BT Total Broadband

[ahin4114]

Just spotted this on the BT site:

http://www.homehub.bt.com/

Thought I'd post it here in case anybody was interested.

[calypso69er]

Dont waste your time. Tried to migrate from F2S to total broadband option 3. After repeated phonecall's to check all was in order (always assured it was) my migration date came and went. No equipment sent out, no welcome pack, and I was still connected with F2S. Phoned up and argued as BT said I WAS connected and being billed for the service, when I clearly wasn't (also tried to get me to pay to get the equipment re-sent). Eventually turned out the only thing they actually set up was my billing.
Sorry, rant over!!

[JagoPlasma]

just had my home hub delivered today, looks swish if a bit big for what (feels like) is inside it, yet is smaller than i expected.

the free 1010 dect handset wasnt in stock so they bundled a 1200 equinox phone(£60 at bt shop) and said i can keep it and my 1010 will be with me in a few weeks :thumbsup:

lets hope its worth the money as i ditched NTHell.

bonuses for me will be, built in hw firewall and router which i really needed and was lacking before my switch, free norton antivirus and software firewall which i was also lacking.

i never bothered with using the phone before as i had a mobile, but now i get free calls at evenings and weekends (only time im at home) and have two handsets so thats great :thumbsup:

just hope it all goes well when im home tonight! :grin:

cant wait till they bring out homesafe too, my future with BT is looking very bright :grin: lets just hope they change their policy on having an active phoneline so i dont have to pay £11pm to keep a phoneline that i dont use (for analogue calls)

[Bourner]

Just Spoke to BT as received my Hub on Friday, was activated yesterday and the phone still hasn't turned up. He stated the new phone (thinks he said Freestyle 3220 will be with me in a few days and the other one will be a few weeks.

[Knyght_byte]

i'm waiting for them to send me another email about BT Total....i only recently got my BB uprated to 8Mb but it required an extension of contract (was well out of mine, have had BT since dialup).....i dont want to move down from Option 4 tho as it gives me bigger GB allowance......am hoping they'll say i can have the Total equipment etc free as i only recently did the uprating thing to 8Mb (tbh they really should have rolled these two things out together, would make life a bit easier for us and them..lol)

i take it the Home Hub is required to actually use the handset for calls? as opposed to a normal wireless router.........if so i presume you dont need a PC switched on running a program for it to work?..or do you?

i wonder if you can run the home hub connected to another router, i rather like my trusty Belkin, never fails on me...lol

[JagoPlasma]

got my home hub up and running :grin:
speed is varying between 4880kbps to 5+
guess il have to let it settle down

cool thing i been playing about with for past 2 hours is the BBtalk, both land line and BB talk calls come straight thru to my phone thats plugged in the home hub phone port. its independant of the PC so it doesnt have to be on to make/recieve phone calls.

to let everyone know as it was a bugger to find out, in order to call from your pstn (landline) dial 5 first then tone will change from higher to lower pitch. unfortunately if you try dialing it as a whole number it comes up as number not recognised :(

anywho, all seems great so far so will be looking into getting a phone line lecy stealer to power the hub incase of a powercut :devil:

must ring ntl tomorrow to see why they havent cancelled my BB yet :nono:

[ad47uk]

You will get bombarded with emails from Bt now asking you to get extras like their BT vision when it comes out.

I think I will stay as far away from BT retail as possible,

[Knyght_byte]

You will get bombarded with emails from Bt now asking you to get extras like their BT vision when it comes out.

I think I will stay as far away from BT retail as possible,

personally i dont get scared by mass emailing...lol....i just click delete, only takes a moment..lol

still waiting for them to offer me something tho....rather annoyed, my Belkin modem/router was dead when i came home the other night, much not funny.....spent most of today wandering around trying to get a cheap replacement.....best i could get was £60 Belkin job........if BT had offered me something i coulda had their home hub thing...oh well, when they get in touch i'll tell them i recently had to buy one so unless they offer it free they can stuff it...lol

[Knyght_byte]

i rather like my trusty Belkin, never fails on me...lol


forgot to touch wood didnt i :(

[scooby_doo]

i'm waiting for them to send me another email about BT Total....i only recently got my BB uprated to 8Mb but it required an extension of contract (was well out of mine, have had BT since dialup).....i dont want to move down from Option 4 tho as it gives me bigger GB allowance......am hoping they'll say i can have the Total equipment etc free as i only recently did the uprating thing to 8Mb (tbh they really should have rolled these two things out together, would make life a bit easier for us and them..lol)

I was in the same position as you. Got fed up waiting for the email from them so went ahead and ordered it. You get the Hub for free but you have to pay £49.99 for the phone. New broadband customers get the Hub AND the phone for free. Class eh?! :rolleyes:

i take it the Home Hub is required to actually use the handset for calls? as opposed to a normal wireless router.........if so i presume you dont need a PC switched on running a program for it to work?..or do you?)

