BT Fibre to the premises problem

[CliveH1969]

Hi,

I hope you can help as I am struggling with BT and Openreach on this very strange problem.

I have a BT Hub 2 and when I try to access the 192.168.1.254 address I access my neighbours EE Hub, yes I know weird.

I am connected to the Wi-Fi SSID of my BT Hub 2 box and use the passphrase for that connection. for my internet access.

BT have sent a Qube engineer who replaced the BT Hub 2 and it was doing exactly the same thing, showing the EE hub details and not the BT Hub 2 details.

He then went away scratching his head and saying it was an Openreach issue.

Openreach appeared and said that all there checks showed that the circuit was good and that the problem was BT's.

BT then sent a second Openreach engineer who said that the ONT serial numbers were mis-matched but this was at BT CP's end and not Openreach.

Now the even stranger test that I conducted has me flummoxed.

If I connect a laptop to the my BT 2 hub over a network cable, and I disable the Wi-Fi adapter on the laptop, and I remove the WAN cable from the hub. I still have internet access. My VoIP service says it cannot find a signal, but my Hub can.

If I power off my Hub then I lose internet connectivity.

So the Hub is still active even though Wi-Fi and the physical internet connection has been removed.  How can that be?

Nothing has changed in my home but my neighbour has recently been forced to move to EE as they can no longer sign-up for a BT account service. I suspect that this issue has happened since the changeover from BT to EE.

Note: If I power off my neighbours EE hub, then I am able to access the BT hub manager via the 192.168.1.254 and it is my hub. But as soon as the EE hub is powered back on then we start from square one.

Issues: slow/sluggish internet access, microsoft teams on mobile phone is not reacting the same as it does on a 4G/5G network. Other applications on mobile devices can be slow to respond. Videos are slow to load or sometimes fail with a message that the media type is invalid, even though it loads after several re-attempts.

Please help!!

Clive.

[ptrduffy]

That does sound very strange.

If I connect a laptop to the my BT 2 hub over a network cable, and I disable the Wi-Fi adapter on the laptop, and I remove the WAN cable from the hub. I still have internet access.

So, in this case it seems clear that your laptop cannot be accessing the internet via your Hub - if you power down your Hub, do you still get internet access?

The only thing I can think of is that your laptop has a Bluetooth connection to a device (e.g. a mobile phone) that is in turn connected to your neighbour's WiFi, and that is how you are getting internet access.  This would also account for the slow connection speed, and 192.168.1.254 accessing your neighbour's hub admin.  You could rule this out by turning off Bluetooth on your laptop.

[CliveH1969]

Hi ptrduffy,

Thank you for your comment. I can confirm that Bluetooth is disabled as well as Wi-Fi on the laptop. If I switch off my BT Hub 2 device then I lose internet connection (as I would expect), but if I have the BT Hub 2 on and I am cabled to a port on the back of the hub via RJ45 and I remove the RJ45 lead from the WAN port then I still have internet access. My BT VoIP phone however shows that there is no connection available.

It sounds like my internet service and my phone service are separate. This was not happening before my neighbours were forced to move to an EE account as they are no longer supplying BT accounts for their customers.

I'd really like to get your thoughts on this as it's driving me bonkers. It's got to be a mess up with the fibre connections or that someone has spliced my connection in to my next door neighbours line but left my VoIP service alone. Is that even possible? I would have thought the fibre service was the same for both Internet and VoIP.

Thanks again for contributing. Clive.

[rbz5416 · Accepted solution]

Without analysing all you've posted, my first thought is do you have a powerline device connected to the SH2? It's not unheard of for them to talk to a neighbours powerline device & so connect to their network.

[tonysmini018]

What connections do you have on your laptop? 
Do you have anything else set up as “connect automatically” other than your router?

MyBT or BT-Wi-Fi maybe?

[licquorice]

Do either you or your neighbour have a hybrid connect device? That would explain the slow connectivity when physical connectivity to your hub is removed.

[CliveH1969]

Hi rbz5416,

I do have two powerlines supplied by BT which are TP Link devices. I've not heard that they could cause bleed through. I will look to disable them later and confirm whether this fixes the issue. It does sound like a distinct possibility though.

Thanks for taking the time to contribute to this thread.

Clive.

[CliveH1969]

Hi tonysmini018,

No there are no other connections other than a coupe of TP-Link powerline adapters. Which are a recent addition.

Thanks, Clive.

[CliveH1969]

Hi Distinguished Sage,

No we do not have those types of devices.

Thanks, Clive.

[licquorice]

If your are on the same mains phase as your neighbour, it is quite possible the powerline adapters are the problem.

Phases normally cycle between houses so an immediate neighbour isn't normally on the same phase but it can happen.