Operating system | Storage External USB drive | |
Manufacturer Inventel
Technicolor
Gigaset/Sagem
Huawei Type Wireless router
IP Phone Release date 10 May 2013 (2013-05-10) (BT Home Hub 5) Introductory price £129 (free with BT Broadband) | ||
The BT Home Hub is a family of wireless residential gateway router modems distributed by BT for use with their own products and services as well as wholesale resellers i.e. LLUs. The latest versions of the Home Hub are based on the Wi-Fi 802.11ac standard, and are also backward compatible with the 802.11b/g/n standards. All models of the Home Hub prior to the Home Hub 3 support VoIP Internet telephony via BT’s Broadband Talk service and are compatible with existing DECT handsets.
Contents
The BT Home Hub works with the now defunct BT Fusion service and works with the BT Vision video on demand service. The BT Home Hub 1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 devices connect to the Internet using a standard ADSL connection. The BT Home Hub 3 and 4 models support PPPoA for ADSL and PPPoE for VDSL2, in conjunction with an Openreach-provided VDSL2 modem to support BT’s FTTC network (BT Infinity). Since hardware version 5 of the Home Hub was released in August 2013 it includes its own VDSL2 modem for Fibre-optic connections. Firmware is pushed out to the device by BT automatically.
History
Prior to release of the Home Hub (2004-2005), BT offered a product based on the 2Wire 1800HG, and manufactured by 2Wire. This was described as the "BT Wireless Hub 1800HG", or in some documentation as the "BT Wireless Home Hub 1800". This provided one USB connection, four ethernet ports and Wi-Fi 802.11b or 802.11g wireless connection. A total of ten devices in any combination of these was supported.
The hardware contained within the BT Home Hub 1.0 and 1.5 was manufactured by Inventel, and is equivalent to other Inventel produced and third-party branded routers such as the Orange Livebox and the Thomson SpeedTouch 7G and ST790. Consequently, the Home Hub 1.0 can be flashed with some firmware such as that for the 7G; however full functionality cannot be achieved using this method. The Home Hub 1.5 firmware, whilst not hardware locked as previously claimed, does have extra locks in the bootloader which can now be circumvented and full functionality achieved.
There are two versions of the BT Home Hub 2.0, the A and the B model. The hardware contained within the Home Hub 2.0A was manufactured by Thomson SpeedTouch, who had bought out Inventel and all their hardware and software rights. This model is electronically identical to the Thomson SpeedTouch TG797n.
The hardware contained within the BT Home Hub 2.0B was manufactured by Siemens' Gigaset division in Germany. The middleware was developed by Jungo, a subsidiary of NDS, and is based on their openRGTM product.
Some Home Hub 2.0 units were also made by Hon Hai Precision Ind. Co. Ltd.
In the standard firmwares, telnet shell access is available in earlier versions (up to 6.2.2.6) on the BT Home Hub 1.0 with appropriate user permissions. This is identical to the custom shell used in the SpeedTouch range of routers and provides an almost identical software feature set, with a few notable exceptions (e.g. PPP authentication is locked on the BT firmware). This is not the case in the unlocked versions, as full telnet access is available.
There are two versions of the BT Home Hub 3, the A and the B model. The hardware contained within the Home Hub 3A was manufactured by Siemens' Gigaset division (now Sagem) and is based on a Lantiq XWAYTM ARX168 chipset supporting ADSL2+.
The Home Hub 3B was manufactured by Huawei and also supports ADSL2+. The Home Hub 3B is powered by a highly integrated Broadcom BCM6361 System-on-a-chip (SoC). The BCM6361 has a 400 MHz dual MIPS32 core processor as well as an integrated DSL Analog Front End (AFE) and line driver, gigabit Ethernet switch controller and 802.11 Wi-Fi transceiver.
Features
The BT Home Hub 2.0 was a combined wireless router and phone. It supports the 802.11b/g/n wireless networking standards, and the WEP and WPA security protocols. It supports many of BT's services such as BT Fusion, BT Vision and BT Broadband Anywhere. It can also be used as a VOIP phone through BT Broadband Talk.