The hub is just like a wireless router but you also connect the phone to it so there's no need to have the pc switched on to make or receive VOIP or PSTN calls. You can view the User Guide here (http://media.venda.com/btshop/ebiz/btshop/resources/userguides/BTHomeHub_userguide.pdf). When I upgraded to 8Mb I also went for Broadband Talk and received a separate router for VOIP. The Hub has the VOIP stuff built into it. Nice. :)

I'm guessing that when they introduce BT Vision in the autumn it'll connect via the Hub too. The Hub is based on 802.11g so not convinced it'll work wirelessly. Time will tell.

For info, the reason no one's getting the phone right away is they had a problem with it whereby the buttons kept falling off. Well, that's what the BT chap said. Once they've resolved it you'll get the phone. It looks good. Here's the guide (http://media.venda.com/btshop/ebiz/btshop/resources/userguides/hub_phone1010.pdf)

[scooby_doo]

cool thing i been playing about with for past 2 hours is the BBtalk, both land line and BB talk calls come straight thru to my phone thats plugged in the home hub phone port. its independant of the PC so it doesnt have to be on to make/recieve phone calls.

Do you have BT Answer 1571 on your landline? If so, how do you know you have messages given the "line" your phone is connected to is VOIP? Thinking of getting 1571 (for the landline) myself and was just wondering how it worked with the Hub. Ta.

to let everyone know as it was a bugger to find out, in order to call from your pstn (landline) dial 5 first then tone will change from higher to lower pitch. unfortunately if you try dialing it as a whole number it comes up as number not recognised

Tried putting a "pause" after the 5? Not tried it myself but a comma may do the trick eg. 5,0800123456

[Knyght_byte]

I was in the same position as you. Got fed up waiting for the email from them so went ahead and ordered it. You get the Hub for free but you have to pay £49.99 for the phone. New broadband customers get the Hub AND the phone for free. Class eh?! :rolleyes:



The hub is just like a wireless router but you also connect the phone to it so there's no need to have the pc switched on to make or receive VOIP or PSTN calls. You can view the User Guide here (http://media.venda.com/btshop/ebiz/btshop/resources/userguides/BTHomeHub_userguide.pdf). When I upgraded to 8Mb I also went for Broadband Talk and received a separate router for VOIP. The Hub has the VOIP stuff built into it. Nice. :)

I'm guessing that when they introduce BT Vision in the autumn it'll connect via the Hub too. The Hub is based on 802.11g so not convinced it'll work wirelessly. Time will tell.

For info, the reason no one's getting the phone right away is they had a problem with it whereby the buttons kept falling off. Well, that's what the BT chap said. Once they've resolved it you'll get the phone. It looks good. Here's the guide (http://media.venda.com/btshop/ebiz/btshop/resources/userguides/hub_phone1010.pdf)

cheers for the info mate, i'm gonna wait a little longer, personally i dont care about the calls as i work in a call centre and i hate using a phone (sounds stupid but my job wasnt on the phone initially, it changed around me..anyhow, i hate using a phone out of hours still, i just use my mobile for texts..lol) but i know my parents wouldnt mind dropping to a basic BT line if they got free calls in the evening/weekends........if no more info in email by mid august i'll phone up and ask......no way my parents will pay £50 for a handset, so BT can do it free or no joy from us with the home hub...lol.....for £50 my parents can count up around 10 months of calls...lol.....by then i'm sure even better offers will be available......heh....

like i say tho, cheers for the info :)

[dr.morgie]

I'm on the lookout for a new router and tempted to go for a speedy "N" or Pre-N thing - mostly for streaming movies etc - would the home hub be ok with this? - would I run them both seperately or something?

[scooby_doo]

I'm on the lookout for a new router and tempted to go for a speedy "N" or Pre-N thing - mostly for streaming movies etc - would the home hub be ok with this? - would I run them both seperately or something?

