[Chester LUG] BT WiFi routers

[Sebastian Arcus]

In all fairness to BT - many (not all) routers that come free for ISP's 
are fairly low quality.

One that springs to mind is the white, pyramid shaped one which Wanadoo 
(and later Orange) use to send out to customers. Can't remember the 
actual manufacturer - a fairly unknown brand - but what a crappy piece 
of hardware! First off, they had this idea that you had to press a 
button in order to allow new devices to connect to the router - kind of 
like WPS, but their own proprietary implementation. Couldn't be disabled 
- as far as I remembered. If you just came up to it expecting it to work 
like a normal router and not reading fully the manual - you would spend 
hours trying to connect to it with the right wifi password and it 
wouldn't let you.

Then there was the online configuration pages. I've spent about 3 hours 
one evening until I got to the bottom of it. The wifi password was on 
one page - but the security settings (WPA, WEP, encryption type etc.) 
were in a completely different section. It absolutely made no sense. 
They actually used the same text input field type regardless of what 
security settings were chosen - WEP or WPA - thus you had to input a WEP 
style passphrase (both content and length) if you chose WEP *or* WPA. If 
that is not shoddy interface design. I couldn't believe it when I 
finally realised how it was programmed to work.

Sebastian



On 25/07/11 20:32, Michael Crilly wrote:
> They sound like terrible devices that should be banned from production. It clearly shows that BT want to maximise their customer based instead of trying to offer a secure, sane service out-of-the-box.
>
>
> On 25 Jul 2011, at 11:45, Sebastian Arcus wrote:
>
>> I think you are right. I vaguely remember talk few years back how BT were going to release this hybrid (=fusion, geddit?) system where the phone will work as a house phone when home, but then seamlessly switch to a mobile when out and about. I think it was during the days when they still owned O2 (sorry, BTCellnet). As far as I remember last I've heard of it - it was left in a lurch by BT top brass.
>>
>> Sebastian
>>
>>
>> On 25/07/11 11:36, Les Pritchard wrote:
>>> Sounds like a great product to me! I spent a while with one version of
>>> those routers trying to switch the wifi off completely but it wouldn't
>>> let me. Probably because of the Fusion phone service you mention. Maybe
>>> they're working up to having a system where you can take your home phone
>>> out and about and use it where ever there is a BTFusion spot....Rabbit
>>> anyone?!
>>>
>>> On 25 July 2011 11:28, Sebastian Arcus<shop at open-t.co.uk
>>> <mailto:shop at open-t.co.uk>>  wrote:
>>>
>>>     Back to the topic of BT routers and BTOpenZone. I'm just in the
>>>     process of reconfiguring a 2Wire (second generation) BT router.
>>>     First off, it comes preconfigured with WEP for the regular wifi -
>>>     but WPA-PSK for the BTFusion part (which I think is used by their
>>>     silly cordless wifi phones - if I'm not mistaken). Go figure. The
>>>     cordless phones need more security then the regular business users
>>>     with their laptops etc.
>>>
>>>     Secondly, I've changed to WPA-PSK the regular wifi, but when I tried
>>>     to change the LAN IP ranges - it restarted and jumped back to WEP.
>>>
>>>     I've also disabled BTOpenZone on this router (which, by the way, has
>>>     a tab in the configuration pages showing how many devices are
>>>     connected at this moment in time) - but after I restarted the router
>>>     - was enabled again! This router is heading straight for the bin I'm
>>>     afraid.
>>>
>>>     Sebastian
>>>
>>>     _________________________________________________
>>>     Chester mailing list
>>>     Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk<mailto:Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk>
>>>     https://mailman.lug.org.uk/__mailman/listinfo/chester
>>>     <https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/chester>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Chester mailing list
>>> Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
>>> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/chester
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Chester mailing list
>> Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
>> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/chester
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Chester mailing list
> Chester at mailman.lug.org.uk
> https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/chester
>