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[Alex Atkin UK]

Its crazy to see after all these years they are still having these weird issues with "computer says no" and nobody seemingly able to fix it.

Giving me vibes of when Digital Region closed here and my landland was held hostage for months because nobody could figure out how to clear the tags off the line to let any migration go through.  Even more crazy that they can run into issues going from OR to OR.

[pxr5]

An update. Despite being assured that nothing at all would happen before the 11th Sep I came back from walking the dogs yesterday to find 2 civil works guys digging up my front patio (9th Sep). Of course they couldn't give me an update but I had been on holiday last week hence the assurance of no work before the 11th (I now have a big red safety barrier set up in  the front now too where the hole is). The guys did try to pull a cable through, but couldn't because of a block further up the street. What really peeves is seeing OR guys working on other properties in the vicinity - I even collared one to ask if we were next. Again I knew he'd have no idea. The BT rep who was dealing with this has left too and as I've said before I have no order. except a complaint ref and an OR job number, so the next phone call to them will be interesting.

[pxr5]

Another update on this abortion of an order with BT/EE:

Yesterday some other civil works guys came out and sorted the hole that had been made on my patio to expose the trunking. On Tuesday night I got a text from OR that they are coming to install the fibre Wed 18 Sep, but I also rang BT/EE (11 Sep) as advised to check everything was going to plan and spoke to a nice guy called Ignacio. Because I didn't have an order I had to mention that I would need Smarthub here when OR came out, so he had to get his manager's approval. Anyway he told me he'd ring on Friday with an update on the tracking for the router delivery. And today he did ring me - to tell me the OR order has been cancelled yet again. Apparently someone else there had gone into my account and cancelled the OR job - he has no idea why. My only option is to speak to sales and go through another order - yet again. I told him I'm not willing to that and they need to sort this mess out.

[pxr5]

OMFG - On Friday pm BT persuaded me to through the order process yet again. This morning cancelled - AGAIN. The poor woman who answered the phone earlier didn't really deserve the anger I directed at her. I'm pricing up Zen, Sky, TT, Vodafone now. I really think I'm part of a test to see how much a customer can take before leaving.

[Chrysalis]

Its crazy to see after all these years they are still having these weird issues with "computer says no" and nobody seemingly able to fix it.

Giving me vibes of when Digital Region closed here and my landland was held hostage for months because nobody could figure out how to clear the tags off the line to let any migration go through.  Even more crazy that they can run into issues going from OR to OR.

Seems to be modern company culture, computer says no so tough luck instead of "we will raise with developers and database team, and management to see if can be resolved".

[pxr5]

After a lot of messing about with BT I eventually got full fibre installed today. There were 2 OR engineers, so while one did in the house the other got the fibre in - only took just over an hour to do. I still have my complaint in for the hassle I've been through and in fact yesterday I got a call from someone on the Exec Complaints team who seems quite high up in the BT hierarchy. I'll be talking to her again on Monday.

I still have to sort out my old BT account too as I have 2 running now - but that's for another day, though that will likely go wrong too.

So I've spent the rest of the day fiddling with my network, which is a ball ache with various web servers, containers, pihole, reverse proxies and media servers. Just about there now. This BT router whilst it works well is pretty crap compared my trusty old Zyxel VMG8924-B10A. I'd love to use my old router but I doubt it's powerful enough to switch at FTTP speeds. After a tip I saw online I disabled the 5Ghz wifi on the new router and renamed the SSID and password to that of my old Zyxel. It worked well and most things just reconnected automatically. I may invest in a new router though - but I need to do some research (any recommendations most welcome).

[tiffy]

@pxr5:
As someone who migrated from VDSL-2 with Zen to FTTP with BT, ZyXEL VMG1312-B10A/VMG3925-B10B combination to BT SH-2 I can empathise with your experience, I did implement the move you mentioned, changed the SH-2 SSID & Wi-Fi PW to same as previous, helped a lot with establishing connection to my many network devices withour re-configuration.
I did contemplate using a 3rd party router but as I had opted to retain my land line (now digital voice) it became too complicated.
During my time with BT never had any issues with the SH-2, it just worked and fulfilled all my requirements.

After a 2 year contract with BT I opted to migrate to Vodafone earlier this year, mostly a cost decision and I still wished to retain my digital LL.
For convenience tried to adopt the same trick of SSID/PW migration to the Vodafone Hub, fell foul on this due to PW length rules, had to re-configure all my Wi-Fi devices in the end.
Did discover later that I could have got around this by setting PW on the phone app which ignores the length rule!
Also found the FV Hub to be a lot less friendly with respect to static IP allocation, took a lot of time to configure.

Bottom line, there are much worse ISP provided Hubs/Routers than the BT SH-2.
If you have not opted for digital voice with BT as far as I'am aware there is no reason you can not opt to use a 3rd party router of your choice.
As someone who religiously monitored and recorded my line stat's while on ADSL/VDSL I have found it did take some time to re-program my conception of broadband service with FTTP, accepting it either works 100% or it doesn't work at all

[pxr5]

@tiffy

Useful information thanks. I understand what you say about the SH2 and it does seem to do just what's needed and I don't need digi voice so can quite easliy upgrade in the future. Some little niggles straight away are changing the DNS to my pihole is simply not possible with the SH2; and I hate that I can't split the 2.4 and 5GHz wifi or even create a guest network - all the things the Zyxel does easily. In fact I've decided to leave the 5GHz off - the only things I have on wifi are some security cameras (Blink etc.) and my wife's and my mobile phones. Everthing else that can be on ethernet is so - even Fire Sticks, laptops and Raspberry Pis.

I'm still after some recommendations for a modern router to replace the SH2 sometime, and if anyone can give advice I'd be very grateful.

[tubaman]

... and I hate that I can't split the 2.4 and 5GHz wifi or even create a guest network ...

As long as you don't have any devices that can't deal with combined 2.4/5GHz then why not use it like that? I must admit when I got my small mesh system (BT Whole Home Mini) I was a bit concerned about the combined network but it actually works very well, with devices switching quite seamlessly.

[Alex Atkin UK]

As long as you don't have any devices that can't deal with combined 2.4/5GHz then why not use it like that? I must admit when I got my small mesh system (BT Whole Home Mini) I was a bit concerned about the combined network but it actually works very well, with devices switching quite seamlessly.

If its a proper Mesh network then you don't run into the old problem of clients connecting at 2.4Ghz and staying there, as the Mesh hub actively moves devices to the best frequency you are in range of.

[tubaman]

If its a proper Mesh network then you don't run into the old problem of clients connecting at 2.4Ghz and staying there, as the Mesh hub actively moves devices to the best frequency you are in range of.

Very good point and I'd have thought the BT SH2 would do this too as it can be used with their mesh devices, but perhaps it doesn't do it when used on its own?

[Alex Atkin UK]

Very good point and I'd have thought the BT SH2 would do this too as it can be used with their mesh devices, but perhaps it doesn't do it when used on its own?

I'd never considered that, how silly of them.  Fortunately once WiFi 7 becomes more common we should finally be rid of this problem, though no doubt some cheap units wont have MLO which I find absolutely insane its not mandatory, seeing as its the main improvement over WiFi 6e.