Hi Lawrence,
No problem at all, i know what its like waiting for answers from posts! so when I am on and can offer some of my knowledge, then I will do so.
I have recommended so many friends and family to Virgin Broadband over the years and been with them for such a long time, but the Hubs are just the worse thing they have ever made. With technology being such a huge thing now, how they can release these systems with such poor results is beyond me.
I too (like most of the UK.....and EU!) been at home the last few weeks and on furlough from my own company and we have a full on house and to be honest we have put up with poor wifi and streaming to mobile phones 4G in bedrooms most of the time as we have unlimited data and since being at home we have had to reshuffle our finances due to lack of income (or none at all since March 1st!....so keeping fingers crossed after furlough) giving me time to reflect that I am actually paying for a service I don't actually receive ! so with endless forums, chats, youtube videos and the answer is to 100% ditch the router in the hub and turn the hub into Modem mode only and bring in a separate Router or a mesh system.
The one i linked too is what a friend has and he gets good broadband from - BUT dont forget their is a lot better on the market.
One that is getting HUGE reviews from Virgin users in the Amazon system Eero. If you have 200-350mb broadband then this will be perfect and read the reviews - its off the scale, so many saying how great it is....and it does NOT look like something from starwars next to you hub!
LINK
Note that if you do hard wire into your hub at the moment, using your hub in modem mode will disable this - so look at getting this: LINK
Cables, I would look at Cat 7 now, yes Cat 5 and 6 will work, but to future proof yourself.... go Cat 7. LINK
Have fun !