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BT Home Hub 2 and Airport Express Configuration?

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Simple objective to integrate an Airport Express station into my home network to allow us to broadcast audio to speakers in different parts of the house and then control the playlists using the new Remote feature on the iPod Touch. At the same time I was hoping to extend the network range by upgrading to the 802.11n wireless draft recommendation. My current network had a BT Home Hub router hard wired to a HomePlug to allow the range to reach my office in the farthest reaches of our large brick barn conversion.

1. Convince BT support to send me a new BT Home Hub 2 without paying the £50 upgrade fee - after all they had just sold me into a new 18 month contract the previous month void of the upgrade router with N capabilities!
2. Setup Home Hub 2 and assign static IP addresses to the platforms and virtual machines on my network.
3. Test the new extended range with my 802.11n-enabled iMac and notebook.
4. Get no improvement in signal whatsoever!
5. Test file transfer speeds within range of the new router between iBook and Acer - marginal speed improvements. Disappointed with BT's claims and new product… Oh well onto integrating the Express base station.
6. Follow instructions to configure AE (airport express) using the AirPort Express Utility on the supplied software from Apple.
7. Once configured AE is no longer recognized on the network so forced to perform the AE reset.
8. Try ethernet hard-wiring the AE to the Home Hub and configuration works. But once move the AE to wireless it again disappears.
9. Trawl web to discover similar issues installing AE with the Home Hub version 1.
10. Finally discover a successful installation using WDS.
11. Try to emulate this method for the Home Hub 2 only to discover there is no option for enabling a wireless repeater in the Home Hub 2 configuration software.
12. Finally hit a brick wall, and that is where the Home Hub 2 is going for the time being as I resort to rolling back to the Home Hub version 1.
13. Follow instructions for WDS setup and everything works fine.
14. Assign static IP address to avoid conflicts that regularly occur when with the Hub tries to assign IP addresses dynamically.
15. DONE :)

Conclusion to this convoluted process is that it would appear with the lack of option for Repeater configuration with the Home Hub 2 there is no physical possibility for installing the Airport Express in a network powered by the BT Home Hub 2. So why have BT removed this configuration option anyway? I suppose their argument would be that with twice the range (up to 70m indoors) the new routers with 802.11n wireless do not need a repeater facility any more. Well maybe I just got a bricked hub from the outset but there is no way the new Hub was displaying that kind of improvement in range. Anyway I got a result in the end and have a happier household.

Nothing impresses guests more than flashing out the iPod touch to change the music playing on several speakers around the house! But I certainly won't be jumping through hopes to use the BT Home Hub 2 again and wouldn't recommend the additional investment that BT insist on charging long-standing customers for the development that went into constructing this brick!

Posted on Aug 11, 2008 at 10:14:49.