I've tried to register a BT Studio 1100 handset with my Home Hub 2.0 and it won't have it under any circumstances. I have followed the handset registration instructions in the BT Manual as well as complying with the Home Hub wireless association procedure. No joy. I have refreshed the Home Hub firmware option selection so that its showing BT Broadband Talk and landline. I've also tried de-registering the DECT phone handset with its base station and then unplugging the base stations power supply before attempting to register the handset with the Home Hub. Again no joy.

I appreciate that BT have pulled the Broadband Talk Service last year because of lack of consumer interest (Is it any ******* wonder when they make connection this difficult ?), but I thought It was still possible to wirelessly connect a DECT handset to a Home Hub to use conventional BT Landline telephone services - i just want to dispense with some of the ratsmaze of cabling in my front room.

Nick

I would have thought that as the HomeHub was wireless and the handset was DECT, you're looking at two entirely different standards/frequencies/encryption etcetcetc

IIRC Homehub phones were based on wireless encryption and weren't DECT. (Nice one BT )

This and similar posts on the web lead me to believe that it was possible:-

http://community.bt.com/t5/Phones/Using-DECT-Phones-with-Home-Hub/td-p/7122

Nick

Never tried it, but some of the BT manuals leave a lot to be desired ( and that's coming from a telecomms bloke). I have only had the older hub with internet phone, and my solution was to physically connect the DECT base with the hub and register handsets to the base .

From what I recall there was a BT socket on the Homehub.

From the link that'sin your link........ (http://bt.custhelp.c...4,381/a_id/7877)

"The following standard BT phones (not including Hub Phone) for use with Broadband Talk when plugged in to the FSX port at the back of the Home Hub."

I think that should be FXS port though (Foreign Exchange Subscriber)

(BT's highlight, not mine )

Edited 1 August, 201213 yr by RainbowFore

The one thing I didn't try. I'll give it a bash.

Nick

When I used a BT HH2 we initially plugged a phone into the socket on the back, but then inherited a 'proper' HH2 phone, which had a base that clipped to the front of the hub. Not sure whether it connected wirelessly with the base or the hub though.

it should just plug in to the green socket marked phone on the back of the hub. You may need to go into the hubs settings to allow the phone to connect and make/ recieve calls. Just type bthomehub.home into your browsers address bar. It should work, assuming your bill is paid, of course

Anyway I tried registering the phone with HH2 using the phone basestation's telcom jack inserted into the HH2's green socket. The registration process failed. So it doesn't work wireless or wired.

Whether this is due to the fact that the DECT handsets are ancient (2003) or is is simply accounted for by the fact that I haven't enabled my BT Total Broadband account for Broadband Talk, I'm not able to say.

I can make phone calls from the handset with the phone's basesation lead inserted into the HH2. But presume that this is a straight through facility in the HH2 and that the HH2 is accessing standard BT telephony rather than Broadband VOip.

Reading on, in some of the official BT stuff it looks like the jack plug from the DECT handset goes into the green socket on the back of the Home Hub - suggesting that there's no radio link HH2 to DECT, that its a wired link only.

But equally, in other BT documentation it states that the registration procedure requires you to push the phone association button on the HH2 and when you do that the wi-fi illuminated indicator on the front of the HH2 goes from blue to flashing orange and the phone handset symbol is illuminated flashing orange, changing to an alternating flash bewteen the two symbols when I completed the final key press on the DECT handset registration process. From this point the DECT phone display shows the word "Searching" whilst this is going on . This suggests to me that the registration process is a wireless based process similar to that used for registering the DECT handset with its DECT phone base unit (s).

I would echo what was said above by VWD, there is a distinct lack of joined-uppedness between the various BT sources of advice of this subject - reminds me of the total chunterama that was BTFON, 'til they got it fixed. Symptomatic of marketeers wanting to get products to market before they are fully functional and tested.

