BT 5 hub/router upgrade

[Jonetc15]

I will be most grateful for any advice as to whether I should upgrade my BT 5 hub/router.

I have had it for (I think) five or six years. It has been pretty reliable, but I don’t know whether there are up-to-date security features on a BT 6 router.

TIA

Jon

[ReformedCharacter]

I will be most grateful for any advice as to whether I should upgrade my BT 5 hub/router.

I have had it for (I think) five or six years. It has been pretty reliable, but I don’t know whether there are up-to-date security features on a BT 6 router.

TIA

Jon

Mine's a Huawei (BT5) and I'm sure that has all the security features the Communist Party of China would ever need

RC

[Breelander]

Mine's a Huawei (BT5)...

Really?

There are two variants of the Hub 5, Type A with Lantiq chipset (ECI), and Type B with Broadcom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Smart_ ... ifications

Lantiq is Taiwanese and Broadcom is US-based.

As for the OP's question, the link above has a table of the technical specs of all BT hubs. I see little advantage to be gained by upgrading the Hub 5 to a Smart Hub.

Anyway, if you are concerned about Huawei, then your router is the least of your worries - Huawei is part of the BT infrastructure

...the operator tends to deploy two different types of Street Cabinet hardware, one from Huawei and another from ECI.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2 ... s-eci.html

[ReformedCharacter]

Mine's a Huawei (BT5)...

Really?

There are two variants of the Hub 5, Type A with Lantiq chipset (ECI), and Type B with Broadcom.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Smart_ ... ifications

Lantiq is Taiwanese and Broadcom is US-based.

As for the OP's question, the link above has a table of the technical specs of all BT hubs. I see little advantage to be gained by upgrading the Hub 5 to a Smart Hub.

Anyway, if you are concerned about Huawei, then your router is the least of your worries - Huawei is part of the BT infrastructure

...the operator tends to deploy two different types of Street Cabinet hardware, one from Huawei and another from ECI.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2 ... s-eci.html

Apologies to the OP, I should have made a more helpful response or left my keyboard alone.

You're right of course that my router is the least of my concerns if I'm concerned about Huawei. And no doubt about the chipset for mine, the Type A. But surely the security issue is with the accompanying software not the chipset. I thought mine was manufactured by Huawei, now I'm not so sure but if I type 'BT Home Hub 5 (Type A) manufacturer' into Google the top result shows 'Manufacturer: Inventel Technicolor Gigaset/Sagem Huawei' but I accept that may be wrong.

And we do know that there is some sort of 'backdoor' built into it as your link shows:

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

Also, it's probably true to say that the very close relationship that the GPO had with the security services likely continues today with BT.

ATB

RC

[Breelander]

I thought mine was manufactured by Huawei, now I'm not so sure but if I type 'BT Home Hub 5 (Type A) manufacturer' into Google the top result shows 'Manufacturer: Inventel Technicolor Gigaset/Sagem Huawei' but I accept that may be wrong.

That top hit is the Wikipedia article I linked to earlier. It lists all the models of Home Hubs, apparently Huawei did make the Home Hub 3.

The Home Hub 3B was manufactured by Huawei

But surely the security issue is with the accompanying software not the chipset.

Apparently with the Home Hub 5A you can do something about that...

It is possible to replace the firmware of the Hub 5 Type A (and the identical 'Plusnet Hub One' and 'BT Business Hub 5' Type A) with OpenWrt, unlocking it from BT and providing the features of OpenWrt.[18]

Details here: https://openwrt.org/toh/bt/homehub_v5a