Unlocking BT Home Hub

[howto voip]

Unlocking BT Home Hub
http://unlocking-bt-home-hub.blogspot.com/


Unlocking the Home Hub basically involves flashing the SpeedTouch
firmware to the Home Hub. These are the only two known side effects of
doing so:

* The status indicators (Broadband, Wireless etc) become jumbled
up
* The VOIP gateway (phone) feature does not function correctly

Other than that, everything else works great. If your primary
intention is to use the Home Hub as a VOIP gateway with non-BT
providers when it has been unlocked, don't unlock it. For some reason,
the VOIP gateway does not function correctly. You can get other VoIP
Providers working under the BT Firmware by performing some tricks via
the telnet interface.

Using the SpeedTouch firmware will also allow you to use the Home Hub
in modes other than PPPoA (such as PPPoE). This may be useful if you
want to use it only as an ethernet modem (bridged mode) if you already
have a router or a server. Another advantage, is that it is now easier
to use the Home Hub as a USB print server (over LPR) using the USB-A
connector. Before, with the BT firmware, you had to telnet into the
router and type a load of long cryptic commands, now you can press a
few buttons in the web interface to do the same thing.

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Downloads

You will need to download the following two files to be able to
continue with this tutorial:

* recovery.zip - BT Home Hub Recovery Tool 6.2.2.6



* speedtouch_flash.zip - Speedtouch Upgrade Wizard with Speedtouch
7G firmware




Method
First of all, you must not do any of this over a wireless connection
or over USB, so therefore plug your Home Hub into the ethernet socket
of your computer using a patch cable. Also you must turn off all anti-
virus and firewall software. Next you must give your network adapter a
static IP address. To do this in Windows 2000/XP/2003:

Go to Start, Network Connections, Local Area Connection.

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Click Properties, Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)

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Select 'Use the following IP address' and type 192.168.1.50 in the IP
address box, type 255.255.255.0 in the Subnet mask box and
192.168.1.254 in the Default gateway box. Next, select 'Use the
following DNS Server addresses', and type in 192.168.1.254 under
Preferred Server. Click OK on everything to exit and save changes.

Before we rush ahead and try to flash the SpeedTouch firmware to the
Home Hub, we need to be sure that your Home Hub is running firmware
version 6.2.2.6 . Therefore, we are going to flash the Home Hub to
6.2.2.6, regardless of what it is on now. Carrying out this process
also whipes the configuration clean, which is what we want. To do
this, we will use BT's own Home Hub recovery tool.

First of all, run StartBTrecovery.exe from the extracted ZIP folder
you downloaded (recovery.zip) - MAKE SURE YOU HAVE EXTRACTED IT OR IT
WON'T WORK! Click Next
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The Recovery Tool will attempt to find the Home Hub
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The Recover Tool will attempt to start the Home Hub in Upgrade Mode
and flash the firmware.

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If it completed successfully, you will see this screen. Click Finish
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Run BANT-7_R619WWsip_upgrade.exe from the extracted ZIP folder you
downloaded
(speedtouch_flash.zip) - MAKE SURE YOU HAVE EXTRACTED IT OR IT WON'T
WORK! Click OK

After it has self-extracted, click Next
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The Upgrade Wizard will attempt to find the Home Hub
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If the Home Hub is found, you will see a screen like this. Click Next
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The Upgrade Wizard will prompt for a Username and Password. Username:
admin Password: admin

If you were authenticated successfully, you should see this screen.

Click Have Disk, then click Browse on the next window and browse for
the file named ZZN1AA6.196.bli in the directory where you ran the
Upgrade Wizard from (You will have to click All Files *.* next to
Files of type dropdown to be able to see it)

Click Open, then OK. You should then see this screen. Click Next
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Check Yes I am Sure, and click Next
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The Home Hub will now be flashed with the Speedtouch 7G firmware. Do
not interrupt this process.
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When prompted for a password at the end of the flashing, enter
Administrator as the username and leave the password field blank.
Click OK
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If the flashing was successful, you should see this screen. Click
Finish.

If you wish, you can undo the changes to your IP configuration you
made at the start. To configure the Home Hub/Speedtouch 7G, open your
web browser and try to connect to a website (advanced users can browse
to http://192.168.1.254), you should see this screen:

Click Set up my Speedtouch. A popup should appear with an easy step-by-
step wizard.
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If you would like to make other configuration changes, you can do by
pointing your web browser at the Home Hub's IP Address. The interface
of the Speedtouch firmware is rather more tricky to use than the BT
firmware, but you will see the abundance of extra features in the
menu.