Virgin Media Community

[Hayley1804]

Hi,

We have the Virgin Hub3 in study at the front of our house and have recently put a cabin in the back of our garden which is about approx 150 feet away from the Hub 3.

My husband has connected a cat5 cable to the back of the Hub3 and there is a Ethernet connection point now in the cabin.

We have tried powerline boosters but they don't work, not sure if Hub3 is to far away or the electric is on different circuit in the cabin then rest of the house.

So...we have gone out and brought a tp-link AC1750 router to put in the cabin so we can have wireless and wired internet connection up there. I'm assume I plug an Ethernet cable into back of new router with other end going into the wall connection of the cat5 cable. 

Apologies but really have no expertise in all this, as you can probably tell!! Posting here as haven't taken new router out of the packaging yet, wanted to check on here if it's what we need before I do.

Thanks

[NathanHouse]

The ethernet connection point in the cabin - what is it connected to? In that what network connection goes into the back of the ethernet connection.

The tp-link AC1750 router may be overkill as you may end up creating another network and the complications that will bring (such as the network sharing being blocked)

Consider something like "TP-Link TL-PA411KIT 500Mbps Nano Powerline Ethernet Adapter Home Plug Twin Pack" about £20 off eBay. Plug one end using Ethernet cable to your Hub 3 and the electric, then plug the other plug in the cabin, pair them up and you should have a wired connection in the cabin. You can either use the wired connection to a PC, or connect a Access Point to it to extend your network. This is what I use to connect different parts of my house.

[het69]

Yes, but turn off the DHCP server on the new router and connect the cable to a LAN port (not the WAN/Internet port).

[Hayley1804]

Thank you both for your replies....

Answering first question...

“My husband has connected a cat5 cable to the back of the Hub3 and there is a Ethernet connection point now in the cabin.”

2nd reply...I’m sorry but don’t know what you mean...I’m not sure what a WAN or LAN is? We have tried to link power lines and they don’t work.

As ive said above we have run a cat5 cable from back of the Virgin Hub, this runs up the garden, then goes into the cabin and has, for want of the proper term a connection/access point an Ethernet cable could go into.

Can I plug the new router into this? 

Thank you.

[MrHalfAsleep]

The WAN port provides you with the connection to the internet; the hub3 provides you with this.  On your other router there is also a WAN port; this isn't connected as the Virgin Media network won't recognise it.

Assuming you just have a cat5 wire in your cabin the TP router needs to plugged into the mains in the cabin. Plug the cat5 (cabin end) into the TP router (any port will do, but not the WAN port mentioned above).  DCHP will need to be switched off on the TP router and set it up to be on a static IP address.

More details are available here: https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Forum-Archive/Using-a-Router-to-extend-wifi-network/td-p/324033... and here: https://www.hanselman.com/blog/ConfiguringTwoWirelessRoutersWithOneSSIDNetworkNameAtHomeForFreeRoami...

The IP addresses will be different, but once done, you will be able to have both wired and wi-fi connections in the cabin HTH.

[NathanHouse]

There is no WAN Ethernet port on the back of Hub 3 (not on mine anyway), so mention of LAN\WAN is confusing the lady.

“My husband has connected a cat5 cable to the back of the Hub3 and there is a Ethernet connection point now in the cabin"

The Ethernet connection point in the cabin - by this do you mean the other end of the ethernet cable, in that one end of the cable is in the back of the Hub 3 and the "Ethernet connection point in the cabin" is actually the other end of this cable? If this is what you mean by connection point (its not really a connection point, but an end of a cable?) then yes plug that into the router (the blue coloured one - see https://www.tp-link.com/uk/products/details/cat-9_Archer-A7.html) and it'll work from a connectivity perceptive.

However you'll need to login to this new access point (the router you purchased) to configure it as you have extended the connection of your network, but not configured the new wireless network which is what you will have created. Though there could be a default wifi access details within the documentation of the router - they have a useful set-up video at: https://www.tp-link.com/uk/download/Archer-A7.html

[DreamOfCheese]

It's actually the blue coloured one that everyone else is specifically telling her not to connect it to as that's the WAN port.

For the purposes of extending the wired and wireless network all that needs to be done is the cabin end of the cable from the Hub being plugged into one of the orange/yellow LAN ports on the TP-Link after making sure DHCP is disabled on the TP-Link and that it's been set to an IP address on the same subnet as the Hub.
After doing that set the SSID and wireless network password to match the Hub.