I'm conscious that my response will rapidly take this thread off-topic (cos it's not about VOIP telephony) but the Hub is G not pre-N nor N. (If a moderator wants to move this or you want to start a fresh thread in the relevant forum then feel free.) :offtopic:

In the autumn BT are due to launch BT Vision, their digital TV offering, which will presumably work wirelessly with this Hub, tho my personal experience with streaming video across a G network suggests people will have limited success with it.

You should just be able to plug an N router into it (mine hasn't arrived yet). You will probably have to disable DHCP on the N router and just use it as an access point. I'd buy one without an ADSL modem built in.
If you can disable the wireless on the Hub, great, else just connect your pcs, or whatever, to your N router network.

I'd wager that BT will bring out an N Hub when the N specification has been finalised, but that's just my guess.

Personally I'd wait until N is finalised before you get any N stuff. Do what I'm doing and wait patiently ;)

[Knyght_byte]

I'm conscious that my response will rapidly take this thread off-topic (cos it's not about VOIP telephony) but the Hub is G not pre-N nor N. (If a moderator wants to move this or you want to start a fresh thread in the relevant forum then feel free.) :offtopic:

In the autumn BT are due to launch BT Vision, their digital TV offering, which will presumably work wirelessly with this Hub, tho my personal experience with streaming video across a G network suggests people will have limited success with it.

You should just be able to plug an N router into it (mine hasn't arrived yet). You will probably have to disable DHCP on the N router and just use it as an access point. I'd buy one without an ADSL modem built in.
If you can disable the wireless on the Hub, great, else just connect your pcs, or whatever, to your N router network.

I'd wager that BT will bring out an N Hub when the N specification has been finalised, but that's just my guess.

Personally I'd wait until N is finalised before you get any N stuff. Do what I'm doing and wait patiently ;)

does the home hub have normal cat5 ethernet ports as well?.....if so i'm sorted, i dont use wireless myself, much prefer hard wired connection...lol

[scooby_doo]

does the home hub have normal cat5 ethernet ports as well?.....if so i'm sorted, i dont use wireless myself, much prefer hard wired connection...lol

Yup, two of them. Sounds like you're sorted! :)

[Knyght_byte]

now all i need is for them to email me with an offer incl the hardphone for free...lol..i aint paying £50 for it, negates the point of the free calls!...lol

[scooby_doo]

now all i need is for them to email me with an offer incl the hardphone for free...lol..i aint paying £50 for it, negates the point of the free calls!...lol

Please report back if/when that happens cos they wanted £50 from me (perhaps they don't like me :rotfl:)

Their website says "New customers: free with Option 3, £49.99 for Options 1 and 2 when ordered at point of sale. Price for existing customers is £49.99 when upgrading/regrading or if existing customer opts in to the BT Total Broadband calls package"

I'm already on Option 3 (was on Option 4 but they now only have 3 Options) but unfortunately not "new". And who says loyalty counts for nothing!! :rolleyes:

Seen the Sky offer? I've no doubt BT will respond with an equally cracking deal "as long as you're not already a BT Broadband customer".
Me bitter? Never. :devil:

[Knyght_byte]

Please report back if/when that happens cos they wanted £50 from me (perhaps they don't like me :rotfl:)

Their website says "New customers: free with Option 3, £49.99 for Options 1 and 2 when ordered at point of sale. Price for existing customers is £49.99 when upgrading/regrading or if existing customer opts in to the BT Total Broadband calls package"

I'm already on Option 3 (was on Option 4 but they now only have 3 Options) but unfortunately not "new". And who says loyalty counts for nothing!! :rolleyes:

Seen the Sky offer? I've no doubt BT will respond with an equally cracking deal "as long as you're not already a BT Broadband customer".
Me bitter? Never. :devil:

well, i'm still on option 4 as it existed when they did the up to 8mb regrading......but i understand i'd be regraded to option 3....hmm..save a few quid, lose 10Gb...but then i rarely went over my 40Gb when option 4 had that limit........so i wouldnt mind taking on Total......but i want a free phone!....heh....i'll tell them that, altho they have me on a 12 month contract now for broadband (well, 10 months left) anyhow......so i'll say, give me the phone free and you get to extend it back to 12 months.....otherwise soon as i get the opportunity i'm off to Sky....w00t....heh
(the gambit probably wont work, but oh well...doesnt really bother me, would just be a new toy, i'm not one to worry about a few pounds price difference on something...lol)

[steverae]

Just stumbled across this thread, which i have read with interest..... My BT home hub is due to arrive 8th august with a voip cordless phone (until the problems are sorted with the hub phone)

My questions are these...