Its a bit academic now if Broadband Talk has been pulled because of lack of consumer interest. Whats that supposed to mean, a load of fanny designed to fool Ofcom. What did you expect was going to happen if you brought the product to market incomplete and before DECt had been fully discovered. I suppose it enables BT to put a cap on VOIP usuage and still get lots of lovely juicy revenue from metered conventional calls.

Nick

Edited 1 August, 201213 yr by Clunkclick

I haven't enabled my BT Total Broadband account for Broadband Talk, I'm not able to say.

BINGO! If it's not enabled, it won't work. The BBTalk feature has to be enabled as it runs alongside the broadband connection, at least that's been my experiance. I have HomeHub 2.0 with the Hub Phone, which is Wireless (hence the wireless association button on the HH)

Believe it or not, I wasn't intersted in the VOIP. I just wanted to de-clutter and dispense with the DECT phone basestation and wiring and get the the DECT handset operating wirelessly off the HH2.

As you say you probably need to enable VOIP on your account for all the rest of the HH2 DECt facilities to switch on. Does VOIP incur an extra charge or different calling plan on BT ?

Nick

Edited 1 August, 201213 yr by Clunkclick

Anyway I tried registering the phone with HH2 using the phone basestation's telcom jack inserted into the HH2's green socket. The registration process failed. So it doesn't work wireless or wired.

Whether this is due to the fact that the DECT handsets are ancient (2003) or is is simply accounted for by the fact that I haven't enabled my BT Total Broadband account for Broadband Talk, I'm not able to say.

Yup, as said earlier, DECT and Homehub will use two completely different ways of associating with their respective handsets. Homehub will be very very much like the normal wireless association, but all subject to BT proprietry settings. DECT is a universal standard, the most notable difference is that DECT standard does work over greater distances.

Believe it or not, I wasn't intersted in the VOIP. I just wanted to de-clutter and dispense with the DECT phone basestation and wiring and get the the DECT handset operating wirelessly off the HH2.

This isn't going to happen with the equiment you've got. You could always get a Homehub handset. I do remember that you could get "extension" handsets for the Homehubs. (was a handset and charge base)

As you say you probably need to enable VOIP on your account for all the rest of the HH2 DECt facilities to switch on. Does VOIP incur an extra charge or different calling plan on BT ?

I suspect BTs implementation of domestic VOIP was never going to make them a loss . I don't remember if BT charged for the privilage of making cheap calls or not. I don't know if you can change the VOIP settings to use another provider either. I do seem to recall that you ended up with a 2nd number for the VOIP system (so you could have his and hers phone numbers if you wanted.)

In theory the Homehub should have used Least-Cost-Routing to decide if the number you dialled should go VOIP or POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), thus you'd always make the cheapest call possible. In-country VOIP isn't worth the effort given that geographic calls are relatively cheap (non-geo are pence-per-minute, so makes no difference). VOIP is good for calling aunty Flo in Oz if she's not got a PC, but not as good as Skype (etc) if she has. Most BT voice traffic is now VOIP anyway.

I never really rated the quality of VOIP by BT. It was amost as if the bandwith was restricted. Last time I heard circuits like that was on transatlantic stuff ( CANTAT1, I think) where the bandwidth had been cut back to get more circuits on what was suppossed to be a 60ct link.

On LCR idea, would BT switch recognise routing digits via VOIP,? I know BT only had LCR forced on it .When LCR first came out ,common fault on many a BT site when a "no LCR bill " fault call came in was that the power had been switched off.

Well, being BT, they were never *really* going to push a cheaper service than their normal money-maker ;) So restricting bandwidth would be a handy way of getting people to use POTS again. On the LCR side, it would be hub doing the switching between POTS and VOIP. I have a Draytek 2100 that will do LCR between POTS and VOIP, but I'd have program it manualy. Given the free minutes (and use of the office phone) I hardly bother with the home landline, so never bothered programing it. (Does have a sipgate account though for VOIP.)

Someone's made a router with a DECT base.......

http://www.draytek.co.uk/products/vigor2710vdn.html