Got one today.
Backstory is that Talk talk keep phoning me up to upsell me, and in a fit of pique I told Peter from Talk Talk (in reality Parvesh from Bangalore) that I was dropping Talk Talk and he could stuff it up his ass.
Anyway, a few weeks later I get an email asking me if I want a new router - free.
Well of course I said Yup.
And it arrived three days later, a Talk Talk branded Huawei HG533. What a nice box!, looks good, and install is a simple matter of cabling it up and turning it on. No configuration required, no entering of any details including name or password. Its chosen a fairly conservative signal / noise ratio profile, but has still connected at the same rate as the old Netgear. It has great Wifi range, and the Canon MP490 printer connected to it as sweet as a nut (that can be a right git to change settings) using the built in WPS. Added a USB drive to the built in USB port, stuffed some music on it, and all the DLNA (samba) devices in the house found it easily.
Best of all it was free.
And I am still moving to BT internet next month.
Edit, ruddy hell forgot how many wifi connected devices we had in the house, took longer to reconfigure all them than it did to install the new router.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 26 Jul 13 at 20:50
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That's what they gave me when I got my Youview box a couple of months back, much better than the ancient wired router I had been using for the last umpteen years. Why are you switching Z, free football maybe?
Last edited by: Robin Regal on Fri 26 Jul 13 at 21:23
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>..took longer to reconfigure all them than it did to install the new router.
I had Sky Fibre installed on Monday.
I changed the SSID and key on the new router to the old router's settings. No need to make any changes on the clients.
The new router even gives me a good WiFi signal in the back garden.
Well pleased.
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Surprised Z didn't think of doing this. I've swapped routers around a few now and all I did was setup the SSID and passphrase to be the same as the old one. Clients have not needed reconfiguring.
So Kevin, did you get the new Home Hub (4?) and how is it? I gave up on the Home Hub I got with BT's Fibre product that I got in 2010 fairly recently as it caused problems with the Sky+ box connecting and the Sky+ app.* An old Linksys router worked reliably so got a new Linksys.
* It's something to do with a bug in the BT Home Hub and how MAC addresses are corrupted in the ARP cache.
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>> Surprised Z didn't think of doing this.
Because he wanted to change the SSID and change the security profile as well.
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Ah so you had a less secure wifi network before. Surprised at that too.
Now you've got one of those Chinese Huawei secure devices ;-)
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>So Kevin, did you get the new Home Hub (4?) and how is it?
It's not a BT hub, it's Sky's own:
www.sky.com/shop/broadband-talk/sky-hub/
It's quite chunky, about 10x10x3cm, but it sits on a side table with the phone base station and a table lamp so it's not obtrusive.
It works flawlessly with the Sky+ box and even though my Sky+ box is connected via an ethernet to WiFi converter it knows it has a Sky box connected and not some other device. Don't know if QoS is implemented though.
Range is very good too - it's saved me installing a PoE WAP to cover the patio and garden.
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Thanks Kevin. I'd assumed you were with BT.
If I got my package for Broadband with Sky I'd pay them more than I do BT. You'd have thought Sky customers would get a discount but it doesn't seem you do.... or maybe I'm wrong. I've got the totally unlimited package with 76Mbps downloads and up to 19Mbps uploads. And inclusive anytime calls for the phone too.
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>>Huawei HG533 router
Loads of em from 99p on the bay.
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>> >>Huawei HG533 router
>>
>> Loads of em from 99p on the bay.
+£5 plus postage. Mine was FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
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Isn't Huawei the Chinese company that the 'mericans think are snooping and have banned all use of their hardware in ISPs etc?
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>> Isn't Huawei the Chinese company that the 'mericans think are snooping and have banned all
>> use of their hardware in ISPs etc?
Yes, the same one BT and GCHQ are using. The UK fibre backbone is running on their kit.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 26 Jul 13 at 23:20
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>> The UK fibre backbone is running on their kit.
I think you'll find that's not the case. Or are you talking the BT network?
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>> >> The UK fibre backbone is running on their kit.
>>
>> I think you'll find that's not the case. Or are you talking the BT network?
BT.
Last edited by: Zero on Sat 27 Jul 13 at 07:54
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TT sent me one of these routers when I phoned them up about the DNS servers.
I didn't bother using it in the end as I had reconfigured the DNS settings in my Thompson router to point to the Google ones.
Although Huawei is a wireless N, and my Thompson is a wireless G, I found the overall range about the same. Also I don't like the fact that the Huawei is a desk mounted router and not wall mountable.
Keeping it for a spare in case the Thompson one ever dies.
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>>
>> Edit, ruddy hell forgot how many wifi connected devices we had in the house, took
>> longer to reconfigure all them than it did to install the new router.
>>
I've had to switch MAC white listing off on my old Netgear DG834N because there's only space for 20 odd devices in the white list. I'd replaced it with a much fancier TP-Link WR1043ND but I'd never got the USB NAS functionality working on that, and now the WiFi has gone belly up, so back to the Netgear.
Connected devices at Spamcan Towers:-
4 laptops
2 netbooks
4 desktops
1 Tablet
2 Kindles
1 Wii
2 DS
5 smartphones
1 blu-ray player (via ethernet bridge)
4 Internet Radios
1 iPod touch
Not all demanding bandwidth at once thankfully!
Unsurprisingly I leave the SSID and network key alone when swapping access points.
Last edited by: spamcan61 on Sun 28 Jul 13 at 13:45
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Thats a nice shopping list for a local "scrote" !!!!
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>> Thats a nice shopping list for a local "scrote" !!!!
>>
They'll hopefully find themselves connected to Charlie the psycho dog, via their genitalia ;-)
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No telly? Bit 20th century aretncha? :-)
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He's probably using the Blu-ray player for that.
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>> He's probably using the Blu-ray player for that.
>>
Correct, a bit of technology juxtaposition going on with a 28" CRT TV connected to a Blu-Ray player that does iPlayer etc.
No interest in getting a new TV until they start making a lot more decent quality programming or this TV breaks.
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>> I've had to switch MAC white listing off
>>
Waste of time anyway, all the security of hanging a sign on your door saying; "Plis do not youse my wyreliss."
Simple wireless sniffer utility. Note MAC addresses using that network. Wait 'til one disconnects and change your device's to match[1]. Job done.
Same school of "security" that recommends the use of a hidden SSID:- Wireless utility, send info request packet to AP / Router. One of the things you get back is the SSID, even if it doesn't broadcast it, as it's part of the mandatory content of the response dictated by the WiFi standards.
A special mention to BT here for going the extra mile and returning the device's serial number, even though that is not mandatory. This was around the same time as they got a rollicking for using the same default admin password on every router and solved the problem by changing their default passwords to, er, the device's serial number.
[1] The default MAC is burned into hardware, but you can change what it uses on the network in software.
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Huawei HG533 router. - Robin O'Reliant
