Full Fibre To The Property with Digital Voice and Third Party Router

[jac_95]

Re moving to Broadband only best calling up to move to that. May probably go into a new contract and to also an opportunity to review cost.

As for DV routing and where DV call features actually execute and are running this is now more likely done a Communication Providers software application/services level than at exchange so it would be done in either one of BT's Data Centres or public/private cloud.

[licquorice]

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@jac_95 wrote:

As for DV routing and where DV call features actually execute and are running this is now more likely done a Communication Providers software application/services level than at exchange so it would be done in either one of BT's Data Centres or public/private cloud.

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Hence 'Exchange' rather than Exchange, just a generalisation. 😉

[Johnbrid]

My experience might help others thinking about going FTTP. I had FTTP installed about a month ago. We need a landline for incoming business calls and decided to have our number transferred to the fibre. The new openreach fibre modem is connected to the BT smart hub 2 (in the front hall) and an underfloor network cable goes from the BT smart Hub 2 to an Asus RT AC86U router in the back office. I loaded the ASUS router app onto my android phone and let it do its stuff to configure the ASUS router. It then all worked fine and is very stable and fast (500Mb/s). The advanced digital home phone which BT provided connects to the the bt hub via dect not wifi (I accessed the BT smart bub router and have switched off the wifi). Our old phone and answer machine is plugged into the bt hub (normal  phone connector on the back)  so we still have all our other cordless phones in the house working plus the one extra one that BT supplied.  All our phones and computers  are connected by wire or wifi to the ASUS RT AC86U.

Although I am very happy with how things have turned out,  it has taken months from the first install date to get everything working as it should. Good thing is that we have never been without broadband or our own telephone number. Also because of the many cockups made by BT and openreach we have amassed over £150 of compensation. The telephone help has been exemplary and communications with the humans brilliant. It seems to be faults with their systems that cause the problems so do not expect things to go smoothly on that first instal date. They might ?? I think there has been about 9 errors during the install process which should not have happened.

Before switching off the wifi on the bt hub I tested the speed and range of the BThubs wifi  relative to the ASUS router.  The ASUS wifi is significantly faster and the strength of the signal is about 10 times as strong in the corners of the house even if the BT hub is closer. The use of the asus rpouter  means I have access to good wifi all over the garden as well as in every room.

Was it all worth it. Yes. Our FTTC was between 9 and 13Mb/s as we are far from the cabinet. It is now a steady 500Mb/s.

[KennethS]

Do you not have any double-NAT issues as a result of having both routers in your network?

[Johnbrid]

Sorry I do not know what double NAT issues are. It all works and there has been no issues at all.

[Johnbrid]

I have another property where I have  a modem router and a second router connected to it via ethernet with both wifi networks active. Worked for years fine . Modem router and router both Asus. Maybe they configure themselves avoiding the double NAT issue

[KennethS]

Thanks for your replies. Double NAT is a potential issue when you have two routers both functioning in a single network, but for some people and setups it causes no issue. My son's do a lot of gaming, which I understand can be negatively impacted. I also have a number of home IoT devices with port forwarding setup, including security cameras, and the double-NAT can cause issues with those as well. I may try putting the "SmartHub 2" into my system for a test, but I would prefer to be able to use digital voice service without needing the BT-supplied router. It seems there is no ability to turn off the routing functions in the SmartHub and use it in a pass-though only mode, which is a pity.

[Keith_Beddoe]

I would have thought if the second router`s WAN address was put in the DMZ on the home hub, then all incoming ports would be forwarded to the second router, and that would mean that port forwarding should work.

You would need to make sure that the  DMZ IP address was static, but I assume you would have the DHCP server on the home hub turned off anyway, as your second router would be the DHCP server.

[KennethS]

Thanks for that. It sounds promising, but I think I just demonstrated that sounding more knowledgeable than reality (speaking of myself) can get one into trouble! I believe I understand what you are suggesting and may give it a try, but it may be beyond my technical ability.  I have been searching for an easy answer to enabling digital voice on BT whilst using your own router and home network setup. This may be the solution but it is the first I have seen it suggested.  It does sound like a way forward. Thank you.

[rambles]

The issue that I had was that connecting the Openreach fibre modem / ONT to the BT Smart Hub 2 gave me download speeds of 750mb, but connecting it to the Asus router (RT-AX88U) gave me download speeds of 930mb.

Whether we can actually utilise all of that bandwidth is debatable, but I don't want to bottleneck it to that extent.