Hub3 and mesh networks

[smokie]

I had a hotchpotch of cheap Chinese repeaters which were giving me an adequate WiFi connection anywhere around the house. Amazon has he BT Whole Home Mini at 4 for £90 or similar a while back so I thought I'd "upgrade".

I now get quire regular occasions when my WAN connection is fine (proven on a wired device) and the WiFi is fine (proved by pinging other devices) but the WiFi connection reports unable to access he internet.

Is anyone else seeing this? I can find a number of threads about very similar occurrences some months back. It seems a problem was identified and new firmware was going to be issued for the hub but I couldn't see that anyone said that had fixed the problem.

I checked my firmware version and it's 9.1.1912.302, but I see .304 is now out. I called Virgin and after about an hour with two different people I got nowhere as they said they can't update individual devices. That has to be untrue, but the suggestion was to factory reset, which I am not about to do as I have a number of settings I'd sooner not lose ( - I've had experience of the backup not working).

I'm looking at putting a router in between the Virgin hub (configuring it as modem) to exclude it as an issue but I thought I'd ask first.

And to the guy who says the BT minis are rubbish, throw them away - I already read this a number of times and it isn't the answer I'm after 🙂

[Andrew-G]

@smokie You've said you don't want to keep throwing money at the problem, and we all understand that.  As @lotharmat has said, VM provide a basic wifi capable router, and that's the end of their responsibility, if it doesn't perform in your (or my) property then it is down to us to resolve that.  Unfortunately, I can't see any option that doesn't involve more money:

1) Upgrade (pay more) for Ultimate Oomph or Gig 1, and then request two or three pods (bearing in mind that you may have to jump though hoops to get your hands on two or more).  Work out how much that will cost over the 18 month contract, see if it makes sense to you.

2) Hub in modem mode, buy a competent mid price router (eg lotharmat 's TP-Link Archer C7, £50) and connect the BT disks to that.  Not a full blown mesh system, but the C7 will be far better than the underpowered Hub 3.

3) Hub in modem mode, buy a competent entry level mesh (plus switch if you need more ethernet ports), say a TP-Link Deco S4 (£100 + £15 for a switch) and sell the BT disks.

You can't get away from the problem that VM's hubs are mediocre routers designed to be adequate in undemanding use, with limited capability and buggy firmware.  The Hub 4 is little better in most respects, because the makers design these to be as simple and cheap as inhumanly possible.  Obviously some other ISPs offer better hubs (BT hubs have always had better wifi than VM hubs, Zen Internet hand out a rather splendid Fritzbox router), so you could switch ISPs if you're out of a fixed term contract.  Or when you phone VM to cancel, tell the retention agent it's all because of the poor wifi, but you'd happily stay if they can provide you with a couple of free pods at no extra cost, and see what happens then.  If you're in the middle of a fixed term contract, then you have no leverage, and with early termination charges you won't want to leave, so that brings you back to options 1-3 above.

[smokie]

Thanks.

I've been with Virgin since it was not Virgin in the late 90s so I am pretty knowledgeable about their kit and it has been fine for me until I put the mesh in. As I put in my first post, I used to extend the WiFi quite successfully with cheap Xiaomi WiFi extenders, though it was only 2.4 and wasn't especially quick, neither of which are too much of a problem for me.

I'm inclined to go back to my cheap and cheerful solution short term to ensure nothing else has changed. As has been said, I ought to be able to get a good price on the 4 disc system as there is nothing wrong with it per se, and I bought it at something under £100.

I am also realising that more recent Xiaomi phones may have a problem with the mesh but that's another story....

[Andrew-G]

Appreciate your Xiaomi phones may have a problem, but I've been through four different Xiaomi phones and encountered no problems with my TP-Link Deco.

Based on the discussion so far, I think you're back to the cobbled together system.  All I can say is that I was a bit concerned about splashing the money on a mesh system, in the event one of my best tech purchases ever, as it just works as the makers claim, faultlessly.