I had Infinity installed this morning. The Home Hub 5 came with a leaflet stating: "BT Home Hub 5 is a neat single box modem/router so you don't need a separate Openreach modem or two power sockets any more. And if an engineer's coming to set up your kit, they won't need to install an Openreach modem."

Nevertheless, the engineer did indeed install an Openreach modem, which I didn't notice till he'd gone. Is this likely to be cock-up, or might there be reasons to have both?

You can either leave the modem connected, or save power and unplug the RJ11 from the modem and plug it into the Home Hub. I doubt you'll notice any difference in speed.

Thank you. I like the idea of saving power, and getting rid of a redundant box, if that's what it is, but I tried swapping the RJ11 and lost my connection. The white modem also has a cable going from 'LAN 1' on the white modem to 'Broadband WAN' on the hub, which I didn't touch, since I really don't know what I'm doing.

But he might notice a difference in power consumption and wiring spaghetti...

It's possible that you need to make some config changes to the HomeHub to make it use it's internal modem. If you don't know what you are doing then I would be tempted to put everything back as it was and leave it alone.

If you dive into the config blindly clicking here there and everywhere with no real idea what settings you are changing you could end up in a world of grief.

That sounds like good advice. I'll leave well alone, take the extra power consumption on the chin, and try and avoid grief! Many thanks.

All the information needed to setup the HH5 is available in the PDF guide here:-

http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/d...1243,1245,1257

You do not need the red CAT5 cable between the VDSL2 modem and the HH5 WAN port so just unplug the cable at both ends. Then just connect the RJ11 between the SSFP RJ11 port on the telephone socket and the RJ11 port on the back of the HH5.

If u have fibre to the home u still need the BT white box
Fibre to cabinet and copper to home does not need the white box so can be done away with

I'm getting a HH5 tomorrow (ordered 1 for the discounted price which is silly considering we had to pay for a upgraded HH4 not that long ago) but anyway is it defo safe to be unplugging the openreach modem and use the HH5 on it's own?

Yes, that is the whole point of it, it has a VDSL modem in it.

Mine seems to have done a lot of training though, random reboots in the night and my speed completely knackered up. Went from a rock solid for 2 years 80/20 sync to 40/10 then down to 33/10 now back up to 60/16.

It also seems to take a dogs age to be up and running unlike the modem and router combo. My Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 dont work as good with the HH5 as what they did on the HH4 either, my Nexus 5 could max out the connection over WiFi on the HH4 and hit 75Mbit no problem, on the HH5 it doesnt seem to be able to get anywhere near the current sync speed of the router.

Now on the HH5 (Minus the openreach modem) Tried to connect the red cable to the red part of the hub then put it into the ethernet port of my PC. That was a no go. Just put a standard yellow cable into port 1 and bob's your uncle.

Line state: Connected
Connection time: 0 days, 00:17:40
Downstream: 54.79 Mbps
Upstream: 14.07 Mbps

Seems each time I have little disconnects my broadband seems to get a little faster. All good so far.

If you go to troubleshooting then helpdesk and look at option 7 you will see what your maximum connection speed is for your line. Mine is 110Mbit and the HH5 kocked me down to 33Mbit

Thing is you shouldn't be having little disconnects, i have tried 2 Home Hub 5s and given up, it seems to me its badly in need of a firmware update to address wifi issues and stability problems.

I've put my HH4 back on and suddenly i have WiFi at wired speeds all over the house again.

Oh no the little disconnects we're minor with the HH4 but nothing big really (caused by powercuts had a few of them) but as I said the disconnects have usually been to my advantage. Had a look at the helpdesk thingy:

3. Firmware version: Software version 4.7.5.1.83.8.173.1.4 (Type A) Last updated Unknown
4. Board version: BT Hub 5A
5. VDSL uptime: 0 days, 09:46:26
6. Data rate: 14408 / 56100
7. Maximum data rate: 14577 / 55211
8. Noise margin: 6.1 / 5.8
9. Line attenuation: 0.0 / 21.3
10. Signal attenuation: 0.0 / 20.4

well i think we can see you are taking full advantage of your line

Don't think you want to know my download stats per month Let's just say um............A LOT!

I posted they stats on the home hub 5 thread on thinkbroadband and somebody said that the noise margin of 5.8 means there's noise on my connection? (whatever that means) I mean as I said only real problems i've had is with the powercuts but you can't control them (and I had a HH3 before and that was just a nightmare to be downright honest)

I have a HH4 during several speedtest i normally get about 50mbps and about 14mbps, i done a test on my nexus 4 and i only got 20mbps thats over wifi. Having checked the nexus 4 the link speed on it said 24mbps but surely i should be getting a faster speed than that if my Line is 56mbps and 19mbps.

Depends where you are i guess, in the same room as the router i used to get anything up to 50Mbit (on 5Ghz) but upstairs i got from 10 to 40Mbit dependent on conditions i guess. The Nexus 4 is only capable of a 75Mbit (again on 5GHz, i never thought to check on 2.4GHz) link which seems shoddy after giving it 5GHz.

the noise margin is how much of the DSL signal your modem can see, the higher the better, you have a sync of 56100 on a 5.8db noise margin (which is effectively the lowest level of 6db BT will allow it to fall), mine is currently a sync of 59995 with a noise margin of 20db. Generally the nearer you are to the cab the higher your noise margin will be fore a given speed.

Minor disconnects starting to happen now but not many and I not really lost any speed (When I hooked up the HH5 my line profile was 54.3 now it's down to 54.15)

I've removed the Openreach modem and connected the HH5 direct. After a few minutes it syncronised and now I have:

6. Data rate: 20000 / 79995
7. Maximum data rate: 35339 / 93844
8. Noise margin: 15.8 / 9.5
9. Line attenuation: 0.0 / 8.1
10. Signal attenuation: 0.0 / 8.1

Seem OK?

Yes just a bit! Wish I connected at that speed!

this will make your day then lol

6. Data rate: 20000 / 79995
7. Maximum data rate: 27305 / 108321
8. Noise margin: 9.3 / 13.9
9. Line attenuation: 0.0 / 6.1

Maximum data rate used to be over 130Mbit but as the cab filled up over the last 2 years its dropped thanks to crosstalk.

W***R!

My dad is near the cabinet and his max data rate started at 155Mb and is now 143Mb

Mine is:
6. Data rate: 17424 / 67203
7. Maximum data rate: 18242 / 63885
8. Noise margin: 6.5 / 5.9
9. Line attenuation: 0.0 / 17.3

Whats the verdict on the HH5 then? Worth upgrading from HH3? Thinking of trying to get a free one when trying to negotiate a new contract. Also, is it better to negotiate before or after the BT price rises as I'm sure BT will try to put a good offer to get people to stay?