Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[gt94sss2]

Internet provider BT has today launched a new Smart Hub (aka – HomeHub 6) wireless router for subscribers of their ‘Infinity‘ superfast broadband (FTTC/P) packages, which offers improved WiFi performance, built-in 4G filters and other enhancements.

....the specification clearly suggests a powerful device, which features 7 antennas, a modern chipset (Broadcom 63137, 4366, 43602) and built-in filters that automatically block interference.

Specification for the BT Smart Hub
* Integrated ADSL2+ and VDSL2
* No. of antennae: 7
* Dual wi-fi bands with “next generation” 802.11ac spec
* 2.GHz wi-fi band (3×3 11b/g/n/ac) = up to 217Mbps
* 5GHz wi-fi band (4×4 11a/n/ac) = up to 1700Mbps
* Built-in Advanced Filters
* Connections: 4 x Gigabit Ethernet
* USB: 1 x v2.0 Port
* On/off light control: Yes (i.e. you can switch off or dim the hub lights)
* Removable password card: Yes
* Smart Wireless: Yes
* BT Smart Scan: Yes
* Built-in 4G filters: Yes
* Power Usage (11W fully loaded and 7W idle)

NOTE: Regarding the 4G filters, these protect the 2.4GHz wi-fi receiver against neighbouring signals above and below the wi-fi band which can desensitise or “deafen” a standard wi-fi chip. This is more of a protection against future deployments as these bands are not heavily occupied, yet.

from http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2016/06/uk-isp-bt-launches-new-smart-hub-wireless-broadband-router.html

More discussion on the new Smart Hub in the Broadband Hardware forum at http://forum.kitz.co.uk/index.php/topic,17713.0.html

[NewtronStar]

Running at 11 watts seems quite excessive compared to a Billion 8800NL which is only using 4-2 watts that New BT smart Hub is going to be hot stuff.

[ejs]

Anything with ac wireless tends to use a few more Watts than something with only 2.4 GHz 11n.

[S.Stephenson]

I don't even know how to set my routers up properly for some reason they all default to the USA and have really good range. 

[NewtronStar]

Anything with ac wireless tends to use a few more Watts than something with only 2.4 GHz 11n.

Or the change from a 2 core cpu running at 400 Mhz with a 63168 to a 2 core cpu running at 1GHz when using a 63137 Revision 2

[ejs]

I assumed one of the reasons for having the faster CPU was for the faster wireless (although it's also a change of CPU architecture, from MIPS to ARM, so the clockspeed may not be directly comparable). Some other devices even contained two systems in one box, using an existing VDSL2 MIPS SoC, plus a newer ARM wireless router SoC, but now the integrated SoC chips have caught up with the advances in the wireless.

[NewtronStar]

An all in one Modem & Router with the CPU running at 1GHz seems over the top for just the modem side so most of this extra grunt must be being used on the Router side.

[jid]

It's mostly for additional WiFi processing mimo antennas and adaptive signal for WiFi. New gen tp link routers do similar clever things with Wi-Fi.

Mine has a 1.2ghz processor I believe as well as dedicated chips for wifi processing and it gets hot!

This new Smart Hub mentions 4G filtering which is interesting indeed, not heard of that in a router before.