New EE Smart Hub 2023 and Smart Hub Plus

[karluk]

I saw EE Broadband are now offering Smart Hub 2023 or Smart Hub Plus depending on the broadband package you select when ordering. Looks like these have just become available.

Does anyone know if both hubs have Wifi 6, I cant find the specs for both of these new hubs.

[chrishyper1]

my last provider required PPPOE to be enabled on my mesh system for this, is it just plug and play with EE as long as you plug your router into the ONT ethernet port ?

[Mustrum]

@chrishyper1   you also need to enter PPOE details in your router, but it is just the standard BT ones.

Who was your last provider?

[chrishyper1]

Last provider was Zen Internet using city fibre network 

[Mustrum]

@chrishyper1    wow, you are lucky to be able to get Cityfibre and Openreach fibre!

Still waiting for either here..

[wgwright]

Think it's just the Smarthub plus that has WiFi 6

[Mustrum]

@wgwright    that was confirmed earlier in the thread by @bobpullen  

Smart Hub Plus is Wi-Fi 6 (not 6E).

[davidperson]

Can you give a link to that thread?

[infinitywaiter]

"SHPlus also has a guest wifi you can set up."

For those who didn't use BT Whole Home Wifi discs, then this feature was already present on the BT Whole Home Wifi Premium discs and the BT Whole Home Wifi 6 discs, it was not something new.

I have moved from BT FTTP 900 to EE FTTP 900, it seems to be an identical service given my IP address is BT too?!

As BT and EE both use Openreach and are the exact same company, then yes they are an identical service.

Nothing changes on your broadband, you still use the pppoe connection of BT etc, just your account is now under the EE brand instead

Just like EE Digital Home Phone is the equivalent of BT Digital Voice, and same for BT TV to EE TV and BT Mobile to EE Mobile.

The only difference is that they are run as two seperate branches with their own brand logo, BT now just for business customers and EE for consumers/residential.

However, at the present time being consumers can still order broadband through BT, although if you want to use the new 1.6gb tier from Openreach, then this is only available through EE.

Just note that this Openreach higher 1.6gb tier is still in pilot stage until early 2024 and not actually released publicly as of yet.

EE are the only provider that is offering the service as of yet, so if you order it and can't get it yet and have to wait on the 900 tier or have issues, then that is the main reason why.

[infinitywaiter]

Also, does it have any 2.5G ports, if so how many? Would be good if it had two, one 2.5G WAN port and one 2.5G LAN port.

If you go for the newer 1.6gb tier through EE, then you will get a new ONT box with a new 2.5gb WAN.

Otherwise, the new hubs, either EE Smart Hub (rebranded BT Smart Hub 2) or the EE Smart Hub Plus (rebranded BT Business Smart Hub 3, with a lot of options locked out), are all coming with just the same 1gb ethernet ports.

There are multiple threads exisiting already on both BT and EE Community forums about this, as most would want the new Plus Hub to have at least come with 2.5gb ethernet ports as well, so look for those existing ones if you want to comment about it yourself.

Hence why many people swap out BT or EE Smart Hubs, to their own third party ones, to make use of their own wifi6 and 2.5gb ports on motherboard and router itself.

Even with the 1.6gb tier and getting the Plus Hub with wifi 6, many are still swapping to their own third party router.

Obviously, if you use either BT Digital Voice or EE Digital Home Phone, then you have to stick with the provided hub from BT or EE as the phones are using them, and are registered to the hubs through wifi and dect.

[infinitywaiter]

Correct, plus they would need to make sure that they turn off DHCP too.