BT whole home and Huawei B818 mesh advice please.

[barsteward]

I have just cancelled my BT contract in favour of a payg wifi system. I have done quite a lot of speed testing with the 2 Huawei routers that I have and get really good up load and download speeds in my area. The latency however does lag behind the BT broadband but for my use this shouldn't be a problem.

My thoughts are to disable the DHCP server on the BT hub and then assign the Huawei to the same domain as the DHCP server.
However the way I understand it the whole home disc (mesh range extender) will not work directly with the Huawei unless being wired directly to the Huawei which I don't want.
So if the BT home hub 2 is in slave mode but is connected to the home disk will the Huawei be able to assign ip addresses through the wifi disk.

I am an amateur so any advice on the above set up or a better way of achieving a good signal everywhere utilising the above equipment would be much appreciated.

Les

 

[Coolcats]

The BT Home hub 2 is a router connecting you to the internet (gateway) Why do you want to disable DHCP? The default gateway is is typically 192.168.1.254. This unit will not be a slave. Without a hand book can’t tell what you are looking at but the chances are they will be PnP units (Plug and Play). What this means is plug the Huawei unit in to a ip port on your BT router the DHCP will automatically assign an IP address to your Huawei unit. Depending on the set up the BT router ‘May’ assign other IP addresses or it may be it only needs to assign one address. You will then see this on the BT routing table when you log in to your BT router

 

[AndyPK]

I have just cancelled my BT contract in favour of a payg wifi system. I have done quite a lot of speed testing with the 2 Huawei routers that I have and get really good up load and download speeds in my area. The latency however does lag behind the BT broadband but for my use this shouldn't be a problem.

My thoughts are to disable the DHCP server on the BT hub and then assign the Huawei to the same domain as the DHCP server.
However the way I understand it the whole home disc (mesh range extender) will not work directly with the Huawei unless being wired directly to the Huawei which I don't want.
So if the BT home hub 2 is in slave mode but is connected to the home disk will the Huawei be able to assign ip addresses through the wifi disk.

I am an amateur so any advice on the above set up or a better way of achieving a good signal everywhere utilising the above equipment would be much appreciated.

Les

Why don’t you want to connect the Huawei to your router...? It it not possible from a location perspective, or some other reason......?

 

[Ninjabob]

I'm puzzled - the 818 is a 4g router able to support 64 users so will give out DHCP addresses. Why do you need the BT hub?

 

[barsteward]

Sorry I don't seem to be explaining myself very well (i did say I was an amateur) I know what I mean but don't always mean what I say so to speak.

The Huawei B818 is the companies latest 4G LTE PAYG home hub/router/Modem .

From tomorrow I will no longer have broadband but want to utilise the BT whole home equipment . I haven't yet received my new payg sim (hopefully will be here today) so have been unable able to test my theory, but basically I think the BT equipment should become a range extender/network.

Les

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[RowleyBirkinQC]

I'm puzzled - the 818 is a 4g router able to support 64 users so will give out DHCP addresses. Why do you need the BT hub?

Presumably to continue use of the BT disc mesh network in the house & to avoid reconnecting multiple devices to a different domain?

I use a standalone tp-link wifi router with the ISP cable modem/BB WiFi router to keep the connection constant across all devices in the house. With VM it was easy, just put their (not so) Superhub into modem mode and let the tp-link box assign IP addresses. With the recent move to and replacement box from Plusnet the tp-link serves as an access point to the Plusnet router, hence DHCP is disabled on tp-link box. Or something like that anyway, would have to look again at settings to be sure.

 

[barsteward]

Thanks for that, the aim is exactly as you have said but with Huawei 4g being the source of the internet.

 

[Ninjabob]

So you would have to put the 818 into modem mode (from the web seems possible) and then connect the whole home system to it with Ethernet utilising the whole home as your DHCP server as you did with the old BT Hub which I assume you must have also had in modem mode?

 

[barsteward]

So you would have to put the 818 into modem mode (from the web seems possible) and then connect the whole home system to it with Ethernet utilising the whole home as your DHCP server as you did with the old BT Hub which I assume you must have also had in modem mode?

Well almost, I was hoping that with it being a mesh network I would not need to wire between devices so that I can extend coverage, if you understand what I mean.
I was thinking I could put the Huawei into the same ip range as the BT hub and then disable DHCP ie 192,168,1.254 and let the Huawei then allocate ip addresses

 

[Coolcats]

Sorry I don't seem to be explaining myself very well (i did say I was an amateur) I know what I mean but don't always mean what I say so to speak.