The hub phone is a virtual number starting with 05 but from what i have been reading, you can put a 5 in front and dial out on your standard home number ?

Will the hub phone ring when a call comes in on your home number ?

to clarify, you can do away with your option 3 calling plan and standard telephone on your land line, use the hub phone to make and recieve calls from your home number, pay £7.99 a month for all calls free and save.... providing that all your calls are made through the voip connection..

Can caller id and 1571 be activated on the voip line ?

if you call someone who has caller id, what number will be displayed on their handset, the virtual one or your standard one.

Can you call virtual numbers free as part of your all calls free package from say telewest or NThell ?

These are my questions, i'm sure i'll have loads more once my equipment arrives but this should satisfy my curiosity for now, BT have no clue about any of this.....

[scooby_doo]

The hub phone is a virtual number starting with 05 but from what i have been reading, you can put a 5 in front and dial out on your standard home number ?

Yup. When you press '5' the dial tone changes from a high-pitched one to a "standard" one so you know you're then using your landline. Can't think why you'd want to do so tho. Perhaps someone can give me a reason or two?


Will the hub phone ring when a call comes in on your home number ?

Yup. You can configure it. Check out the Hub manual in that link I posted earlier.

to clarify, you can do away with your option 3 calling plan and standard telephone on your land line, use the hub phone to make and recieve calls from your home number, pay £7.99 a month for all calls free and save.... providing that all your calls are made through the voip connection..

Yup. The International Rates are better than the standard BT landline ones too.

Can caller id and 1571 be activated on the voip line ?

Yup.

if you call someone who has caller id, what number will be displayed on their handset, the virtual one or your standard one.

Your virtual one. It's not virtual really, it's two lines. You can connect a phone to each and keep them both totally separate, or combine them and use VOIP for outgoing and landline for incoming.

Can you call virtual numbers free as part of your all calls free package from say telewest or NThell ?

Erm not sure I understand what you mean here. Can you clarify?
BT say you can call the following for free "Local and National calls. Excludes non-geographic calls (0845, 0870), premium rate numbers, information services, calls to mobile numbers and the Channel Islands. Other exclusions apply. Calls are charged at pence per minute rate after one hour. Redial required before one hour to avoid charges.

Not sure if the 05 number would be classed as non-geographic? :confused:


These are my questions, i'm sure i'll have loads more once my equipment arrives but this should satisfy my curiosity for now, BT have no clue about any of this.....

It's fairly straight forward to set up. Agreed about BT being clueless. When I had problems with my Broadband Talk they were hopeless. You can learn a lot more by browsing forums. I've no doubt that in time they'll be total gurus but when I called them they weren't quite there yet. :)

There is a BT Broadband Talk FAQs which explains a lot. You can view it here (http://btvoip.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/btvoip.cfg/php/enduser/cci/btv_homepage.php?p_sid=Ythwtwdi&cat_lvl1=317&p_cats=317&p_cv=1.317). Hopefully it won't contradict what I've just told you :laugh:

[steverae]

Thanks Scooby_doo, you've just clarified everything i needed to know. I guess the "virtual number" will not be free to callers but who cares if you there can still call the lineline number and you can pick it up through your hub phone..... wonder what charges will be placed on ringing mobile's, the wife has a habit of ringing mine from the landline all the time.....


1571 on your landline can be accesed via dialing 5,1571 cool

Do you know if caller id is free on the hub phone and how would it work if people are ringing you on the landline, would you need a separate caller id display rather than using the phones display.....?

can't wait now, 8th august can't come quick enough....

[Stackers]

Yup. When you press '5' the dial tone changes from a high-pitched one to a "standard" one so you know you're then using your landline. Can't think why you'd want to do so tho. Perhaps someone can give me a reason or two?




I'd imagine you would still need this if you have to call the emergency services for example as VOIP isnt location specific unlike landlines.

[steverae]

NIghtmare...... 8th came and went so did the homehub.... after experiencing severe slow down in service on my broadband link, i have had to ditch the homehub and revert back to my good ol' trusty voyager....

at least this thing works.... i hope the firmware on the thompson (uurrggghh) bt badged white plastic thing in the corner, as i now call it, can be fixed, as it has the potential to be cool....