewall throughput.

So I would infer from the above that the 2862 wouldn't be as fast but it's perfectly adequate for 50 Mb/s !

With the 2866 etc I think you have to enable a "Hardware Acceleration" feature.