Networks Questions about BT infinity and home hub.

Hi,

I wasn't sure where to ask about internet stuff but since I'm asking about the home hub as well I thought I would post here.

When I was on BT BB a few years ago I often had problems with the home hub which meant I had to open ports manually is the new black one as bad as the old white ones?

I know BT throttle P2P but do they throttle sites like Megaupload and rapidshare?

Also when I was signing up to infinity my estimated DL speed said 27mb but then just below that it said actualy DL speed 6-8 mbs which is kind of confusing.

PS I know I could ask BT this via their chat support but I don't trust them as far as I can throw them.

 

sounds like only BT total broadband is available

you sure BT infinity is in your area ? you should get 20mb + easy

not sure on throttling on infinity but they do it all the time on normal ADSL quite bad as well

 

All NAT routers do that, not just the home hub, but the home hub is crap non the less.

 

Sorry this might be a daft question in regards to BT Infinity from someone who works for BT but does BT Infinity not use a different kind of router? This is for my own personal information purposes...

I'm sure FTTP does use a different kind of router as there is a different cable running into the premises. However FTTC (more common) terminates at the street cabinet and then runs over the old copper to the house, therefore does BT Infinity over FTTC still use the Home Hub in this situation as I presume one would still need a splitter box? Therefore can one still use another ADSL router like a Linksys or Belkin? Or is BT Infinity (FTTC) supplied with a special version of the Home Hub?

I'm just curious as I don't work in the Openreach or Infinity side of the business, I'm in Operate within the Data Centre environment and therefore have no exposure to how FTTP/FTTC is provisioned for by Openreach.

I wish I lived in an area in which the exchange was going to be upgraded to FTTC at least but no such luck out here in Clackmannanshire. :-( I'm also too far away from the Alloa exchange for a decent broadband speed (1.7mb max since a month or two ago, before it was about 1mb), which kind of sucks after living in Cardiff with 20mb Cable broadband!!! Still take my laptop down when I visit my folks for a bout of updates and downloads!

Pesronally I threw my home hub away (okay stuck it in the loft) as soon as I got the free employee broadband and use a lovely wireless N Belkin router.

 

It is definitely in my area. The post code checker says it is and I saw them installing the new cabinets plus there is an engineer coming out to set it up.

Richythomas from what I have read infinity uses a white modem thing plus the black home hub. Not sure about that though.

 

I just got BT Infinity the other day. There is a white Openreacg router thing, as well as the black Home Hub. Home hub has been stable thus far, and we get a great wireless signal for it. I haven't had to open any ports yet, but I think P2P is throttled. We are on a ~35Mb connection, and when downloading Ubuntu 10.10 which has a LOT of seeders, I was seeing speeds of about 3Mb/s. Will have to look into that.

 

BT openly admit that they throttle P2P during peak hours. Something like 4pm-12 on a week day and 12-12 on weekends. That's probably not exactly right but its something like that. From what I have read you are lucky to get 100kbs during peak times.

 

For FTTC installations you get two things setup, 1st is an Openreach Modem which connects via ethernet to a WAN port in the Home Hub, they are bridged together and the Home Hub carries the authentication details.

This is because they haven't managed to get the HomeHub to work with VDSL connections yet, at the moment I think there are only two routers available with a built in modem that can to VDSL connections, but they are quite expensive.

BT Residential used to start capping you at peak times once you passed roughly 100Gb, but this has been lifted recently and they pretty much let you just go for it. You will still be effected at peak times by contention, but you in theory should never go below around 12Mbps (due to how much bandwidth go to the cabinets).

They will slow down P2P, its done on a port system, as megashare and such like use port 80 (I believe) they should not be effected. But I have no experience of this, so don't take my word for it.

In regards to availability, if the checker says you can get 27Mb on your line it means it is available, the estimated speed below it is what you would get if you went for normal ADSL or ADSL2+.

Hope this helps.