Keeping old router and returning new (unopened) one

[Bungaroosh]

My copper landline (which I never use) is changing to digital.

BT have sent me a Smart Hub 2 in the past week or so. I want to just keep my existing old equipment which works fine. The reason for this is that I have the Wifi disabled on the old hub as it's right by my desk, and I have a wired set up which I don't want to change. I'm not bothered about losing the landline or needing to have a new digital "landline".

A few years ago BT sent me a newer hub to replace the old BT Home Hub 3.0. I kept and am still using the Home Hub 3, and gave the new hub to my sister (who is/was a BT customer).

I've logged into MyBT and there is an "Equipment Return" request. It's for a Smart Hub (presumably the one I gave to my sister). It says "Total failure to return charge: £0.00". Wondering if this will go up if I don't return it.

Ideally, I'd like to just return the new, unopened Smart Hub 2 that they've just sent, and leave everything else alone. I'm not sure whether I'll need to contact BT to get them to agree to this.

Apologies for the long-windedness of this. Maybe I should just try to contact them and let you know how I get on.

Thanks in advance though for any comments.

[Crimliar]

The HomeHub three is more than a decade old, there will come a point where you'll not be able to receive either in-person support or security updates for it.  The process for turning off the WiFi is simple enough, so personally for peace of mind I'd swap to the new router.
*I run a third party router, so I can see how often my IP/router gets attacked.  I wouldn't want a vulnerable router!

[Bungaroosh]

@Crimliar 
Thank you for this info.

Would you (or another member) know if I would select "Disable All Wireless" on this Hub Manager screen shot here (on someone else's thread), does it disable all Wifi signals? Including "BT Wifi"/"EE Wifi"?

To be clear, I would want no Wifi transmission whatsoever from the Smart Hub 2.

Many thanks again.

[FlyingKiwi]

I've tested this on my Smart Hub 2 and confirm that after selecting to disable all wireless in the Hub Manager, when I then attempt to connect my laptop to WiFi, there's no sign of either the normal SSID or any EE SSIDs.

[Edinburgh-wg]

Wait, wouldn't you still get BT's open WiFi network which you can't switch off by default? So, you can switch off your own WiFi, but the public WiFi would still broadcast. The only way to deal with that is to get a different make. 

[naylor2006]

I would probably at this point ask, "why"? My aunt does not want any WIFI in her house either for health reasons, so I do understand there are reasons for it, even if I dont agree or in her case the science proves otherwise 🙂

If you straight up dont want WIFI and dont care about digital phone line, my recommendation would be to just buy your own router which has no WIFI capabilities, then you dont even need to worry about the hub of choice from your ISP. If you have FTTP its very easy to set up, if you have personal reasons for not wanting WIFI enabled at all then thats the best route.

A factory reset for whatever reason of your router will enable WIFI again, BT have access to the router if its theirs. Im not sure about the question @Edinburgh-wg posed, to opt out of that WIFI service you have to do it via your account somewhere, I forget specifically where but is that radio always on....a Hub expert could answer that.

So it depends on, "why", if you dont want to be exposed to any WIFI within close proximity and want to be 100% sure then your own 3rd party router will be the way to got that does not have WIFI at all, if its a hacking worry and WIFI concerns you the same applies.

As a final point, you need to use the latest router really if you want tech support, if you line ever has a fault you will certainly be asked to plug in the current router, so you might as well put it there now.

[imjolly]

to turn off BTWIFI go to MYBT  then your products then scroll down to BTWIFI then learn more then scroll down to 'opt out BTWIFI'

[WSH]

I believe it was not possible to turn off everything with the older firmware.  As far as I can tell, the latest firmware* does turn off everything.  (*That's v0.43).

At least as far as I can tell.  As is the case these days, there is actually so much Wi-Fi traffic about that judging what might or might not be originating from your hub is not straight forward, unless you unplug it and check again.

[TimCurtis]

I can certainly confirm that disabling - rather than turning off - wifi does prevent any wifi signals from the SH2 as @WSH states.

If you use the SH2 it will automatically update to the latest firmware - whatever version it is - so no real fear of wifi transmissions.

[FlyingKiwi]

No @Edinburgh-wg you don't get any WiFi connections/SSIDs showing at all from the hub