Fiber in 3 days, can i use same router?

IceShock · 27 Nov 2015 at 15:32

Howdy,

Well finally bt infinity will be here in 3 days after 3 years of waiting, anyways,

got the new bt hub thingy junk today, then it sprung to my mind, oh Christ can I even use my trusty netgear DG834GT with fiber?

If not, any decent reccomendations of which router will work good? needs to have about 4-6 eithernet ports and wireless
And I like the netgear one as I can edit all the settings and stuff for maximum performance my self etc.

Or can I do all that on the new bt hub 5 thingy?

Cheers!

loltim · 27 Nov 2015 at 17:59

Are ISP's still supplying the Openreach modem separate to the router? If so, you could create a PPPoE connection on the Netgear.

The problem you've got is the modem in your router isn't VDSL capable.

Edit: if you're getting a home hub 5 you'll need a VDSL modem such as a Vigor 130 or a cheaper Hauwei HG612 off ebay.

PapaLazaru · 27 Nov 2015 at 18:03

As above, you will not be able to use you current router. The hub is pretty good actually, just try it and see if it does what you want.

loltim · 27 Nov 2015 at 18:14

Billion 8800 is worth looking at if you want to tinker a bit without breaking the bank.

Personally I'd stick with the HH5 and get a little 5 port switch if you run out of ports.

IceShock · 29 Nov 2015 at 01:57

Ok thanks for the replys guys, and damn, 80 quid for that billion 8800 thing, too much outta my price range im afraid, was thinking about 20-30

heh.

well ill give the hub a go and see. is there any way you can change settings on it though your pc etc?

Thanks

Steveocee · 29 Nov 2015 at 05:30

Of course. Just type the LAN IP into a web browser and you should be able to tinker with stuff.

The IP will either be written on the HH or in Windows you can do an ipconfig from command prompt and use the default gateway IP.

Sparx · 29 Nov 2015 at 10:46

The DG834GT was great back in it's time.

The new BT hub isn't bad for a stock ISP router, especially compared to the Netgear these days.

Craig321 · 29 Nov 2015 at 10:49

I had the HH5 for a while and soon realised it's awful. Can't handle more than one person online at a time properly, WiFi randomly drops out or doesn't connect first time and my parents had even more trouble when they got fibre.

I upgraded to the Netgear R7000 with a separate Huawei HG612 modem off eBay (which matched the hardware in my local cabinet) and got a good 5Mbps+ additional speed and reliability. Currently on 31 days of broadband being up. On the HH5 it could only go a few days without disconnect.

Draeger · 29 Nov 2015 at 11:02

Craig321 said:
I had the HH5 for a while and soon realised it's awful. Can't handle more than one person online at a time properly, WiFi randomly drops out or doesn't connect first time and my parents had even more trouble when they got fibre.

I upgraded to the Netgear R7000 with a separate Huawei HG612 modem off eBay (which matched the hardware in my local cabinet) and got a good 5Mbps+ additional speed and reliability. Currently on 31 days of broadband being up. On the HH5 it could only go a few days without disconnect.

I think it's a case of YMMV with the Home Hub 5, as many people rate it as fairly good. We've had no issues with ours and that's with me online with it, my missus streaming using iPlayer or Netflix and our little lad watching YouTube on his laptop all at the same time. No buffering, not had a dropped connection yet either. So far, so good.

One of the things I'd recommend with the HH5 is going into settings and splitting/renaming the 2.4ghz and 5ghz channel SSID's separately which should give more stable performance depending on what devices you connect to the network and from what location within the house.