What is Virgin Media's Superhub wireless like???

[adamsonm]

I am planning on getting the 30Meg connection with them which means Ill most probably be given the Superhub. What is its wireless like? Right now I have BT and the wireless is very good. I can connect the xbox, 2 laptops and one desktop on all at the same time to the hub wirelessly without any connection problems. ( 3 to 4 bars without any connection drop and no lag on the xbox while I play my games )

Currently the xbox and desktop are upstairs with the hub in a room below them. If I do change to virgin, I will place the superhub in the same position as the BT homehub.

[ArtAddiction]

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...ad/td-p/341705

[adamsonm]

Thanks for the link. Seems that the wireless is not very good. So disappointed.

[Rave]

Assuming that the 'Superhub' is what they've been giving out for the last few months, then I've got one- I got it when I moved in to my mum's house in November, and tried to cancel her Virgin account and move mine in- which wasn't a very successful process, but never mind. I upgraded to 20mb at the same time (couldn't justify the extra expense of 50mb).

In my old house I had my ~6 year old cable modem hooked up to a cheapo MSI 54g router in the front downstairs room of my 3 bed terrace, and got good coverage thoughout the house- usually 54mbps on the computer in the upstairs back room if I pointed the aerials on the router and the computer at each other (I.E. they were roughly parallel, since as I understand it the strongest signal emerges at 90 degrees to the direction of the aerial).

Now, in a largish 4-bed semi, the new router is at the front of the house upstairs. If I'm sat in the armchair at the back of the house downstairs the connection is slow and flaky, though it's better on my brother's old Dell inspiron 1300 than it is on my w00ty new Acer Aspire 3810T- bigger screen, bigger aerial behind it I guess. Right now I'm sat in the kitchen a bit nearer; earlier I was still getting a crap connection; by the simple expendient of rotating the laptop 90 degrees I now have a good strong signal of between 40-60mbps (right now- 43mbps).

My main objection to the Superhub, if that is indeed what I have, is that there's no external aerial, and hence I have no idea about the radiation pattern- and I'm too lazy to laboriously experiment with orientating it different ways, then walking downstairs to compare the signal strength. To be honest though, if you're just going from an upstairs room to a downstairs one directly below then I doubt you'll have any problems.

And on the upside, if you can get a good connection, or guarantee one by using a cable, which is what I've done on the desktop upstairs, Virgin BB is pretty damn awesome IMO. At my last house I think I had one or two fairly brief outages in 4 years, caused by vandals on at least one of those occasions. And it's fast. Now I'm on 20mb I can easily get 2.3MB/S downloads from Steam etc.- I've even had a torrent come down at that speed on one occasion. My mate who's got Sky ADSL sometimes carps on that his broadband is uncapped whereas mine caps at 25% of full speed if I exceed the DL limits from 4-9pm- but since he gets a max of about 4Mb, my capped cable is still faster than his at full whack!

I'm not sure what I have to do to get 30mb, since I apparently have a Superhub already- moan, or wait until my 12 month contract is up, I suppose. But I'm basically delighted with what I have, so meh.

Edit: I've just read the first few posts on ArtAddiction's link. I must admit I'm in no way a techy user, I've been into the settings precisely once, to set up my own network name and WPA password, and choose a channel that doesn't conflict with any of my neighbours (using Wifi Analyser on my Android phone).

[Dareos]

common issues on the superhub are wireless ones, tbh all you need to do is switch the wireless mode to a set channel and keep it on the 2.4 channel unless you got the latest equipment. No issues with connecting several items at all.

[Dareos]

Rave, call customer services and ask to be upgraded to the 30 meg, if you have the hub i think its free.

btw, superhub shiny with virginmedia glowing blue on the side and power button on the curve at the bottom, normal hub, matt black with power button next to power cable

[jetfire]

i rang them and id have to pay one of fee of 30 quid for the super hub to get 30mb but they said if i already had one then it would be a free upgrade from 20mb and my bill would be 18.50 instead of the 20 i pay now.

now i want to upgrade but i do not want that super hub,is there a modem i can buy that would work with the 30mb and cost 30quid?

[Dareos]

nope, cable modems are registered to the network and you cant use 3rd party ones, only 2 work on 30 meg + which are the superhub and the ambit wng300, both of which use 4 downstreams.

Virgin are currently only supplying the superhub for new connections.


tbh i quite like the superhub, dont actually get many issues beyond initial setup with it, light sequences could have been a bit easier to read but tbh thats minor.

My only real gripe is that Netgear insist on calling the network key a passphrase, so many people get confused over it

[jetfire]

nope, cable modems are registered to the network and you cant use 3rd party ones,

bugger, so if my modem stops working cos i gave it 240v by mistake would they give me a super hub as a replacement.

worked with the old cable TV box and got the new hd one with hdmi witch they wanted 50 quid for but it did die of old age tbh.

[dirky]

I was sent out a super hub but then phoned up and explained that I wanted a seperate modem (retro ) so I could use my own router.
The sales/support/whatever guy then went to explain how fantastic the new superhub was. After I explained that I would be unable to use my router with their superhub as it would cause a double nat situation he escalated it to his boss. Needless to say I got my modem 2days later and after a bit of fun trying to activate it all was good. I'm only 10Mbit tho..

[GoNz0]

they are bringing out a firmware to turn it into a stand alone modem, until then you have use the DMZ to port forward to your router and it does the same thing as a stand alone modem once the firewalls and wifi's turned off.

[Dareos]

Jet, on 10 meg it would be the normal hub, not the superhub mate, maybe the sales guy got a bit mixed up on that. Replacing your modem can be done mate, no probs with that at all. The warranty replacement codes for ambit 256 modems (current batch is V2) are still active, we are not replacing all modems with hubs just yet.

What i was saying that on the 30 meg or 50 (or 100), then you have 4 downstreams, normal modems and hubs cannot use these and you need either an Ambit 300 or a Superhub. Currently only the superhub is being supplied with new installations of these, and it takes some jiggering with the system to replace one with an ambit 300, but it can be done.

Rave, if your mac address starts with 30 or c4, you have a normal hub, if it starts with A0, you have a superhub.

Gonzo, if thats true it worries me, can see so many issues arising with that, and i'll have to sort them /sob


could work tho

[GoNz0]

Gonzo, if thats true it worries me, can see so many issues arising with that, and i'll have to sort them /sob


could work tho

its a stop gap and as of yet eveything i have done has worked fine forwarding to my netgear 3700.

[Rave]

Rave, call customer services and ask to be upgraded to the 30 meg, if you have the hub i think its free.

btw, superhub shiny with virginmedia glowing blue on the side and power button on the curve at the bottom, normal hub, matt black with power button next to power cable

Oh, it's a normal one then. So I have to pay the £30 if I want 30mb? If I stay on 20mb will my bill still go down by £1.50 a month?

TIA.

[Dareos]

Don't think it will change bud, but I aint customer services and my knowledge of the packages and offers is limited, best bet is to give them a call and talk nice to them

[BeeP]

My mate recently got one, he has been moaning ever since.

Apparently the wireless is "flaky at best" & his XBOX360 won't connect, according to him.