BT Home Hub 2.0

A dumbfounding dongle that has hit the market recently is the BT Home Hub 2.0. It has a glorious and lustrous black appearance with enhancements in the ease of navigation, deployment and features. The major milestone reached in this product of BT is the inclusion of ‘n’ standard for quicker data transfer over long distances. A USB port is trimmed down and two Ethernet ports are added.

Functionalities:

The roles played by this home hub are many. It functions as a broadband router rendering high speed broadband access to the gadgets like laptops, PCs, mobile phones that are used with this Unlimited Broadband. The next aspect is that it acts as a Wi-Fi access point to enable wireless access to mobile phones, PDAs, webcams and laptops. The other benefits are its support for phone calls over the internet at an affordable price with the aid of BT Broadband Talk, connection with BT’s digital cordless DECT Hub phone, usage with digital television service named the BT Vision and functioning with BT Video Phone.

Appurtenances:

There are some add ons to this home hub that can be listed as a Power adapter, 2 ADSL filters, Broadband (RJ11 cable), Ethernet cable (RJ45), Cable cover, User Guide and a CD.

Deployment:

Setting up the Hub takes less time and effort. The interface can be viewed by typing bthomehub.home in the address bar of the browser. The password prompted for is at the back of the hub. Change it after the first usage. The settings can be done in the page that displays options under two heads namely “My Services” and “My home network”. The features are revamped without any elimination of older ones. Navigation and switching between the various sections can be done easily.

The basic trouble shooting can be made with minimal efforts and there are two tabs providing the functionalities for settings namely the basic and advanced settings for advanced controls.

Upgrades Compared To The Previous Versions:

There are several noteworthy enhancements made in comparison to the previous BT Home Hub version 1.0. They are the support for the increased range of 802.11n, the high speed wi-fi broadband connectivity protocol, the power saving mode that caters to the eco-friendly nature of the hub, the simpler software facilitating the usage with minimal efforts, rapid deployment, tighter access control and two additional Ethernet ports.

Features Elaborated:

There are some techniques implemented in this model to deliver it with various benefiting features that are as mentioned below.

Power save:

The new additional feature of the BT Home Hub 2.0 that uses minimum power is the power save mode which can be programmed to be set to a specific number of times. The idea behind this power saving is that the Hub phones and the Ethernet devices are allowed to function whereas the wi-fi and BT ToGo handsets are ceased power supply and thus stopped from working. There is a measurable difference in the power consumption in ordinary and power saving mode which when tested produced the result of 10 watts in the former mode and 7 watts in power-save mode. The transition from wireless mode to power save mode is indicated by an orange light for power LED that can be reset with the aid of a button provided at the side of the router.

Access Control:

The greatest offer to people trying to restrict their kids from overusing the internet may be quoted as the “No Internet” pick specifically to some of the connected devices that can be configured using the web browser interface. Duration may also be put on the devices for implementing the restriction.

Configuration Backup:

The other astounding feature is the ability to take a backup of the hub’s configuration, and recover on need where the backup is in the form of .bin files.

The Buttons and The Connectors:

There are four buttons provided at the right bottom that allows restoring the default settings, enabling the wireless connectivity, the Restart button to switch from power save mode to normal and a find handset button.

The connectors comprise 4 Ethernet ports, a power adapter socket, broadband socket, phone socket and a USB port.

Services Offered:

BT offers a wide range of services like BT Vision, BT ToGo, BT Fon and Broadband Talk.

The BT Home Hub 2.0 with all its functions, enhancements and ease of use, will benefit every house owning it.