Forum Discussion

JLX25's avatar
JLX25
Joining in
7 months ago

Ordering Wi-Fi Pods

Hi All,

In a couple of rooms in my house I'm getting WiFi speeds below 30Mbps and I get frequent drop outs where no internet is being picked up at all. I've been through the instructions on the VM connect app, and trawled the website but can't find how to order a WiFi pod to try and improve on the situation I'm having.

I'm an M125 fibre customer, and believe that as part of the WiFi guarantee, a first pod is free of charge. Is this correct and if so can someone please advise on how to get one ordered?

  • Gareth_L's avatar
    Gareth_L
    Forum Team
    7 months ago

    Hello JLX25

    Thanks for your first post on our community.

    Sorry to hear about the problems you're facing ordering a pod. 

    Before we look into this for you, Were you able to follow the advice given above by jbrennand?

    If so? can you please let us know if you need any further assistance?

    Gareth_L

     

  • JLX25's avatar
    JLX25
    Joining in
    7 months ago

    I'm continuing to have problems daily. I have had engineers visit twice to try and resolve this, once to replace the original hub3 I was provided with, and the second time to alter some cabling in the street. Neither of which have permanently resolved my issues.

    At this point I'm unsure whether Wi-Fi signal is the issue as although I'm getting some low readings from the VM Connect app, but then moments later the speeds will be fine again. It's problematic even getting speed tests run due to seemingly there being no internet connection there, even though my mobile device is connected to the Wifi, and the signal strength is full. I have noticed that disabling and reenabling Wifi on my mobile device sometimes can get it working, but then it will fail again moments later - sometimes deferring to my mobile data which is incurring me additional data charges when I am sat in my own home! This is especially frustrating when working from home as I'm having to deal with flaky connections.

    When I run broadband tests using the My Virgin Media app, it tells me to reboot the hub EVERY time. I have done this dozens of times and it does not resolve the issue. Complete factory reset has also not helped.

    I have read numerous threads on these community forums about the hub3 being unreliable and not fit for purpose and this is the experience I am having so far since coming to Virgin from Sky. The Sky hub I used previously served my modest home absolutely fine and I had little to no issues with it at all.

    Do I need yet another replacement hub, further checks running on the cabling into/out of the house, or a Wifi booster pod? I'm at a loss where to go next with this. All I know is that I'm extremely disappointed by the service as a new customer and feel like its extremely difficult to get the help that is needed.

    • John_GS's avatar
      John_GS
      Forum Team
      7 months ago

      Hi JLX25 

      Thanks for coming back to the thread. We're sorry it's not sorted. 

      We've ran a diagnostic today and can see no issues, all the levels are in spec for you and there's no area outages.

      Pods are only free on the Volt packages and 1GB ones. Otherwise it would be £8 per month to add them, see more here - https://www.virginmedia.com/wifi-max

      The router has been up for over 20 days, can you do a full reboot for me. Then go round all your connections, making sure they are finger tight. 

      Then leave it a day and pull up your stats by logging in to the router;

      Post up your Hub/network connection details and someone will check to see if there is a problem there.  In your browser’s URL box type in http://192.168.0.1 (or http://192.168.100.1 - if in modem mode) (DONT click these links) - and hit return. No need to log in - just click on the “Router Status” icon/text at bottom-middle (Hub3/4/5) or top/right (SH’s) - of the Login page.
      Then… Navigate to these “data pages” and just copy/paste the normal “Formatted Text” (not images) 3 FULL sets of data onto here – 2 tables from the Downstream, 2 from the Upstream, & the Network Logs pages. Don't worry too much about the formatting it can be easily read & DON’T include personal data or MAC addresses - blank them out - if you copy/paste the data, the board software will do this for you (you may need to click the "submit" button again). If character limits are “exceeded” - just do two posts

      Also, If you haven’t already, set up a free, secure and “offlsite” - “Broadband Quality Monitor” to continually monitor the state of your connection and record any true network dropouts , latency issues, packet drops, etc - it will thus allow you to differentiate between those and simple wifi dropouts. It does it 24/7/365 and it keeps a visual record of any/all of your network disconnections, useful data to have to match to the Network logs (in your Hub settings) and also in discussions with VM - note it will take a few hours to start seeing a sensible picture - post up the “link” to the “share live graph”. Click the lower link (Share Live Graph) then, click generate. Copy the text in the Direct Link box, beware, there may be more text than you can see. On here click the Link icon (2 links chain to the left of the camera icon) In the URL box paste the link you copied and then click OK
      https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

      (Credit to Jbrennand for the above, thank you)

  • JLX25's avatar
    JLX25
    Joining in
    6 months ago

    Hello.

