The New 5x Hub (different than the standard 5Hub)
Hi everyone, I hope this information can be helpful for others as it took me over a week and more than 20 calls to Virgin support to finally resolve the issue.
After residing at my property for over 10 years, I was thrilled to learn that Virgin Internet was now available in my area. Without hesitation, I signed up for the 1Gig plan as soon as I saw the Virgin engineers working nearby. During the sign-up process, I informed the sales representative about my struggles with weak Wi-Fi signals in certain areas of my house. They assured me that with my chosen plan, I would be eligible for free Wi-Fi booster pods.
After the broadband installation by the engineer, we tested the Wi-Fi signal and, as expected, it didn't reach the areas where I needed it the most. The engineer advised me to contact Virgin support, assuring me that they would send out the booster pods. Unfortunately, despite placing the order for the pods four times over a span of 2.5 weeks, every time I called, I was informed that there were no pod orders associated with my account.
Feeling frustrated, I decided to conduct some further research and attempted to use my own Wi-Fi extenders. To my surprise, I discovered that the 5x hub does not have a router mode, which was an essential feature for my needs.
I contacted Virgin support once again and explained the situation, mentioning that I have the 5x hub. It turns out that the technical teams have not received training on this particular hub yet and are unaware that the pods are not compatible. Each time I ordered the pods, they were automatically canceled by another department.
Here are some key details to keep in mind:
- The 5x hub is different from the 5 hub.
- The 5x hub is connected via optical cable, not coaxial.
- The new routers currently do not have a router mode (at the moment).
- Not all support team members are aware of this information when providing assistance.
- Wi-Fi extender pods are currently unavailable (at the moment), likely due to the router mode issue.
- 5x Hub not compatible with the virgin connect App
- This 5x hub is a trial hub and they are giving customer this without telling them. (Well never told me)
For now, I have placed the router in the middle of one of my rooms to ensure a signal reaches my office. I remain hopeful that Virgin can address this situation, rectify the pod availability, and enable router mode functionality. Unfortunately, switching to the standard 5 hub is not feasible for me since the cables running to my house through BT ducts are optical-only.
I find myself in a rather inconvenient situation, but I'm optimistic that Virgin will resolve these issues soon.
If any Virgin Techs read this please give me a update or a time scale???
1. I am assured by VM that modem mode will eventually be available on the hub5x with a firmware update, but at present VM want to test it out for ‘normal’ users.
2. The pods also require a firmware update to the hub to make them work, but that has nothing whatsoever to do with modem mode.
3. You should have definitely been advised that it was a trial and also given access to the ‘trial’ part of the bulletin board. (Unfortunately I cannot access this trial board, but if I could I may have been able to give a better answer to your concerns.)
You best option is to wait for a member of VM staff to get to your post to assist.
Do not think of buying a mesh system until modem mode is available, but there are many good WiFi access points that are not mesh and would help with your current WiFi problem.
