This page is intended to spare you the
problems that I have had in trying to get a
BT Ignition Terminal Adapter (TA) to work with a
BT
HomeHighway line.This page is intended to spare you the
problems that I have had in trying to get a
BT Ignition Terminal Adapter (TA) to work with a
BT
HomeHighway line.
In 1995 I had ISDN-2 installed at home and purchased a BT Ignition TA. With the advent of BT's HomeHighway service (a BT digital service that provides two analogue lines and two ISDN-2e sockets) it became more economic to convert my existing fax line to HomeHighway and discontinue my ISDN-2 line. Everybody I spoke to at BT assured me that it would just be a matter of unplugging my TA from my ISDN-2 line and plugging it into one of the digital sockets on the HomeHighway junction box. Alas no!
After 4 days, 5 engineers and more than 6 hours of phone calls to BT, I now have both my ISDN-2 line and my HomeHighway line working.
When my HomeHighway line was first installed I plugged in my BT Ignition TA and it failed to work. A call to the BT HomeHighway help line (0800 525 111) revealed that since HomeHighway is known to work with the BT Ignition and since my HomeHighway line tested OK there must be something wrong with my TA. A call to the BT Ignition help line (0990 133 502) revealed that my BT Ignition TA was working (on my ISDN-2 line) and the failure to work on HomeHighway was "a common problem due to the exchange end of the HomeHighway line being set up incorrectly".
During their attempts resolve this problem, BT engineers found and "fixed" three major line problems, replaced my HomeHighway junction box twice and switched off my ISDN-2 line leaving me with no Internet access!
The truth (extracted mostly by engineer number five, thank you) is that provided your Ignition TA is running software 1G the Ignition TA will work with a HomeHighway junction box series ONE but not with series THREE. Because BT had numerous problems with the series one junction box any new HomeHighway installation is likely to be series three.
After demonstrating that my BT Ignition did work with a HomeHighway junction box series one, I reverted to a series three junction box and purchased a BT SpeedWay PCI card!
June 2000 - Update! BT now say that a "new" HomeHighway junction box series three is being produced and this will work with the BT Ignition TA. Available August 2000. I will update this page if and when I get one.
Last updated
2007-05-03.