Virgin Media Community

[davefoy]

We've just built a new house, we're waiting on our final install from Virgin.

At the time we designed the house and planned the electrics we were misinformed by who we bought the plot from that the only broadband supplier was Virgin, so we only wired our house for Virgin.

It later turned out Openreach (BT etc) also supply the area. So because of that we have no standard Cat 5/6 running round the house to RJ45 data points in any of the rooms (to my regret).

We never wanted Virgin for the TV anyway, just fibre broadband, although we have since decided to have the TV service as well.

We were told by our house builder that with Virgin the same wall plate / socket handles both TV and wired broadband, and that we'd just need to wire Virgin coax cabling round the house to a single socket at each point in the house we wanted TV or broadband (or both). Our local Virgin new build development guy also told us that the same cable handles both TV and broadband. 

So that's what we did - Virgin coax cable is hanging out of the wall in a point in most rooms where we'd want either TV (like the living room) and/or be able to wire into the internet (like my office/study).

However, a couple of conversations with friends and a search on the internet has me worried that actually, all these open sockets in the house with Virgin wires hanging out of them, ready to be connected soon, are only going to be good for connecting the Virgin TV box to. If we wanted to connect devices to wired internet we'd also need a standard ethernet socket as well, wired through the house to the Virgin router.

Is that true? Or will our single Virgin sockets really handle both TV and internet (i.e. we'll be able to plug both TV and ethernet cables from devices into them)?

I hope that makes sense, trying to explain what I mean clearly. 

Thanks for your help.

[japitts · Accepted solution]

A single co-ax connection can either feed a TV box or a cable-modem hub, but if you want multiple bits of equipment in the same location, then VM will need to install splitters.

As far as the broadband goes, co-ax feeds the cablemodem/router - and then you connect the Ethernet cables to the Ethernet ports on said router. Whether you use the free router VM supply, or have your own router, and a single Ethernet cable from the modem to your router - that's something else to decide.

[jem101]

@davefoy I’m afraid yes you would need to run Ethernet cable and sockets to wherever you think you might need network connectivity. What you were told about the coax cabling was correct but confusing. By ‘internet connectivity’ and TV, then the coax cable does carry both but either to the VM hub for internet or a TV box.

Basically a single coax cable comes into your house at a convenient point, this is then split to wherever you want the devices to be, often a VM hub and TV in the living room and maybe additional TV boxes in bedrooms etc. To get wired internet access on a PC say, you need to run an Ethernet cable from wherever the hub is to the PC. You can’t use the coax cables for connecting Ethernet devices.

You might find if investigating or it might be suggested to you that a technology known as MoCA (multimedia over coax) can do this. Technically yes it can but it is very uncommon here, used more widely in the US, you need powered converters connected up and I suspect VM will take a dim view of anything else other that their kit being connected to their network.

Unfortunately you are going to either have to run Ethernet around the house or simply rely on WiFi.

[nodrogd]

MoCA uses 850 to 1500 MHz, so overlaps the frequencies used by VM. The two would therefore need to be kept well separated to avoid interference with VMs network.

[davefoy]

@nodrogd - That's good to know. I think I'd avoid that option in that case. Thank you.

[davefoy]

Thank you so much @jem101, that makes perfect sense. As I suspected. 😬

Just to make double sure I have this straight...

As I mentioned, we currently have Virgin coax wired round the house coming out of holes in different rooms, ready for engineers to install the wall plates soon. The intention was for these to be TV and/or data points, but I now know better after being misinformed.

For any room we might want to put a VM TV box, we can keep those coax points in place to connect to a TV box if we so wish.

And also wherever we want to put the hub/router, the coax goes into that too.

Then, anywhere we currently have Virgin coax sticking out of the wall where we won't ever want to put a TV (like my office), we could attempt to run Cat 6 to to those points instead and pull the coax out altogether.

And finally... if we're running Cat 6 round the house, we might as well put one or two ethernet sockets next to where the Virgin coax cable currently sticks out so we can optionally add wired ethernet devices near to where the TV is (e.g. an Apple TV unit).

Does that sound about right?

I'm speaking to the electrician who wired the house up later about how we might be able to run Cat 6 through the existing ducting in the walls. Do you know if there are any issues with interference between Cat 6 and Virgin coax running close together, by any chance?

