Should I replace the BT HH3?

[Inaharry]

Hi,

I've just had Infinity 2 installed, (4 days ago) so it's still within the 10 day training period. I have consistently been getting 76Mbps down and around 15Mbps up using Speedtest, but when I tried last night, it's dropped to 55Mbps.

Don't get me wrong, these speeds are incredible and a lot better than some of the congested speeds I used to get with ADSL2, so it's not a speed complaint, but I've read that a lot of people change the BT supplied HomeHub 3 to a different router because of speed drops after the initial installation and it seems to help get them back to their original speeds.

After a bit of research, I'm seriously considering getting the Asus RT-AC66U because of the wireless range and having USB ports that I connect a shared printer or external drive to.

Up until the Infinity installation, I was using a Netgear DGND3300 dual-band ADSL2 router. I've currently got the HH3 connected via its GB port to a GB switch and that goes off to 2 PCs and a number of Devolo 200Mbps powerline adapters, (including the one with built in wireless to extend the range). These adapters then supply another 2 PCs, games consoles, media players etc. around the house, (not simultaneously...obviously)

The wireless is used for iPads to connect.

Based on everything, would the RT-AC66U be a good choice or should I just stick with the HH3? I changed the original Thomson TG585v7 that was supplied by the ADSL2 ISP to the Netgear to help with lockups, so I'm quite happy to change the HH3 if it'll help with running everything.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Inaharry]

Thanks for all of your replies.

This isn't the reason. It's usually because people want gigabit LAN, better WiFi, multiple SSIDs, more firmware options, etc.

That makes sense. I didn't think about the need for extra GB ports because my HH3's GB port is connected to a GB switch. Also, better WiFi is one of the reasons I'm looking at a different router too.

Speeds drop a lot due to bandwidth management to be honest.

It won't be the HH3 unless you have a ton of wifi devices (it struggles with wifi, we have a seperate router just for wifi).

Don't talk to me about wireless! I wasted 2 hours last night trying to get iPads connecting to it without success. We've got an Android phone and an iPhone5 connected without any problems, but the two iPads consistently say 'Unable to join network'. One is running IOS5 and the other IOS6, (like the iPhone5), so it's not that and I tried a whole load of suggestions including adding the wireless network manually and using different levels of encryption. The only way I could get them both to connect was to turn off encryption altogether. As soon as I tried WPA, WPA2 etc. it wouldn't connect. Another reason to change the router I suppose.

The Asus is a great router - I'm using one but there are a few issues.

I found the out the box firmware didn't handle lots of connections too well and needed rebooting every other day if people were doing torrents, refreshing server lists in some games, etc. flashing to the latest official FW solves that but introduces some wireless issues.

EDIT: Also a lot of speed testing sites don't give the most accurate speeds on connections faster than 20-30Mbit anyhow.

My speed was back up again last night, so either it was down to the training period or somebody was using the hub through BT Fon.

Thanks for the info, I don't really want a router that needs rebooting that frequently because of lock-ups. I used to have a Draytek 2800G and then the Netgear DGND3300 and they were 100% stable and never needed rebooting, (for me at least).

I won't need it for torrents, it'll mainly be used for general and Steam downloads, online gaming and TV on demand through Sky and Youview. Everything is cabled either directly or through powerline adapters, it's only the iPads and phones that use wireless and I need a fairly good Wifi signal to get around the house. Do you think with that kind of setup / use that I'll have to keep rebooting the Asus, (if I went for the RT-AC66U), or should I consider a different make and model of router?

Thanks again to all of you for your help and advice!

 

[Inaharry]

So last night I received and installed an Asus RT-N66U, and so far I'm really happy with it. It's a very high-quality piece of kit, and the difference in the wifi quality is night and day. Super strong signal everywhere in the house, rock solid so far (not a single drop out), and 5 GHz wifi is oh so much faster.

That sounds ideal, it'll be nice to have a decent wifi signal back.

Thanks very much for all of your suggestions and help. The result....

Ordered!

In the end, I did go the AC66U. Probably a little bit stupid for the price considering the lack of AC devices and the fact that it's draft and may change, but if it doesn't, I'll have a bit of future-proofing.

I very nearly went for the N66U, (and considered the N65U because of the USB 3.0 ports on it), but after reading quite a lot of favourable reviews of the AC66U and that the buggy firmware out of the box has generally been fixed by a better official firmware, I thought I'd go for it.

 

[Inaharry]

The only slight difference in configuration is that the HH3 is configured with the default BT PPoE username ([email protected]), whereas the RT-N66U refuses to connect with that username (and no password), so it is configured with my @btinernet.com username and password.

Given there are so few people with FTTP, and even fewer with an RT-N66U, I don't fancy my chances of getting to the bottom of this. But if anyone has any ideas, they'd be welcome.

I can't remember where I saw this because I've been reading so much about the Asus routers and the HH3 over the last couple of days, but apparantly, the way around the router not accepting a blank password along with the '[email protected]' username is to put a space in. It seems that most routers including the Asus will accept this and the ones that don't seem to work with just 'BT'. As that login doesn't need a password, I think it's just the router that's expecting one.

It might be worth trying the proper username along with a space for the password to see if you can get it to connect....