Conficting channels

I installed two new BT Broadband Home Hubs today with a lot of trouble establishing the required wireless networks. Firstly it seems that a lot of Wireless devices do not like the WPA2-PSK security that is the default level that these routers come with and secondly the channel setting conflicts frequently with other wireless networks.

I had problems with inbuilt and PCMCIA cards in laptops that can see the BTHomeHub2-XXXX wireless network but when you enter the supplied key as shown on the card and on the back of the HomeHub router. Previously you used to enter the serial number as the password to access the admin settings of the HomeHub, now they print the password on the back instead. You still have to change it though. You cannot disable the wireless security but you can change to WEP either 64-bit or 128-bit. This allows other devices to attach to the HomeHub router.

However you are still stuck with the channel problem. The HomeHub channel selection though set on Auto(matic) seems stuck on Channel 6. And this frequently conficts with outher wireless networks in the local area giving the 'Network is not in range' error when it clearly is. The previous versions of the HomeHub seemed to work better in this respect. So you simply have to choose an unused channel and then the connect works perfectly. Admittedly I had only a couple of other networks to avoid, so I wonder what will happen in a more technology populated environment.

Anyway, it looks like the BT HomeHub needs more work done on it.