Smart Hub 2 required for Full Fibre 900 with BT Halo 3 to get full speeds? (2024)

I had a previous BT plan and was getting 140 down / 30 up very reliably. Logged in recently and for £3/month more, I could upgrade to FF 900. Great. Note - I've had fiber to the house since day one in the house, new build, wired that way. Just didn't want to pay for the fast speeds until the prices had come down. This latest deal finally got us there. No new install was required for the new package.

I'd been using my Netgear R8000 instead of the smart hub for years as I've got parts of my house where the home hub wifi was terrible. Never had issues.

Activation date comes and goes and no speed increase on my netgear. BT sends me a new smart hub 3. Plug that in and 500+ speeds. Great. Swap back to the Netgear (removing the smart hub completely, off, not in the cable flow) - speeds back down to 140. Everything I read suggested that you do not need the Smart Hub installed with FTTP, but seems like you actually do? Or am I missing something?

What I'd like to have happen - (1) no smart hub, netgear giving full speeds. Is that possible?

Next best would be (2) smart hub with wifi off, netgear coming out of it, and full speeds.

If (1) isn't possible, what do I need to do in setup for (2) to get data flowing.? I tried it yesterday and got no data when connected to the netgear (which was connected to smart hub). Now, I might have been impatient, so happy to try again. But if there are known steps to make this work and avoid any issues (I've heard the term double nat, but don't know what it means!) - thoughts are welcome. Thanks!