BT Broadband and 4G Assure dongle

[robgul]

We have a BT Business Broadband connection which has a "4G Assure" dongle attached to the router . . .  it flashes green that says it's working/ready to connect to the EE cellular network if the wired BB connection fails.   

What I'm trying to fathom is whether it works or not - there's no obvious way of checking (and as expected nobody at BT can help)

My interest has been provoked as we had an MOS in BT-speak (i.e. it wasn't working) for about 3 hours last night - BUT the dongle which, I believe, should connect immediately through the ether using 4G didn't.

Anybody know why?

[Polar Bear]

What happens if you pull the plug out of the BT wall socket that provides the magical interwebs to your router modem via the rj11 female socket on the back of said router modem?

Of course I am making the gross assumption that you have a cable with an off white BG phone style plug at one end stuck into a wall box and an rj11 plug at the other stuck into your router modem.  🙂

[ian]

If it’s anything like the one they sent me it’ll turn out to have ‘no credit.’ Thanks BT. I suppose they were correct in that it offered a guaranteed connection.

[Kim]

What happens if you pull the plug out of the BT wall socket that provides the magical interwebs to your router modem via the rj11 female socket on the back of said router modem?

Of course I am making the gross assumption that you have a cable with an off white BG phone style plug at one end stuck into a wall box and an rj11 plug at the other stuck into your router modem.  🙂

This.

[lissotriton]

If you log in to the router admin page, does it tell you anything useful?
Should have some sort of status or diagnostics to check it is working.

[robgul]

If you log in to the router admin page, does it tell you anything useful?
Should have some sort of status or diagnostics to check it is working.

All it seems to do is to tell you that it's connected and working (or presumably means it will work) - can't seem to be able to test it.  There is a log that always says it hasn't been in use.

[Kim]

There's the question of how it determines the primary connection is up, and whether that's sufficient to detect a failure.  For example, if it's monitoring the state of the PPP connection, it won't fail over if a fault in BT's network leaves you with a working PPP connection to nowhere (which is actually fairly common, because reasons).

[ian]

Mine is more basic, they just sent me a separate mini-hub that 'guarantees 4G connectivity' and while it did connect to the network it didn't do much to help (because 'credit'). BT helpfully pointed out that it 'shouldn't do that.'

As far as I can tell from the blurb, you can use the mobile signal whenever you choose, but like I say, it's not the integrated offering.

[robgul]

A bit more poking around in the BT hub/status stuff and it's showing, under the dongle's details in the hub manager, that it's NOT CONNECTED (text in an orange box) and that there are no bars on the signal strength - BUT the green light on the dongle is flashing to say it is connected and ready to connect to the 4G network if the BB line fails (but it doesn't)

The router is physically connected to the dongle with the cable in the USB port - which is the only thing you do to set it all up.   Looks like I'll have to waste time waiting to speak to someone at BT who will pass me from pillar to post and probably not resolve the problem.

[ian]

Hmm, mine just creates an alternative wifi network and connection, it has a cryptic name in the wifi options.

[Kim]

A bit more poking around in the BT hub/status stuff and it's showing, under the dongle's details in the hub manager, that it's NOT CONNECTED (text in an orange box) and that there are no bars on the signal strength - BUT the green light on the dongle is flashing to say it is connected and ready to connect to the 4G network if the BB line fails (but it doesn't)

It may not bring up the PPP connection on the dongle until it needs to?

[robgul]

A bit more poking around in the BT hub/status stuff and it's showing, under the dongle's details in the hub manager, that it's NOT CONNECTED (text in an orange box) and that there are no bars on the signal strength - BUT the green light on the dongle is flashing to say it is connected and ready to connect to the 4G network if the BB line fails (but it doesn't)

It may not bring up the PPP connection on the dongle until it needs to?

According to the rather thin set of BT instructions it says it should read  CONNECTED  when the dongle is in "ready" mode.