"BT (Home Hub 5) is the UK's most powerful wi-fi signal
(versus major broadband providers)"
What they mean is that the router is powerful versus what major ISP's are prepared to give away/sell you when you subscribe to an Optical Broadband package deal.
So how powerful could it really be?
UK regulations tell us that they can't transmit more than 100mW by law. As it works on the inverse square law it is difficult to make much impact as you have to multiply the power by 4 to go twice the distance. Even 1 Watt (1000mW) could damage skin tissue if made contact with for any length of time. Most routers are set to much more like 10-40mW. Hackers have been known to tweak them much higher. Not unless you want infertility and cancer scares in those around you.
The best way to increase range safely is by using a High Gain directional antennae (Aerial). These focus the signal in one direction, and when used at both ends of the journey they make for a very efficient link that is less prone to interference from other directions. (Witness drum and diamond shaped Microwave dishes on council/other buildings and used to send Gas/Electric/Water consumption data collected from many housing estates and relayed to an office somewhere 5-50 miles away using focussed line-of-sight communications)
http://www.solwise.co.uk/networkingwireless.htm
Technically BT's Home Hub 5 can technically pass data at 1300Mhz by using 3 channels on the 2.4Ghz band and 4 channels on the 5 Ghz wavebands simultaneously. That should seriously annoy the neighbours in a built up area.
This is great between two or more pc's if you have Gigabit ethernet and a media server. But the
fastest consumer internet in the UK is only 200Mhz so until we get Gigabit (1000Mhz plus networks) it is
meaningless for downloads and streaming.
The latest 4K Video technology only needs a constant 20Mhz! It would take 50 people to be watching to use 1000Mbps.
https://recombu.com/digital/article/how-much-is-netflix-4k-ultra-hd-min-broadband-speed#
But independent test of BT Home Hub 5 by PC Advisor Magazine show it is not the best. In fact it is one of the worst compared to many branded products!
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/review/wifi-routers/bt-home-hub-5-review-11-ac-router-3489762/
In real-world speed tests it came out 9th!
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/test-centre/pc-peripheral/10-best-wireless-router-2016-uk-3217482/
You can but a new one from BT for £129. On Amazon you can buy a new one
for £17, or bizarrely a used one for £26. It sounds like someone is dumping
stock as it's been around since 2013. That is a lifetime in tech these days.
It is actually manufactured by Huawei. Huawei make many 'white label' or co-branded mobile phones/tablets but recently have launched a lot more kit under their own brand name. I also found this Netgear N6400/BT Home Hub 5 Look-alike the Huawei CBP B310
But is it worth it?
The older 2.4 Ghz
band (802.11g) is 56 Mbps maximum. It is heavilly saturated as urban usage is way more prolific than it was designed for. It is also not helped that most routers in my area are on Channel 1 or Channel 6. which is why I am on Channel 11 with no interference. I can still only use it 20 metres beyond my flat. I recently tested two routers together to compare them on different channels. This is how this article came about when a friend suggested was it worth getting a BT Home Hub 5.
None of my many devices yet use 5 Ghz even though most routers support it. This is a superior band due to
300Mbps (802.11n) by using 2x 150Mhz channels. Technically it could reach up to 1700mbps (802.11ac) bandwidth. This is only really achievable by
stealing the whole 5Ghz waveband for yourself!
To
be fair it could be that much of the dongles and WiFi cards cannot yet
fully exploit the advantages that this router uses. It does seem to me
like a Ferrari V12 engine in a Milk float.
Conclusion - it may be a good router. It is probably great for easy installation as it has auto-channel scan to find the least used channels. It also claims sophisticated filtering against non-wifi interference. A simple mobile phone app that I use (WiFi Analyzer, there are many variants) provides the much of the same info for free. But like most things a decent branded product will give it a run, including the suspiciously similarly specified (and equally ambitious) Netgear N6400. I am not sure the nation needs this channel hog quite yet.
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