Customers of BT’s broadband division could soon benefit from the launch of a new and more advanced “Smart Hub” (HomeHub 6) router, the existence of which was revealed a little while ago when the ISP began courting existing subscribers to help trial the device.
It’s amazing to think that BT’s retail ISP business hasn’t launched a completely new home broadband router since the HomeHub 5 was introduced almost three years ago (here), which is arguably because the HH5 did a reasonable job of catering for the latest WiFi standards. But like most mass market ISP supplied routers the HH5 also had some problems, both via the HH5A and HH5B variants.
ISPreview.co.uk has spent the past couple of weeks trying to get some details on the device, but so far there’s precious little concrete information to be found. No doubt that will change now that the trials are being expanded to a wider group (Non-Disclosure Agreements rarely get in the way).
In the meantime BT has setup a vague Registration Page, which will remain open to new applicants until 2nd June 2016. Assuming the trial follows a familiar course then we’d probably expect to see the Smart Hub (Home Hub 6) being launched before the end of 2016 (possibly autumn).
Despite that it’s almost certain the new hub will feature additional WiFi improvements (faster speeds etc.), proper G.INP support (plus maybe some other upgrades to support future VDSL tweaks) and it’s still possible, particularly given the recent EE merger, that we could finally see BT’s long-in-development 4G based Femtocell technology.
Using the Femtocell approach BT can boost indoor mobile coverage by harnessing your fixed line connection or they might hand off mobile voice / data traffic to your home WiFi / fixed line instead of sending it over the mobile network, which would save money.
Outside of that there’s a big question mark over whether the new router will support 300-500Mbps G.fast and or be enhanced to ensure that it can fully cope with the forthcoming 1000Mbps FTTP lines (technically the HomeHub5 could already do this via its Gigabit Ethernet ports), both of which are due for a major roll-out over the next 4-9 years (details).
However we’ve already written a preview of G.fast modems and BT’s Ian Boothman has previously stated that the G.fast trials are currently using a two box solution like earlier FTTC deployments, which means you start with a separate G.fast modem and then that connects into your ISP’s router. No doubt we will eventually end up with a single G.fast router, but we’d be very surprised if BT has that ready in time for the Smart Hub’s release.
UPDATE 20th June 2016
The router has been unveiled (here).
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