I was told by BT and Open Reach that I HAD to convert to fibre and the old copper wire was going to be out of use soon. I was perfectly happy with the BT Broadband service and speeds that I had been getting, but when I needed to renew my contract I was told I had to renew with EE and had to have Fibre. My problem arises from the fact that I am electrically hyper sensitive, therefore my whole house is wired with Ethernet outlets so that I can use the Internet without having the WiFi switched on. I have asked, but BT/EE cannot provide, (even if I buy a different one from them), a router with an on/off button, so that I can easily turn the WiFi on or off, as it is only required very occasionally. I have been using a Netgear router which has an on/off button for the WiFi. Unfortunately, this does not have a phone socket, so I have now bought a tplink router which does. I have after many hours managed to get it connected to the Internet with the help of tplink tech team, but am not able to get the phone to work with the tplink router. However the phone, a BTDecor 2600, will work when connected to the BT home hub. Does anyone know how to fix this please?
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The BT and EE Digital Voice service only works and requires the use of the BT/EE smart hub.
You can disable the WiFi however if you want to continue using the ethernet ports on the router
I was told by BT and Open Reach that I HAD to convert to fibre and the old copper wire was going to be out of use soon.
Very misleading. Copper is not going to be out of use, its the PSTN phone network that is closing, and if people need a phone service from BT, it has to be BT Digital Voice, which works just as well on a copper broadband connection.
As @jac_95 has said, you can turn off the wireless on the Smart Hub 2, but I doubt it disables the DECT base signals.
@CHRISMAY3wrote:I have been using a Netgear router which has an on/off button for the WiFi. Unfortunately, this does not have a phone socket, so I have now bought a tplink router which does.
Pity you abandoned the Netgear. There are ways of getting it to play nicely with BT's horrid HomeHub. The trick is to set up the network so that the Netgear router suits in the "DMZ" of the HomeHub.
You can use the two routers on the same network without causing clashes.
The key is to set up the Smart Hub2 with a local IP address that does not clash with whatever you have the Netgear router on.
By default Smart Hub2 squats on 192.168.1.254. That clashes with the Netgear router which will allocate itself 192.168.1.1. I wanted to keep that for everything already on my local network. All those fixed and reserved 192.168.1.XXX addresses.
I set my Smart Hub2 to use 192.168.2.1. Then in the SH I went to:
Look in the list for your Netgear router's IP address – in my case, it was on 192.168.2.175.
After I connected things, I went into the Smart Hub2
Look at the drop down and pick the IP address that the Smart Hub2 has allocated to your main router.
Use that as the DMZ address.
Then you can set the Netgear on 192.168.1.1
Since doing that all has been well. No conflicts between the two routers. I have turned off the redundant wifi from the Smart Hub2.
Both routers are accessible using the a web browser and the graphical user interface (GUI). Just aim the GUI at their IP addresses, 192.168.2.1 for the SH and 192.168.1.1 for the Netgear.
The HH has scary warnings about the safety implications of letting traffic through its defences, but your Netgear router may be at least as protective, especially of you have signed up for one of its security add ons. I haven't.
I have yet to be forced on to Digital Voice so I don't know if that works. But I would certainly try that before buying yet more hardware.
This is from memory a few months ago. It still works, but you may have to tweak it for your setup.
More here on DMZs.
How to Use Your Router and ISP’s Modem/Router Combo In Tandem
You would have to use a third party VOIP service. Porting your BT number across, may be a problem.
Alternatively enclosing the home hub in a Faraday cage may be possible.
This is a BT forum , not a forum for discussing other providers.