Airport Extreme with BT Infinity - Success!

[Ripmax2000]

I've been tearing my hair out trying to get BT Infinity working with the Airport Extreme, so that I don't have to use BT's Home Hub (VDSL modem direct to AEBS). Just thought I'd give people a rundown of what worked for me.

Now before setting up the AEBS, you have to just connect everything up using your HomeHub, log into it and get your DNS Server details (also, make sure you connect to the web ok).

Then go to Airport Utility -> Internet -> Internet Connection tab. Connect Using PPoE. Account name bthomehub@btbroadband.com and password BT. Service name blank. Connection is Always On and Disconnect if Idle is never.

Now in the next tab, TCP/IP, you have to put in the DNS Server details you got from your HomeHub. (I didn't think of this originally, which caused a huge amount of wasted time).

In the DHCP tab, make sure you have given a range big enough for however many computers you have.

Now this is the weird part, plugging the VDSL modem into my WAN port wouldn't work, but, plugging into one of the LAN ports it works fine (I still can't figure that one out, but hey). I originally thought this would stop the firewall from working, but i tested it on ShieldsUp and it was fine. I even gave someone my IP and he couldn't access the ports.

Do remember, the AEBS firewall isn't great. Its only a NAT firewall (fine for most of us), and there is no UPNP so you will have to open a port for file sharing and things like that. Also, it doesn't stop people pinging you.

Those small issues aside, I am now running an AEBS instead of a BT HomeHub, and its working great

 

[garybUK]

I tried this but went back to the Home Hub as the Apple Airport Extreme was really crappy, you can't run NAT Firewall without DHCP (WTF?!) and running >3 torrents at a time pretty much kills it. Also the UPNP thing really knackered my PS3 Online playing.

Someone should jailbreak it

 

[Ripmax2000]

I have the Home Hub 2.0 - is that the one you have?

Do you find it's better at handling multiple torrents?

I've only done 3 torrents at a time so far on the AEBS, but sometimes I run 40 or so, will the Home Hub do that better?

 

[newtonuk]

Wow, that sounded difficult for you.

I didn't experience any of the issues that you seem to have done.

I simply entered my username the same as yours, no password, configured the DHCP server and it has all worked fine.

I connected the Infinity modem to the WAN port on my AEBS as well.

Back To My Mac works without issue, but I did have to manually configure ports for my Windows Home Server.

The BT Home Hub 2.0 is still in its box, untouched by me. The engineer had to use it to confirm that the connection was working when he installed it.

 

[N10248]

I been using my Airport extreme since my Infinity was installed too, never used the homehub and didm't enter any DNS addresses just username and password.

Only annoying problem is now that the AirPort is using PPOE there is a constant 1kbps traffic between my iMac and the Airport as the base is constantly updating the "time connected" display on the macs menu bar, the only way to stop it is to remove the AirPort icon from my menu bar.

 

[Ripmax2000]

Its interesting you got it to work through the WAN port, I still can't get my head round why that didn't work for me, and it works through the LAN port.

 

[LeonieMR]

BT Hub 5 map to Airport Extreme

Hi,

Thanks for the assist re mapping it to "Bridged off" as BT though me duff information regarding the set up requiring a username and password for their hub as if you set to PPoE you can not set to "Bridged Off" in network settings.

You need to connect to BB LAN 5GB socket to the Sun Socket - this information I found hard to obtain. Do not use the red boardband socket. You also need a LAN cable not the little one you get from the bt socket to the modem/router!

For anyone else struggling you need to set the system to DCHP and look at your settings in BT Broadband page for your DCHP first and secondary codes, etc, etc.

The wifi works so much better now - only taken me 4 hrs to set up but well worth it. For those about to give up, don't!

Hubby well chuffed and with a silly grin as he can now stream music and have four windows open and my pc running as well.

Leonie

 

[mcnallym]

Or better still, just buy a pure vdsl modem and simply the AEBS to use PPPoE on the WAN.

Put the HH5 to one side.

I am with Plusnet and I simply use a Draytek 130 ADSL/VDSL Modem and the current Airport Extreme.

Simply configure the Airport PPPoE with my Plusnet Login, and then the DNS Servers ( I use OpenDNS rather then Plusnets ).

That way my Airport Extreme does the dialling and is as if the Draytek is not there.

Used to use a Draytek 120 when on ADSL and to swap to Fibre then simply swapped the 120 out and plugged in the 130.

 

[McScooby]

Pg 14 of AE instruction guide tells you to connect to wan (sun symbol).

Can't say I'd any hassles setting up a time capsule, I did avoid reading anything BT sent years ago mind you! The other thing to remember is to go into Network Preferences > advanced on mac / iPhone / whatever & forget home hub network, otherwise they'll still try to connect to the hub when first turned on.

 

[displaced]

I've been using an Extreme with Infinity for 3 years now -- all I needed was the username/password -- done!

I run my own caching DNS and DCHP server. It's slightly annoying that you can't turn off DHCP without also losing NAT.

However, a really simple workaround is to set the DHCP range on the Airport to just 1 IP address, then create dummy reservations for that address. This means that the DCHP daemon on the Airport will reject any broadcasted DHCPREQ messages, leaving my actual DHCP server to do the work. Simple!