Multiple routers in a house

[Monchi]

Hi, I am going to be moving in with somebody later this month and they are currently using Sky. However, I want a reliable internet connection and therefore have bought the Gig1 Fibre package.

Is it possible to have both the Sky connection for the person that is already living there, and will continue to live there, and have another wire put in for the VM connection (So both are running at the same time, in the same house)?

She wants to remain on sky due to her package she gets with the TV, which is fair enough. I don't want to disrupt that, and therefore when placing my order, I've booked an engineer so they can put down a new wire to the house if that's required at all. 

Could anyone give insight if this is actually possible please? And if a new wire would likely need to be installed, to maintain the sky connection, and the VM connection I have just bought.

Thank you.

[jem101 · Accepted solution]

What you are asking for is perfectly possible, the VM connection uses it’s own cabling, so they will need to run new cables in but that wouldn’t effect the existing Sky connection in any way.

But, do make sure that if and when this happens, you are there and watching what the installer does - there have been more than one report on here of a VM installer cutting the Sky cable so as to avoid drilling another hole in the wall!

One last thing, you say you wanted a reliable internet connection, so you bought a VM one Gig package? I’m saying nothing….

[Monchi]

Thank you for the answer! Answers everything perfectly.

Yes, I want a reliable, and fast connection. I play and download quite a lot of games, while streaming movies in the background (while they download). I also work from home, so having reliable and fast internet is quite important. The package was quite cheap actually! But, the main point of it is that when friends are wanting to play a new game, they don't wait hours for me to download just as they have been, since all their connections are fast too. Haha.

Thanks again for the answer!

[Andrew-G]

If you jointly plan to keep the Sky broadband alongside the VM connection, then there shouldn't be too many problems, although the cheap routers that both Sky and VM provide might squabble a bit over wifi channels.  You might get round this by setting the Sky router (if you can) to only use 2.4 GHz, and the VM hub to manual settings and only allow it to use 5 GHz.  

If the plan is to cancel the Sky broadband and use the VM broadband then especially if there's a new cable required, do not phone to cancel the Sky broadband until after the VM connection is in and has been working successfully for at least a week.  If you search this forum for the topic "delayed installation" you'll see why.  Here's a starter for ten.  Relying on VM's promised dates is unwise - if you give notice to cancel the Sky broadband where the end of service is around the date of a promised VM installation, then if the VM install gets delayed you may have no connection at all. 

And as jem101 hints at, VM at its best tends to be modestly worse than an Openreach connection at its best, due to the underlying technology, and that's because what you want for playing games or indeed Teams or other video call uses is not bandwidth (speed) but consistent low latency (ping).  Every company I've ever worked for, when staff have trouble with remote connections, question number one from the IT Helpdesk is always "Are you trying to connect using Virgin Media?"  When VM works well you should have no problem, but any marginal noise or power difficulties with VM connections tend to show up as erratic latency, which rarely affects speed, but can be bad for gaming, or for work calls and online meetings.