    My issues seem to have worsened over the last week or so, with not only frequent disconnections from mobile devices around the home but also the hub frequently rebooting/recycling, or simply not being available on an evening/first thing on a morning. The checks using the Virgin app simply won't work with no connection present, there are seemingly no issues in the area and reboots/factory resets don't seem to resolve the issue in any kind of permanent way. I'll post the logs from the router status page however this seems to only display the last couple of days information.

    Downstream bonded channels

    Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID

    1330750000140256 qam25
    21387500004.338256 qam1
    3146750000438256 qam2
    4154750000440256 qam3
    51627500003.940256 qam4
    61707500003.740256 qam5
    71787500003.538256 qam6
    81867500003.238256 qam7
    91947500002.938256 qam8
    102027500002.738256 qam9
    11210750000238256 qam10
    122187500001.738256 qam11
    132267500001.538256 qam12
    142427500000.538256 qam14
    15250750000038256 qam15
    16258750000-0.538256 qam16
    17274750000-0.238256 qam18
    183387500000.938256 qam26
    193467500000.538256 qam27
    203547500000.438256 qam28
    21362750000138256 qam29
    22370750000140256 qam30
    233787500000.438256 qam31
    24386750000-138256 qam32



    Downstream bonded channels

    Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors

    1Locked40.3120
    2Locked38.9280
    3Locked38.970
    4Locked40.3210
    5Locked40.350
    6Locked40.350
    7Locked38.940
    8Locked38.960
    9Locked38.920
    10Locked38.950
    11Locked38.9130
    12Locked38.960
    13Locked38.940
    14Locked38.920
    15Locked38.960
    16Locked38.9150
    17Locked38.950
    18Locked38.960
    19Locked38.940
    20Locked38.9140
    21Locked38.960
    22Locked40.370
    23Locked38.9190
    24Locked38.900

    Upstream bonded channels

    Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID

    13659999142.5512064 qam3
    22360002442.5512064 qam5
    33010001242.5512064 qam4
    44310001942.5512064 qam2
    54960002444512064 qam1



    Upstream bonded channels

    Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts

    1ATDMA0000
    2ATDMA0000
    3ATDMA0000
    4ATDMA0000
    5ATDMA0000
  • JLX25's avatar
    JLX25
    Joining in
    6 months ago

    Network Log

    Time Priority Description

    14/08/2024 09:32:56noticeLAN login Success;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    14/08/2024 04:02:38criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    14/08/2024 04:01:7criticalReceived Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    14/08/2024 03:59:56criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    14/08/2024 03:59:56criticalUnicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    14/08/2024 03:59:36criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    14/08/2024 03:59:36criticalUnicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    14/08/2024 03:58:57criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    14/08/2024 03:58:56criticalUnicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    14/08/2024 03:58:37criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    14/08/2024 03:58:36criticalUnicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    13/08/2024 23:26:46criticalReceived Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    13/08/2024 23:25:36criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    13/08/2024 23:25:36criticalUnicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    13/08/2024 23:25:16criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    13/08/2024 23:25:16criticalUnicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    13/08/2024 23:24:56criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    13/08/2024 23:24:56criticalUnicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    13/08/2024 23:24:37criticalNo Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
    13/08/2024 23:24:36criticalUnicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

     

    • Steven_L's avatar
      Steven_L
      Forum Team
      6 months ago

      Thanks for coming back to us JLX25, I can see an issue with your connection that will need to be resolved by an engineer visit. I can arrange the appointment from here but would need to confirm a few details via a private message, that I will drop over in a moment. Please look out for the private message and we can get started.
      Kind Regards,
      Steven_L