BT BUSINESS SMART HUB 2 OR 3 BRIDGE MODE AND CVE

[drcl]

Hope someone can shed some light on this as I when trying to talk to BT staff I feel like they don't actually know anything about their own products.   

Please let me know if this would be better posted on another board like phones.

My company is currently still on ADSL with a POTS line.  BT said last year we need to move to digital only.  OK.  

I have ran a draytek 2860 for years (to manage some VLANS) on the line with no issues after the original BT smart hub kept locking up.

Anyway, apparently full fibre isn't available to our premises which is fine so ater a bit of back and forth they offered us SOGEA and CVE with 3 handsets.

The original BT router goes in to a bridge mode without a problem, I am fairly confident the Draytek should be able to handle the load of a SOGEA.

What I can't get a firm answer on is whether Business Smart Hub 2 or 3 is better suited, i.e. whether both are designed for CVE with the Yealink Handsets and also whether they will work in bridge mode(I have read that Hub 3 doesn't have the option???) and where they need to be connected.  The BT "manuals" online are not actual manuals or even guides in my opinion, so I have been trying to scrape bit and pieces together from these forums to try to figure out if we are going to have issues.

I hope I can just enable bridge mode on the hub and the phone base station device for CVE will just work and not care if its on a vlan but I have no idea how those CVE phones actually work and the even the technical person i spoke to was very vague and wouldn't explain how anything would need to be set up.  I don't think they really understood why I had a concern.  Maybe there is nothing to be concerned about? 

Has anyone out there set up a similar system?  I would appreciate any concrete experience so I can actually advise the company owner with some confidence.

Thanks in anticipation.

[BethM]

Hi drcl

I reached out to the tech team with your post and this is what they have come back with:

'For the cloud voice express phones for the customer as long as there is a direct connection to the broadband it will work no matter work. It could even work on 3rd party broadband as long as it has its connection. Now depending on the customer setup – i.e. if it is a cordless phone or a desk phone then this will be two different setup. If it is a cordless phone then it will have a ethernet connection from the Yealink base station to any broadband connection (this will not work in any WAN port fyi), however, if it is a desk phone then there is two options one for wifi and one for the same as the cordless a ethernet connection. 

Alongside this some customer have an app only service which means they can download the cloud voice express app and take calls through that. But the app is free and is on all services even if you have a handset. Only other part I would mention about the service is that the cloud voice express service only accepts the phones we send out it does not seem to like any 3rd party phones.

For the customer’s query on which router is better i.e. smart hub 2 or smart hub 3 it is basically the same just the smart hub 3 is a newer version most people prefer the smart hub 2 for it to be in bridge mode but it is up to the customer on this. '

[drcl]

Thanks for your detailed response.   If you don't mind can you please clarify a little more. 

I have read repeatedly that the Smart Hub 3 does not have a bridge mode for SOGEA and most clearly here: 

https://business.bt.com/help/guides/smart-hub-3-guide/smart-hub-3-using/using-smart-hub-3-as-a-modem...  Is this still correct?

It also implies that we could however provide our own router - I assume any device with a VDSL2 modem will do the job?

We are likely expecting to get 3 cordless phones that work through a single base station - so the base station ethernet can be connected to anything on a switch with VLANS and the only requirement is that it has access to a gateway IP?  I take it functions like any other layer 3 device and the IP can be decided by a standard DHCP MAC reservation and isn't somehow expecting to be on a particular IP range.  Might sound daft but when I asked BT they insist it has to be plugged in to the hub which I am quite certain can't work if the hub is in Bridge Mode.

****Edit:  I am pretty sure the base station is Yealink W60B and handsets will be W56H; not sure why I never bothered to look for the manual from the brand - I can't see that BT would be able to change the networking stack on the base station - accordingly the manual says it's just a standard IP device that defaults to DHCP :  https://support.yealink.com/document-detail/21569d056bcc40b8a4d5e9a783c5b6e5 

I was aware about the phones have to be ordered from BT;  I did get different answers from different people at BT when asking about that but the forums made it clearer - the base station is somehow modified to work only with BT supplied handsets.  BT did make it clear the maximum you can have on CVE is 3 handsets but the forums also dispute that - maybe 5?  Some threshold  requires moving to the full cloud voice.  BT didn't explain anying about the app thing either - they said that was for the full Cloud Voice only and kept trying to upsell on that feature.   We don't really need all the features of the full product though.   However the app is a nice bonus and a quick google does seem to indicate that you are right.  It's also not clear to me how many mobiles with app can be used - there must be a limit I am sure.  I have a feeling it will be a single mobile phone.  

One other thing if you know.  Can a single handset be configured to ring for incoming calls?  I somehow assumed that would be the case as its a basic feature on our simple analogue exchange box but I have found some videos about the phone system on youtube that explore the features and it seems to be capable of everything we need but this seems to be absent - seems like all handsets will ring on incoming calls which will be annoying when we currently have a single phone to answer and transfer incoming calls.

Just so you know, I have tried to google all these things but BT guides are incredibly vague and I don't really trust the BT staff - they seem to give such varied answers, this forum has probably been the most solid source but certain specific queries don't seem to have come up or my google-foo is off.

If you are able to clarify with certainty on any of those things - the bridge mode on SOGEA/using own router and also the selective ring on incoming calls  - I would really appreciate it.  If not then I am still grateful.  Thanks

[BethM]

Hi drcl

Here's the answers I've got:

• You can not use a Smart Hub 3 in bridge mode on a SOGEA connection
• You can a 3rd party router, Tech Support just can't support assistance with them if there was an issue caused by the router
• You can have 3 cordless phones on the Yealink base, as long as it works off of a 192 static IP
• If the router is in bridge mode then plugging it into there will not work, but if the router is in bridge mode because you are using your 3rd party router then can work plugged directly into your 3rd party router
• Maximum handsets is 5, this is due to any more causes service problems
• The Cloud Voice Express app is available and free for all CVE packages
• If you're able to log in for your bills, there is a section under ‘product and services’ that is Cloud Voice Express. This will show the email address you can log in with – this is sometimes a different email to the one you log in with for the bills so I would advise to check. Password can be sent from tech support or can be created online with the reset password journey online
• For the Cloud Voice Express app ONLY 1 person can log into the app at a time. Several people can have it downloaded but one person logged in at a time is best for the service
• One phone can be configured to only accept incoming calls and the rest for outgoing calls, you can do this with the technical support team
• Any features you see as an option on the service can be used IF you have a unlimited call package. If you do not and perhaps have a pay as you go contract then any outgoing calls, diverts or any calls that ring so many times then goes to voicemail there would be a charge for each call so I would suggest going on an Unlimited Calls package if this is the plan

I hope this answers all your queries 🙂