Virgin Media Community

[jamieww]

Hi,

I have just joined virgin (today) & have found the wifi range to be appalling. 

I have various wifi products throughout the house, echoes, dots, smart plugs & bulbs & along with the usual pc, laptops, mobiles & consoles.

Previously I was using EE (standard hub) along with powerline adaptor for the consoles & laptops & was able to run every wifi product without issue.

I changed to virgin to get the fiber speed 512mbps, previously I was getting around 35-60mbps).

I know its the 1st day but between dropouts with items not automatically reconnecting (even though all setup to do so) & various wifi bulbs, mobiles & plugs not getting strong enough signals to actually work correctly.

I am already regretting the move, luckily I still have my EE hardware & line activated until monday, so I can switch the items with bad wifi to that as a short term measure but that defeats the issue.

The powerline adaptors for the consoles, TVs & desktops work fine.

I also find it extremely annoying that walking from one room to another causes dropouts where the only way to reconnect is to completely disconnect the mobile device settings & disconnect completely before reconnecting. 

Is this normal for virgin??

Any ideas or solutions greatly appreciated (which won't cost yhe earth) as currently I am seriously considering cancelling the whole lot & going back to the slower EE or similar based on BT infrastructure. 

Many thanks 

Jamie

[Andrew-G · Accepted solution]

This is pretty normal for VM, I regret to say - all VM hubs have weak wifi capabilities, and many have done what I have done, and that's invest in a mesh wifi system, and use the hub in modem mode.  You're looking at £100-130 for a three unit mesh wireless system from somebody like TP-Link, although plenty of other makes available.  Make sure any system has gigabit ethernet ports to avoid throughput constraints, even though your connection isn't a gigabit line (yet).  Even VM's latest hub, the Hub 4, has weak wifi, and VM cheaped out by failing to make it Wifi 6 capable to save themselves a paltry few quid per unit.

Depends if that additional expense is a deal breaker for you?  If it is, bail out now in your 14 day penalty free cancellation window (and as a personal opinion don't be swayed if VM's retention staff offer you free "boosters".  And if considering leaving and undecided, check out VM customer reviews in sites like ISPReview and Trustpilot.  Once that 14 day window slams, you're locked in for 18 months with huge early exit penalties. 

If not, read up some reviews on products like TP-Link Deco M4 (or M5, or M9), and search Tech Advisor website for mesh system reviews for other choices.

[jamieww]

Thanks for the info.

I had considered a decent router like the Asus RT-AX82U, orb rbk50 or similar but I didn't really want to be spending more especially when my EE router did the job (just slow connection as was only 54mb), it's crazy as the speed was the only reason for change as the kids gaming, streaming along with Netflix & amazon plus the various smart devices has allowed things down, so the 512mb (highest in my area), seemed like a food solution if it actually worked!

I'm not convinced I'm getting anywhere near 512mb either, speedtest.net showed just over 250mb, when only had a the hub 3 & one laptop attached (cable) with no wifi, so that's something else I need to look into over the weekend.. oh the Joy's of new ISP's and their promises!

[Andrew-G]

Low speed on an Ethernet device implies a faulty cable connection.  That could be power or noise issues that are easily rectified, it could be "over-utilisation" that can take months or years to get fixed.  And rarely, but seen sometimes, it can be an esoteric noise fault that VM throw resources at but never manage to isolate and fix despite months of frustration.  And the speed issue is separate from the wifi range and performance problem.  There's a few tweaks can be made to the Hub's setting to optimise wifi, but even then it remains mediocre.

I suggest you  phone the slow ethernet speed in as a fault, and take the opportunity to judge the company's response for yourself, but remember that 14 day cancellation period runs from the date the service was originally installed.

When VM works it is fast and fairly reliable (although less reliable than Openreach), but you can't do much to contact the company on-line, and if you actually need to speak to anybody for any reason it can be unbelievably frustrating.  The offshore first line support is particularly poor.  I've had good and bad customer experience from a range of companies over the years, and VM are by far the worst.  I've had excellent customer service even during Covid from call centres for people like Pepsico and Kwik-Fit, VM seem intent on making the whole customer contact as miserable as possible so that people don't bother.

When it works and you don't need to speak to anyone, it's great!  How's that for a ringing endorsement?  

[jbrennand · Accepted solution]

Good advice from Andruser, but can you do the speedtest with the exact protocol below just to check whether you are getting full speeds delivered to the Hub - report back what that gets.
-------
As you expect >100Mbps then connect a 1GB enabled computer/laptop, with up to date drivers, via a known good and working Cat5e (or better) ethernet cable, directly to the Hub which you have put into “modem mode” (see VM website for “How To”). Test at speedtest.net (not the App!) to your nearest VM server - try on 2 different browsers.

If they are still low – boot the device into safe+networking mode and try again.

There are many posts on here where unknown/flaky software, old network card drivers, corrupted browsers or other connected devices are limiting speeds on tests.

[jamieww]

Thank you, I will retest the router today, I'm definitely not happy with thingscygecway they ate.

It seems I can't even walk from my living room (where the router is) into the room next door without the connection dropping & even if I return it doesn't seem to auto reconnect as every other router I've ever had did, the settings say it's set to auto reconnect. The only way to get back online with wifi is to turn the wifi off on the device & turn back on (even then its hit & miss, mainly miss!). I've tried with various devices including a Note8, P30pro, P40pro, 2 laptops & a Tab4 - all seem to have the auto reconnect issue, very frustrating!

I'll run the speedtest as you suggest & at least it will hopefully show my actual internet speed at the router.

Thanks for your input

[Katie_WT]

Hi there @jamieww, 

Welcome along to our Community and Virgin Media family and for your first posts to our Forums - I was sorry to understand that you've been having issues with your WiFi range since joining us. 

How are things since your posts earlier this month? Have you gone through the checks that our users have advised? I have located your account from your Forum information and all seems to be looking ok this end - your hub was rebooted recently and all signal levels are within the parameters we would expect for your package. No errors or area faults are showing whatsoever. 

We can see however that a couple of devices may be to close to the hub and that this could be wasting valuable bandwidth. This could then impact other WiFi connections. 

If you're still having issues, please don't hesitate to pop back and we'll do what we can to assist you further. 

Cheers

[jamieww]

Absolutely rubbish wifi from router.

Setup one device by cable & great speeds, but with the smart plugs/bulbs/switches, Alexa's & mobiles it slows everything down.

The router is away from all other devices & made very little difference. 

I've bought tp-link P9 & m4r setup (not cheap!! & have tried in router mode, with VM hub3 in modem only mode & ap modes - with VM hub 3 as router - this works best for powerline sharing) which gives me better throughput via their powerline & mesh wifi... but my old ee hub reached everything & never lost connection. 

I'm still not happy with the setup & if I'd know VM wifi was this bad I'd never have changed.

Will see over next week

[sayekm · Accepted solution]

The wifi hardware of VM is far behind compared to other ISP.

Option 1. Go back to EE with good wifi and capped speed around 65mb

Option 2. Invest in your own hardware and stay with VM and get 500mb.

If you dont need the 500mb and can manage with EE speed its a no brainer.

[Katie_WT]

Thanks for the update @jamieww please do keep us posted over the next week.