Virgin Media Community

[kevinvram]

Hi everyone,

I have just joined Virgin Media, after being with BT for almost a decade, and I am afraid to say that i am beginning to regret that decision.

Firstly, my home phone (landline) can make calls, but cannot receive calls. And secondly, I cannot put the hub 3 into modem mode without it losing connection and the light turning red. 

I called VM today, and I after half an hour of diagnosis tests, and being repeatedly told that it "should be working"- they then ask me if i had a mesh network connected to my hub. I said I did, and then i was told that this may be the problem. Apparently, I wasn't suppose to connect my mesh network, or anything else (apparently), to the hub until "24 hours after the hub was installed", this is because the hub takes 24 hours to install updates. Doing so can void the warranty on my hub?!? Is this correct? The engineer told me, on the install day, that the box would be ready for me to connect to it within 2 hours, and that's the instruction I followed. What the customer service person told me sounds like hogwash. If that is the case, then I would never have made the leap to VM in the first place. 

An engineer is coming over, again, on Tuesday (4th) Jan. I suspect I have a faulty box, but the engineers and the phone support people should really be on the same page- I very much doubt my mesh modules are the reason for the landline problem (I mean how could it?), and I very much doubt that it takes 24 hours for the hub to update and for things to then be allowed to connect to it. 

What do you guys think?

[Richw1982]

If you have recently joined it can take 48 hours for your number to port over, so you will be able to call out but not receive until this has completed.  If you put the hub into modem mode routing will be disabled and you would need to use a 3rd party device for DCHP functions

[kevinvram]

So I should leave the hub in its original mode for a couple of days until the number has been ported over then?

[Tudor]

Bottom LED should be magenta, looks red to some people, when in modem mode, but you MUST follow this sequence to go into modem mode.

How to put a VM hub into modem mode:

1) Access your hub on 192.168.0.1, sign on and put it into modem mode. On the Hub3 the bottom LED will change to magenta. Best done from a wired connection.

2) Turn off the hub and disconnect any Ethernet cables

3) Fully initialise your own router or mesh master unit and make sure the WAN port is set to DHCP

4) Connect your router or mesh master unit to the VM hub with an Ethernet cable, Cat5e or Cat6, any higher specification is a waste of money

5) Turn on the VM hub.

6) You should now be able to access the internet and the hub will now be on 192.168.100.1

[kevinvram]

Ok. Thanks. When I put the box into modem mode it tells me it’ll restart and to wait 5 mins. Should I ignore this and turn the box off? Sorry for all the questions, I’m not that technologically minded so I need to do things in steps.

[jem101]

@kevinvram there are a couple of things here which need sorting, firstly the 'you must wait 24 hours otherwise it'll invalidate the warranty etc.' absolutely was, as you suspect a load of old rubbish (ie an outright lie) just to get you off the phone because the person you spoke to have absolutely no idea of how to resolve your issue. VM use on offshore call centre where the agents simply read off a script, possibly most of them have never even seen the equipment they are supposed to be supporting or indeed understand how it all works. This probably works in a majority of cases but as soon as someone calls up with an issue which isn't 100% supported by their script then it all falls apart and the agent, rather than admit defeat, or escalate it (and that's assuming there is anyone to escalate it to), is probably told to just make something up, get the annoying caller off the phone and chalk up another closed call.

Secondly, modem mode, the hub will reboot itself and come back up in modem mode, signified by the light being a sort of magenta colour but can easily be seen as red. Importantly, what equipment (router) do you have to connect to the hub and provide all of the routing functions? You mention being with BT and having a mesh system - is that the BT disks? Because they are a mesh WiFi system but not a router so they absolutely won't work with the VM hub in modem mode just on their own. Your would need another third party router and connect the disks to that.

[kevinvram · Accepted solution]

@jem101 Thank you for getting back to me- and Happy New Year to you. Sorry, I don't have a mesh 'router' system- it's the eero mesh wifi system (you see i'm not technically minded lol), which I have been told is compatible with the virgin hub. 

[Paulina_Z]

Hi @kevinvram,

Welcome to our Community Forums! Thank you for your post, and I'm sorry to hear that you're experiencing some issues with your landline and with your Hub 3.

Can you tell us if your landline issue has been resolved, or if you're experiencing some issues with being able to receive calls?

You are more than welcome to use the Hub 3 in Modem Mode through a third party router. However, please keep in mind, that if you experience any issues with your connection, we will ask for you to switch your Hub back into Router Mode, as we are unable to support third party equipment and can only see your Hub statistics and details when the Hub is in Router Mode. 

If you ever experience any issues, we recommend going through our Broadband Issues page or Landline issues page for more information.

We'll be here to help if needed.

Thank you.