BT Home Hub 2.0

When you purchased a broadband service from your ISP, you probably didn’t spend much time thinking about what hardware you were going to get. BT, however, seems to have constructed its entire sales pitch around its recently revamped Home Hub. But the ISP is right to be shouting about this wonderful device which, although only available to BT Broadband subscribers, performed incredibly well in our tests. We saw a 60 per cent increase in the performance of our network when we upgraded an old Hub to this new version – a phenomenal achievement unmatched anywhere else in our tests. It even improved the performance of 802.11g devices we had on the network, thanks to improved coverage from better internal aerials.

Assuming you’re already a BT customer, upgrading to this new device costs just £45 (if you use a Hub Phone you’ll need to invest in a new one of those, too). The router has been upgraded to four Ethernet ports, for adding extra wired devices, but has lost the USB connections. The Home Hub also has a basic timer, so you can put it into standby mode overnight, saving energy during periods when your Wi-Fi network is never used. Shame it’s only available to BT customers, though.

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