Using Essential Digital Home Phone with own Router (Netgear Orbi RBK852)

[cheekybadger]

Hello,

I moved into my new build a year ago and used the Home Hub 2 with a Wi-Fi disc. After a year and multiple technical failings of the Home Hub 2 I decided it's time to replace it with a decent bit of kit (The Home Hub 2 really is an awful piece of kit despite what the reviews say!)

I went for a Netgear Orbi (RBK852) and used the generic BT credentials to get it to authenticate and all worked fine.

I then realised that my home phone (good old analogue wireless handset BT Freestyle) was plugged into the green phone port on the Home Hub 2 so it could send calls over VOIP. No problem I thought as there is a Tel1 socket on the ONT, however according to BT this is for a different digital voice and won't work (and it didn't)

Another call to BT and they said they would send me the Essential Digital Home phone for free, great! However they failed to specify that this only works with the BT Home Hub, it uses WPS to connect and there are no other options to choose another router (I've tried, it will only WPS to the Home Hub 2) so thats useless as I'd need to connect my Home Hub 2 to make it work, and if I do that I might as well just reconnect my Freestyle to the green port!

The only way I can think to make this work is to plug the Home Hub into the WAN, disable firewall, DHCP and wireless (the essential home phone still connects even with wireless disabled) and then plug my Orbi into the Hub

However that sounds very messy and the BT WiFi networks still transmit even though I've disabled WiFi! (The generic ones that anyone can connect to)

I was wondering if anyone else has had this issue and what they did to get around it?

Thanks

[Keith_Beddoe]

@cheekybadger 

The Smart Hub 2 has the DECT base station needed to connect to the Essential Digital Home Phone, it does not use wifi.

You can only use the SH2 to get the BT Digital Voice service, as that connects directly to the DV servers.

[cheekybadger]

That makes more sense why it won't connect with the Orbi.

And I'm assuming the Digital Voice Adapter doesn't act any different as the documentation says that connects to the smart hub via WPS as well

Thing is, as soon as I plug in the smart hub I might as well just use the green telephone port rendering all this moot

[licquorice]

Just use a third party VoIP service with the Orbi rather than BT Digital Voice

[cheekybadger]

I'd need to keep the BT number though, not really interested in another number, do you have any suggestions or documentation I can read to get that working if you know it's possible?

Thanks

[jonstatt]

You can use both SH2 and Orbi together. For example you can use SH2 to deal with the broadband connection and phone but disable the WiFi. Then connect Orbi to SH2 via ethernet and set Orbi as an Access Point to provide WiFi services.

[Fibrefrustrated]

I have tried this but the netgear parental controls don’t work when it’s put in AP mode.  Is it possible to reverse the setup, ie have the SH2 connected to the Orbi in order to get the digital voice to work?

[licquorice]

No