Using the BT Smarthub 6 on a Plusnet Account

[#1]

I have just set up a spare Business Smarthub 6 and have taken the opportunity to record the steps I have taken. I note that there is a sticky relating to the early BT Home Hubs and wonder whether this would ‘make up the set’. I have identified where the setting up differs from the standard Residential version. There may be short cuts or other methods to set these up. I am recording this as it works for me.

1 Connect to Power Supply and switch on. Green light should show. Leave until this changes to a Purple flashing light.

2 If setting up by cable (preferred) connect computer to one of the Yellow LAN sockets with an Ethernet cable. Alternatively connect wirelessly by connecting wirelessly using the wireless SSID and Password found on the pull out panel on the rear of the router. Then enter 192.168.1.254 into the address (not search) field of a browser. The ‘Home’ page will appear.

2 Factory reset by pushing a paperclip or similar into the reset hole and hold closed until green light re-appears. This can take up to 30 seconds. Wait until Purple flashing light appears. This can take several minutes.

3 Leave it a couple more minutes then log in by entering 192.168.1.254 into the address (not search) field of a browser. The 'Home' page will appear.

4 Select ‘Smart Setup’. Enter the Admin password shown on the removable panel inserted in the rear of the router. Change ‘Smart Setup’ to ‘OFF’ and select ‘Save’.

5 Select ‘Home’ then ‘Advanced Settings’. Re-enter the ‘Admin’ password if prompted.

6 Select ‘Broadband’ then select ‘Edit Broadband Username’. Insert the username you use to access your Plusnet account followed by @plusdsl.net

7 Enter the Password you use to access your Plusnet account.

8 Select ‘Save’. This will prompt the Pink ‘Saving’ box to appear. If this doesn’t disappear after a couple of minutes then just select ‘Advanced Settings’ then return to the ‘Broadband’ page. That seems to trigger the saving process. I have also experienced version that did not have a ‘Save’ field. In that case I just left it and went on to the next step. This seemed to do the trick and save the settings.

9 Connect the DSL cable to the BT master socket via the filter.

10 Return to the ‘Advanced Settings’ then select ‘Broadband’. If the field at the top shows ‘Connect’ then select this (it should have defaulted to the ‘ON’ state and show ‘Disconnect’ already but it’s worth checking). Now be patient for several minutes, it goes through quite a routine including probably updating its firmware before coming to life. At some time during this period the light should turn Blue.

11 You should now be up and running but be prepared for more firmware updates over the next 15 minutes or so. Mine had three goes until it settled on the latest. Be aware that whilst it is updating the Blue light will stay on but you will not be able to access the Internet.

12. Go to ‘Advanced Wireless’ in the ‘Advanced settings’. In the field above the 5GHz band column labelled ‘Separate Bands’ set this to ‘ON’. Note that this should automatically add ‘-5’ to the ‘Network Name’. If not add it manually. You will now have two independent channels, use the best.

Business Hub Only

12 Go to Home then Status page. Make sure that ‘Public Wi-fi’ is set to ‘BT Wi-Fi’ and that ‘Public Wi-fi active’ is set to ‘NO’.

13 If you want to select your own DNS server(s) then go to ‘Advanced Settings’ then ‘My Network’. Select the ‘IPv4 Configuration’ tab. Under ‘DNS Servers’ input your preferred servers. Select ‘Save’. Note that if you go back to the ‘Home’ page then ‘Status’ that this will show the Primary and Secondary DNS servers to still be the Plusnet ones. However, if you have a windows PC, open a command prompt and enter ‘ipconfig /all’ you will see that your choice is actually the ones in use.

[#2]

Thanks for that comprehensive understandable guide, @Baldrick1. I may be switching to a Business 6 early next year, so will bookmark this.

[#3]

Many thanks for this Baldrick1,

I have a BT Business Hub 6 and by following guides in these Forums managed to get it up and running ok, having these instructions in such a well laid out manner will save others a few headaches! Perhaps the Mods could " Sticky " it?

I'm leaving Plusnet for John Lewis next week ( So in reality staying with Plusnet ) John Lewis sent me a ZyXel VMG8924 router. I don't know how it compares to the BT Business Hub 6 but it does look, on the surface a decent bit of kit. 

Of course Sod's Law means that the changeover takes place on the 20th which is the day my wife and I head off for a week in the Sun leaving my daughter and grandchild at home. On paper things should go smoothly but often there are snags.

