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The main reason for unlocking the BT Home Hub is to allow you to use it on any ISP. BT's firmware only allows you to enter a username ending with @btinternet.com which makes it impossible to use
with any other ISP. Also, the BT firmware strips down a lot of the features found in the native firmware (Thomson SpeedTouch).
PLEASE NOTE: This has only been tested on the Home Hub 1.0, procedures for newer versions may be different! Also, there is a slight risk of bricking your Home Hub, even more than a slight risk if you don't follow the instructions properly. I do NOT take ANY responsibility if you turn your Home Hub into a brick. The procedure differs for the Home Hub V1.5, and is a lot more complicated (time to get your soldering iron and JTAG cable out): PSIDoc. Doesn't seem the Home Hub 2.0 is unlockable at the moment 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:
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. 
DownloadsYou will need to download the following two files to be able to continue with this tutorial:
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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.
Click Properties, Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
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
The Recovery Tool will attempt to find the Home Hub
The Recover Tool will attempt to start the Home Hub in Upgrade Mode and flash the firmware.
If it completed successfully, you will see this screen. Click Finish
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
The Upgrade Wizard will attempt to find the Home Hub
If the Home Hub is found, you will see a screen like this. Click Next
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
Check Yes I am Sure, and click Next
The Home Hub will now be flashed with the Speedtouch 7G firmware. Do not interrupt this process.
When prompted for a password at the end of the flashing, enter
Administrator as the username and leave the password field blank. Click OK
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.
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.