The Huawei B818 is the companies latest 4G LTE PAYG home hub/router/Modem .

From tomorrow I will no longer have broadband but want to utilise the BT whole home equipment . I haven't yet received my new payg sim (hopefully will be here today) so have been unable able to test my theory, but basically I think the BT equipment should become a range extender/network.

Les

Yes is the answer, but if you have the Black Wi-fi dishes BT may ask for these to be returned as they are BT property customers only rent these items as part of the complete Wi-fi package they probably won’t be fussed about the home hub.)

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[Coolcats]

Well almost, I was hoping that with it being a mesh network I would not need to wire between devices so that I can extend coverage, if you understand what I mean.
I was thinking I could put the Huawei into the same ip range as the BT hub and then disable DHCP ie 192,168,1.254 and let the Huawei then allocate ip addresses

If they are the black dishes they are optimised to work with the home hub if they are the white ones you can connect them to the Huawei router but the first one will be a physical cable. (BTW this is based on guessing a typical set up

 

[barsteward]

Yes is the answer, but if you have the Black Wi-fi dishes BT may ask for these to be returned as they are BT property customers only rent these items as part of the complete Wi-fi package they probably won’t be fussed about the home hub.)

Yes, you are spot on. I got a bag in the post this morning, they want the gear back.
I guess that's the problem solved then.

One the plus side though, I am extremely impressed with the Huawei B818 steaming 4k and ultra hd via Netflix as I type.
It is located in a different room where I am getting 100% signal from my ID/3 sim card and it easily reaches all corners of the house with no buffering. I did almost all the testing originally with my Huawei B535 (which lives in the m/h permanently wired) and used it constantly whilst I was in Spain last year. I was impressed with that but the B818 is sooo much better.

All in all after the initial outlay, I am really pleased I have saved a fortune by dumping BT.
I hope this post doesn't come back to bight me.

thanks for all your input.

 

[Coolcats]

Yes, you are spot on. I got a bag in the post this morning, they want the gear back.
I guess that's the problem solved then.

One the plus side though, I am extremely impressed with the Huawei B818 steaming 4k and ultra hd via Netflix as I type.
It is located in a different room where I am getting 100% signal from my ID/3 sim card and it easily reaches all corners of the house with no buffering. I did almost all the testing originally with my Huawei B535 (which lives in the m/h permanently wired) and used it constantly whilst I was in Spain last year. I was impressed with that but the B818 is sooo much better.

All in all after the initial outlay, I am really pleased I have saved a fortune by dumping BT.
I hope this post doesn't come back to bight me.

thanks for all your input.

Good to hear you have it sorted and its the right solution for you.

I do have a BT package and saving money the, calls package I pay £10 for saves me around £90. My total BT bill is about £700 per year but a good % of that gets claimed back for business, the Mobile signal here is pants, the old fashioned land line is good, Broadband is around 35-36 MB's so no complaints. I guess it is choosing what's right for you

 

[Itsmcb]

I purchased a triple pack of Tplink Deco (E4 I think) mesh WiFi units a few months ago to use with a virgin media superhub. The first deco sits next to the VM hub and is connected by cable, the other two are on the first and second floors of the house. No settings were changed at all on the hub, literally just connect the cable. The coverage provided by the decos is amazing. All our TVs run via firesticks and usually there are at least 3 on at the same time plus several Alexa devices, my wife uses zoom for work and all our phones. Everything works all of the time, it's truly amazing.

 

[Coolcats]

I purchased a triple pack of Tplink Deco (E4 I think) mesh WiFi units a few months ago to use with a virgin media superhub. The first deco sits next to the VM hub and is connected by cable, the other two are on the first and second floors of the house. No settings were changed at all on the hub, literally just connect the cable. The coverage provided by the decos is amazing. All our TVs run via firesticks and usually there are at least 3 on at the same time plus several Alexa devices, my wife uses zoom for work and all our phones. Everything works all of the time, it's truly amazing.

This is the world of IP networking in the next few years the BT exchanges will all be switched off and sold off pretty amazing many will have fibre to the home and some will just use Wi-fi. Data will be omni present hopefully it will make lives better.

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