BT smart hub alternative

[g4jnw]

Thought id give feedback on my VR900 purchase, consider i had never had problems with previous ISP's with drop out and numerous calls to BT to try and solve the "line trouble" 

I have had the VR900 now a few days, no drop outs, constant connection 0 problems.

I am now really satisfied that the problem was with the smart hub, BT did say they were going to send a new smart hub but it never turned up and i was fed up of contacting BT.

I may or may not stay with BT when my contract comes to an end but who ever im with I will stay with the VR00.

Thanks guys for pointing me in the right direction.

[22gardens]

Hi- I’m having the same issues with the BT hub and looking at this VR900 as well. One amazon review however says it doesn’t work well with range extenders and I’ve few of these using powerline. Do have any range extenders of any time and can comment. (Really appreciate these reviews so far btw)

[g4jnw]

Feedback that maybe worth while:

Since my original posting I did buy a VR900 (TPlink) and have found it better coverage than the BT one.

Things started to happen to my broadband though and after a call to BT and them saying it was OK I had to insist that an engineer came out. I was told that if the problem was in the property then they would charge. I accepted this and the engineer came out, he found the dropper line had a fault (my lines are overhead)

He gave me options to bring the line into an upstairs room rather than into the kitchen.

I took his advice as the kitchen isnt the best place and as i  have an ip based weather station it allowed me more access.

Now the test!

Try the BT hub in their and see what happens to the signal to my downstairs TV when watching on demand - Ahhh Drop outs. Replace it with my new VR900 hey presto NO drop outs and full signal all over the house.

VR900 wins hands down.

[DavidCo]

The 900V2 is good and you can get IPv6 beta firmware, just search forum if/when you need.

[mejon1]

I am currently looking at the vr900 and just wanna ask if you are still happy with it?   

Thanks.

[g4jnw]

Yes its tons better than the BT one, BT did replace saying it could be the router it but I havent even opened the packaging im so satisfied.

[muffybean]

I had my Internet go down yesterday and it looked like it was the router I use, Netgear D6400. I have the the BT Hub 5 as a spare and hooked that up and with some help from BT (limited) got back running. However, still had issues and when I checked thoroughly checked my network out found the culprit, it was an 8 port D-Link switch!! I hooked up my Netgear again but only to my second desktop and voila I was back in business.

Now the Hub 5 is **bleep** and very slow, plus as I have Sky Q box it is a big issue connecting to the internet via the BT Hub 5 or 6. The Sky engineers were wary when I told them I was with BT when I got that a couple of months but were happy when they saw that I had the Netgear. After isolating the faulty switch, I reconnected most of my stuff and the Netgear operated as sweet as a nut, plus it was faster and very stable. Browser links opened up very quickly as they did before the switch went belly up, plus when I hooked up my outside security camera it operated perfectly - that switch even affected that. I have always used Netgear as I have found them very solid. When I upgraded to BT Plus two months ago I was offered Hub 6 free, apart from £9.99 postage but turned it down. In hindsight I suppose I should have got it purely as a backup but that is life, the Netgear Genie app is very easy to set up port forwarding and static IP's for different devices.

[ginola14]

we have had 2 replacements each for HomeHub 5 and Homehub6. Still get same random times of the day drop out from BT Infinity. The worst thing of course is that they deny any issue

I would REALLY like a device that would momitor uptime of the BTInfinity connection/fibre optic box. i doubt there is such a thing at realistic cost is there?

[g4jnw]

After posting this my VR900 went down, not sure why but it stopped working overnight, checked the power supply with my multimeter and the supply was fine.

A lot happened with BT since my original post, they traced a fault a few months ago and put a new dropper and telephone box in.

I still had the Homehub when the VR900 went down so reinstalled that and its still running fine. 

The VR900 went back under warrantee and a brand new one arrived last week, its still in its wrapper so have just put it away and will keep it as a spare.

The BT homehub is fine and working as it should, its just a shame BT didn't trace the fault much quicker

[globe1nh]

Bit late to this but for info I'm about to switch from BT Smart Hub to an Asus DSL-AC88U; it's on the expensive side (a shade over £200) but looks to have similar WiFi coverage (although everything I have other than iPhone & iPad is tied in with Gigabit Ethernet) and of course is a combined modem/router.  Reasons for switching?  One is that I wanted something that'd have VPN server capability (BT S/H claim to "work with" VPN but it's just pass through; I want a router running VPN not have to tie in each individual device.

Second reason is that my "Superfast" Fibre 2 can't achieve more than 27Mbps due to the long local cabinet to property copper cable.  BT have offered a cheaper package, but I want speed, so my only alternative is Virgin Media.  If the Asus works well then I'll switch to Virgin Vivid 350 (which is actually less than I'm payng for the BT service).  The Virgin hub has a "modem only" mode and the Asus has an ethernet WAN port as well as DSL, so I'll still be able to have my VPN (I asked Virgin if their hub includes VPN server capability - they said "of course" but again I think it's pass through, not acting as a VPN server.  All oter suppliers use the same OperReach infrastructure as BT (who of course blame OpenReach for the poor service)...