Using the BT Smarthub 6 on a Plusnet Account

[#1]

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@Baldrick1 wrote:

@mechanic123 

There's no point in over thinking this. I believe that it is Plusnet who are responsible for supporting their Hub One and BT support Smarthubs. I have no idea if Sagecom are involved in firmware maintenance

These updates come as and when. Certainly when there are business Smarthub firmware updates it can be several weeks between the first reports of an update being mentioned on this forum and mine being updated. It's never stopped working for me so I just let it do its own thing and it sorts itself out in the end.

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So you're happy to accept software downloads from a source you don't recognize and without any change notes or other docs?

[#2]

@mechanic123 

 As I see it if you have a hub badged BT, Plusnet or I suspect many other ISPs who update their 'own' firmware the only choices are to accept this or buy your own third party modem/router, over which you will have total control.

As I understand it the port used for updates is secure so I don't see the issue. The choice is yours.

[#3]

Hi - I finally managed to negotiate a bit of down time to test.  

The test  was run BT wholesale download tester, first  on BT business  smart hub 6  item code 088315 firmware SG4B1B0092BE.  This was  replaced with the home hub 6  item code 084316 firmware SG4B1000E020 to see if there are any significant differences.  Finally the business hub was reinstated and the test repeated.

Service is fibre plus which is showing a line speed of 52M.  It's not stabilised yet as it has crawled up from 48 to 52 in a couple of days.

Anyway first round with the business hub showed a down speed average of about 43M with 8.1M up and a ping time of 20mS.

Replacing the business hub with the home hub produced around 46M down 8.1 up and 20mS.

I then restored the business hub and repeated the tests for 45M down 8.1 up and 22mS.

I would conclude not a lot from this,;only that there doesn't seem to be a major difference in the speed between the two units, and there is no evidence to suggest that the home hub is somehow "stealing" bandwidth for the always enabled public BT wifi.  Incidentally on the Business hub guest wifi works - should anyone be interested in it.

regards

M 

[#4]

Thanks for doing the tests and reporting the outcomes. I'm guessing that the hardware inside the boxes is the same for Home & Business, but there's a flag somewhere in the firmware that sets it as a Home or Business box, happy to be corrected on that part if I'm wrong.

Another test that you could try, is to look at the information in the technical log under advanced settings to see if there are any differences.

[#5]

@cancunia 

Whilst I presume that both business and residential Smarthubs use the same hardware the firmware is different. The user interface is different as is the build.

Interestingly the FTTP residential Smarthub uses the same firmware as the FTTC model.

I have never got my hands on a FTTP businesss Smarthub 6.

[#6]

I have a problem, that my BT Hub 6 won't allow me to connect unless I plug in the DSL line.  Is it possible the BT has changed the firmware so this cannot be done in 2020?

[#7]

Do you mean can't connect to the HH admin pages via WiFi or Ethernet without the ADSL connected? That should still be possible AFAIK, my HH6 has been running for a few days now without an ADSL connected & I can still get to the admin screens. 

[#8]

Just a question, my business hub firmware was updated on 3rd may firmware version SG4B1B0092BE.
I dont have public wifinoption on status tab. It's in main widow and greyed out on main page with BT wifi on free to bt customers. There are toggle buttons to turn off but they are locked and cannot be changed. Is there other way around to turn it off ?
Thanks.

[#9]

The Home Hub has a similar issue with BT WiFi, but you can check if it's active by doing a WiFi scan to see if there are any BT Hotspots active. In the case of the Home Hub, there are no BT WiFi SSIDs active on mine, although the menu shows that BT WiFi is active.

[#10]

Thanks for reply, I have already tried and its available either on pay service or free for bt customers.

[#11]

Maybe a Factory Reset would do the trick. Just a thought, are you sure that the BT WiFi is coming from your Hub & not another that's in range?

[#12]

Tried that too, yes its coming from hub when I turned it off both SSIDs disappeared. I think this latest firmware is to do something with it. Last option is to try a diffrent firmware or downgrade firmware.

[#13]

@kaash 

This is srange, I am using this same firmware and it is turned off. This makes me wonder whether having switched it off on earlier versions of the firmware when the option was there that it then stuck.

On the more positive side if you read up on this 'feature' there is little evidence that it impacts your speed as it only releases up to 3Mbps on VDSL if you are not running at maximum speed yourself.

Maybe it's the price we have to pay for using BT hardware?

From memory, a factory reset does not revert the firmware to an earlier version but I could be wrong. It might be worth trying it and if so set the Public Wifi to BT Wifi and also to OFF before connecting the DSL, which once connected triggers the firmware update

[#14]

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@kaash wrote:
Just a question, my business hub firmware was updated on 3rd may firmware version SG4B1B0092BE.
I dont have public wifinoption on status tab. It's in main widow and greyed out on main page with BT wifi on free to bt customers. There are toggle buttons to turn off but they are locked and cannot be changed. Is there other way around to turn it off ?
Thanks.

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I have just looked at mine in a bit more detail.

I am on the same firmware.

I have the same greyed out home page:

But if I click on it I can enter my admin password and appear to have full control, I have not tried it just in case!

Have you tried this?

[#15]

Thanks for reply for some reasons I cannot change anything, I entered there after admin password. I think you are lucky, might factory reset again and see if that does any trick.