The BT Home Hub 3 incorporated WPS functionality, seen on other routers, which enables the user to connect to their encrypted network by the use of a "one touch" button, and also includes "smart wireless technology", which automatically chooses the wireless channel to give the strongest possible wireless signal. WPS has since been (temporarily) disabled by firmware updates due to security issues with the standard.
The BT Home Hub supports port forwarding.
The BT Home Hub versions 3, 4 and 5 may be used as a file server with the addition of a USB stick. The server has the address File://192.168.1.254 and will be available to the entire network.
Hub Phone
The BT Hub Phone is an optional handset that can be bought to work in conjunction with the BT Home Hub 2.0. It calls using the BT Broadband Talk service, and may sit in a dock in the front of the Home Hub or be used on its own stand. It uses Hi-def sound technology when calls between Hub Phones are made. A DECT telephone can be used in place of the Hub Phone.
With each BT Home Hub released up to 2.0, a new phone was made to accompany it:
The phones are only partially compatible with newer or older versions of the hub, able to make and receive calls, but with the loss of features such as: call waiting, call transfer, internal calls, phonebook, call lists and Hi-def sound.
Design
There have been five different versions of the BT Home Hub so far:
There were two different versions of the BT Home Hub 2.0: the BT Home Hub 2.0A (2.0 Type A), manufactured by Thomson and the BT Home Hub 2.0B (2.0 Type B), manufactured by Gigaset Communications (now Sagem Communications, Sagem having acquired Gigaset's broadband business in July 2009). Whilst the looks and functionality appear to be identical, the Home Hub 2.0A has been plagued with problems relating to poorly tested firmware upgrades which, amongst other problems, cause the Home Hub 2.0A to restart when uploading files using the wireless connection.
There are also two versions of the BT Home Hub 3: the BT Home Hub 3A, which contains hardware manufactured by Gigaset (now Sagem) and the BT Home Hub 3B, which contains hardware manufactured by Huawei.
The BT Home Hub can only be used with the BT Total Broadband package without modification; the 1.0, 1.5, 2A, 2B and 3A versions can be unlocked. The BT Home Hub configuration software is compatible with both Mac and Windows operating systems, although use of this is optional and computers without the BT software will still be able to connect to the Hub and browse the Internet normally.
The 4th generation of the BT Home Hub was released on 10 May 2013. It has been built with a smart dual band technology, making it unique amongst other UK-based ISP provided routers. The Home Hub 4 will be free for new customers, and a £35 upgrade for existing. It has intelligent power management technology which monitors the hub functions and puts them individually into power save mode when not in use. There two variants of the Hub 4, Type A and B.
The 5th generation Home Hub was released in mid-October 2013 and is an upgrade to the Home Hub 4, featuring Gigabit Ethernet connections and 802.11ac Wi-Fi and an integrated VDSL modem. Customers upgrading from ADSL Broadband pay only a delivery charge; existing Broadband customers pay a £45 upgrade charge. There are two variants of the Hub 5, Type A with Lantiq chipset (ECI), and Type B with Broadcom.
Models and technical specifications
The BT Home Hub package includes:
A USB lead was provided with the HomeHub 1 only.
Reported issues
The security of the BT Home Hub has been questioned by GNUCITIZEN. In October 2007, Adrian Pastor warned the security and BT Broadband community regarding critical vulnerabilities he discovered in the Home Hub. The details of such research were released later in November 2007 and demonstrated how to compromise fully (get root privileges on) the BT Home Hub by tricking a BT Home Hub user to visit a web page crafted by the attacker.
Such research garnered a significant amount of media attention and led to Adrian Pastor being invited to BBC Radio 4 where he discussed the issue with Dave Hughes, director of BT Wireless Broadband. Mr Hughes argued that GNUCITIZEN's vulnerability research only covered a theoretical attack. Mr Pastor, on the other hand, stated that although GNUCITIZEN wasn't aware of such vulnerabilities being exploited in the wild, the attack is fully practical as demonstrated by the exploit code released at www.gnucitizen.org. Furthermore, Mr Pastor argued that the security of the BT Home Hub wasn't adequate to support the newly introduced Wi-Fi sharing FON service.
BT has the capability to detect remotely and silently all devices connected to customers' networks, and asserts and uses the right to do so, saying that "we don't believe that consent is necessary where the testing is necessary to the service that we are providing."