Thanks again!

[jem101]

@davefoy yes that's all right - one advantage though of what you have done is that it would be easy to move the hub or TV box (I say TV box because there are a couple of different models in use) to different rooms or expand to multiroom TV in the future if you wish. No problems running the Coax close to CAT 6 cables, both are properly shielded to block interference. Personally, if you are having it done anyway, I'd have multiple ethernet sockets in each room, the wall plates and cable itself is cheap compared to the labour of installation 

Decide where the VM hub is going to live and if you intend to rely on it for WiFi or install your own provision The best would be ceiling mounted access points with ethernet cabling back to a central location. The VM hub only has four ethernet ports so if you want more devices connected then you'll need a switch. Incidentally, where does the coax you have had installed run to? From each room to a central location?

So, if it were me, I'd run ethernet from each room back to some convenient location and fit a 16 or 24 or even a 48 port gigabit, Power over Ethernet switch (the PoE might well come in useful later on). If you are installing your own WiFi provision then put the VM hub there as well otherwise put the hub where you want it to go and connect it by ethernet back to the switch. In the future, if you do decide to get a better wifi provision then look for PoE capable access points and just connect them to a ethernet point is a room, no mains supply needed as the PoE switch can power it. Similarly if you wanted to fit security cameras, say, these are often PoE capable as well and just need plugging in - fewer wires, not reliant on wifi and much more reliable.

[davefoy]

Thanks again @jem101! I'm getting clearer, though still confused on a few details.

If I could ask a few more questions please...

I've just now emailed the original electricians (they didn't give us the dodgy advice, just wired the house following the plans), I suggested we add 2 ethernet sockets alongside each current VM socket. I'm *hoping* there might be a way to run Cat 6 cable through the same ducting... I'll see what they say.

Each coax cable currently runs to the same point, coming out in our hallway (where we also have our electric meter, etc). There are 6 of them, cos we have 6 Virgin sockets/holes around the house. They all come out near the front wall where our Virgin line comes in from the street.

I can't get my head round what those coax cables will connect to though? Is that the hub? Or something the engineers will fit (is that the brown box you see on the outside of new builds)?

We have 6 Virgin sockets/holes, so if we added 2x ethernet sockets next to each of those we'd need 12 ethernet connections to the hub? If so, we're definitely going to need a 16 port gigabit PoE switch.

The ethernet cable would all come out in the same place as the VM coax, I reckon. So the gigabit switch would also need to be there? And we'd also put our VM hub in that same place too, if we had something else handling routing?

We currently have a couple of Netgear Orbi mesh network devices that have handled routing/wifi in our previous non-Virgin houses. I just turn off wifi on the ISP's supplied router and let the Orbi handle it instead. It's usually better coverage and signal across the house.

Will that set up work with Virgin's hub? If so, I'd just put the VM hub along with everything else in the hallway (cos no need for it to be in a central location for better wifi coverage)?

And also, would it work with the switch? Would the VM hub connect to the switch and then connect the main/master Orbi router to the switch also (not the hub)?

I don't know if I could also manage ceiling mounted wireless access points wired to the switch, cos it's already going to be a huge pain retrofitting the ethernet sockets at those VM wall points. Maybe the wifi mesh network would be acceptable? It's not a huge house. I was looking into https://eero.com the other day as an alternative.

Once again, huge thanks for your time and patience with all my questions. I wish I'd have asked these questions before the house was planned and built, instead of blindly accepting what I was told. Hindsight is wonderful eh?! 🙂

[Tudor]

Must be wired like this:

VM hub (in modem mode) ——-> First Mesh unit (in router mode) ———> Network Switch ————> other Mesh units.

I would advise the Mesh units are all connected by Ethernet cables as you have them installed, they then actually just become wireless access points.

My configuration is essentially the same as above, but I use a business grade router and access points. My VM hub and router is located under the stairs.

For info when you come to put the hub 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

Note: this only needs doing once for each new router or VM changes your WAN IP address.

[Adduxi]

I would only add a suggestion to use Cat 6a cables as it has more shielding. Especially as the OP is running alongside VM co-ax and possible mains wiring.