BT Business Hub

BT’s Business Hub allows organizations to create a wireless access point Openzone facilities in a separate channel of your corporate network. The idea is that businesses such as restaurants, hotels, cafes and fitness centers can offer free Wi-Fi access as an incentive to attract more customers through the door, or generate additional revenue by selling vouchers Openzone. BT case studies include a hotel that has seen revenues increase by 10 percent, offering wireless internet for guests. Advance is noteworthy that the maximum number of users that can connect to this network separate Openzone – with a speed limited to 512Kbps – is just 13. This is not a solution for large organizations.

Broadband business of BT Total includes business center (2700HGV) with 8 Mbps unlimited ‘Option 2’ (£ 25/month) and Option 3 (£ 30/month) packages. The 12. £ 99 per month Option 1 package is capped at 10 GB per month, and you have to pay £ 59 (VAT) for its own business center.

Once installed and configured, BT Openzone subscribers (and others with the use of credits Openzone) can access your access point as they would with any access point BT Openzone. Use a Wi-Fi device to find the separate SSID and connect to BT Openzone through BT Openzone login page. Other users have to buy access time for your company, offering a new source of income. Alternatively, you can give access to the Internet as a way to attract customers.

BT Business Hub allows you to establish a secure access point for BT Openzone in the premises of your business. It can be used to generate revenue, or to attract customers free Internet access.

The business center is a relatively attractive router – partly due to the fact that all three Wi-Fi antennas are all internal – measuring 23cm by 19cm by 4 cm and weighs 640g. Protected by a silver casing with a black finish fetching mesh on each side, the business center – which costs £ 90.85 if purchased separately – can be placed horizontally or vertically through a plastic holder to match. The bottom of the device has four rubber feet help prevent slipping on a table or desk and promote air flow. Unfortunately there is no dedicated switch: the large button on the front of the Business Hub – you’d expect to turn the device – is actually used to encrypt the Wi-Fi connections.

Business center setup is simple, and BT kindly provided instructions for disabling the wireless access point (although this is limited to demand to go to a secure website and uncheck the option). The Welcome Pack includes a clearly written printed Quick Start Guide, along with an installation wizard step by step based on CD. You can configure and manage the business center through a clean interface and intuitive Web-based technical jargon kept to a minimum.

The BT Business Hub 10/100 Ethernet ports to provide wired network, and there is only one USB (1.1) connector. There is a built-in 802.11b / g access point Wi-Fi, of course, plus a broadband modem integrated with a single dose of DSL in the rear. The reset button and power connector (AC adapter provided) are also in the back. Two voice lines derived are supported by chip RJ-11 (useful for VoIP), and there is a functionality even ‘break out’ (to make and receive calls from PSTN line), along with RTC functionality failover in the first telephone line. The business center is software upgradeable to support a SIP user agent back-to-back. ”

Standard NAT / PAT and Security Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) is provided, as well as 64/128 bit WEP, WPA and WPA2, to help defend against Denial of Internet Service (DoS). Integrated business center Firewall Monitor Service also continuously assesses threats to the network, which provides notification on the screen of the attacks, and provide details about attacks blocked and their sources. Updates to help protect against new threats are downloaded automatically.

The business center includes the detection of content for Web sites with inappropriate content and Internet access control, which allows network administrators to restrict Internet access to certain days of the week and hours a day.

It argues that the business center is “optimized for ADSL improve average performance.” It also says the device can minimize interference from other devices such as dimmer switches, fluorescent lamps. Although this is difficult to assess in normal working conditions, we can report that within two weeks of tests that found no significant wireless interference, and broadband performance was generally very stable.

offers Wi-Fi access can add value to your business. And companies may sell bonds Hub BT Openzone for visitors and bring in some income, or share your bandwidth free to attract new customers. The service is still limited to 8 Mbps, so it can not compete with the dizzying speed of 50 Mbps fiber optic services from Virgin Media. If you are looking to implement the same wireless access point dedicated, but without the cost of creating this infrastructure, BT Business Hub is a solid piece of game with a reasonable rate structure. Not suitable for large organizations, and that only supports 13 simultaneous connections in the channel Openzone, but could be useful for small businesses.