To help ease the transition I have logged in to the new Router and changed the wireless network names and passwords to be identical to the existing ones on the BT Hub. I was then planning to swap all the network  / broadband cables to the ZyXel router first thing in the morning and hope it goes live before we leave for the airport so I can sort out any glitches.

Having read your step by step guide it occurs to me that perhaps a better option would be to leave all the cabling as is, log in to the BT Business Hub and just change the Username and Password to those of the John Lewis account. 

My daughter could then cycle the router off and on every couple of hours or so until the light goes Blue.

Have I missed anything? Any comments or suggestions gratefully received.

[#4]

I was planning on moving back to BT but it went Pete Tong and I've just renewed my contract with Plusnet, in the meantime I've been sent a Smarthub by BT (084316), I've been using the Plusnet Hub One and it's been running fine, I don't really use the Wifi much and all devices are via ethernet connection, the Hub One does look awful though and the light can't be turned of completely, I read the guides with regard to using the SmartHub 6 on Plusnet, everything went easily enough and the light can be turned of completely (In the bedroom) and on checking Wifi it definitely seems better.

Checked speed and all seems fine and connected at nearly 38mb on my 40/10 VDSL line, now here's the problem, just normal surfing and checking email is significantly slower with the SmartHub 8 than with the Hub One, it feels like there is a massive download going on in the background but there certainly isn't, went back the the Hub One and all back to normal, I would really like to be able to use the SmartHub 6 for the sake of the light problem but this lag and slowness makes it not an option.

Anyone have any ideas that may help, don't want to be constantly disconnecting as It'll screw with my connection speed for a while.

Thanks in advance

Cheers

MarkC

[#5]

Have you separated the 2.4 and 5GHz bands and use the best?

Another thought is whether the two routers are working on different channels and the Smarthub ones are congested. You could try just changing the channels manually or better use a wifi sniffer app to see what's going on. I use Wifi Analyser on an Android phone. This enables you to see all the wifi channels used by your neighbours. With this information you can select the quietist manually. It is important to check both at the router location and where you use your wireless devices.

[#6]

Thanks for the reply but I'm not using Wifi, all my devices are wired.

Cheers

[#7]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. Are you seeing the slow down if you do a speed test? The thinkbroadband speed tester is recommended. 

A last thought, there's no chance that the hub was updating it's firmware and has now settled down?

[#8]

Hi Baldrick, thanks for the replies, speed tests look fine, I've run a test on Thinkbroadband as you suggested and the one I've been trying lately Speedof.me and they are pretty similar, the firmware did update yesterday but I don't think that was the issue, still seems laggy and just not as snappy on web pages when compared to the old Hub One, my iptv seems to be running fine as does uTorrent at dl speeds of 3.9MB/s, I'll upload some info .

Cheers

[#9]

UPDATE:

What I ended up doing was to move all the Ethernet cables to the ZyXel router leaving just the Broadband lead to swap from the BT Business Hub 6. 

I left instructions for my daughter and when I received an Email from John Lewis I texted her from Spain telling her to swap the leads and switch the BT Business off, and switch the ZyXel off. All went without a hitch and within ten minutes she was back online.

We have Google home and an Amazon Echo, the google home just carried on working, the Echo required the power lead dis and reconnecting.

I purchased the Business Hub 6 as our WiFi had become a bit flakey and switching to the Business Hub 6 made a real difference. Just back home this evening and out of interest did a Signal strength scan, the ZyXel router is showing a stronger signal that the BT Hub did, and they are both in identical positions. I was not aware of the ZxXel brand until I received the router through the post from John Lewis.

I will leave everything as is for now and see what the long term performance is.

[#10]

Hello,

Right I bought a router off ebay (not a new one) I have done the hardware reset. My first question is are any routers locked to BT broadband? I enter my credentials and the screen disappears thinking about it. If I log back in after a few minutes and re enter the credentials its repopulated the username field with a BT suffix. Am i being daft here? I did connect the DSL cable to the HH from the start if that makes a difference?

thanks

Brian

[#11]

Recheck your plusnet username and password mate and give it another go, probably all that's wrong.

Cheers

[#12]

It does, it is better to either disconnect before entering username and password - either the cable or the setting, although that may be in the advanced section. There is another longer thread wwith a lot more information in it.

[#13]

Sorry ignore the username. The issue I have is there is no save option from the broadband screen, so if I enter my bpascua@plusnetdsl.net credential I can only option I can hit is connect - it says connecting and does nothing, if I go back to broadband it had forgotten the credentials.

[#14]

Have you done this in the advanced section?

[#15]

This is a screenshot if it helps.