if I switch from consumer to business broadband...

[cybmole]

i understand that I get a different router, and that I lose the TIVO. both those things are OK

 The busines offer says that for 42 per month I can have a 350 speed broadband and a phoneline with unlimited calls

 it is not clear whether I can keep my existing  virgin landline number though and how I should go about arranging that.

 it is also unclear if unlimited calls included unlimited calls to UK mobiles ? which is what we have now on our VM phone

 if both those thinks can be sorted I would rather pay 42 than my existing 64, and lose the Tivo which we hardly use.

 i appreciate also the my various old blueyonder etc email addresses will probably die but how long do I get to migrate those ?. or should I work on that first, then do the swap later.

 i have most emails shifted to gmail but a few stragglers sill com in on blue yonder / virgin media addresses

I'd appreciate hearing from anyone who has done a similar switch, has to how smooth it is.

for the £50 install fee, I assume someone comes and actually swaps out and tests the new router, put is in same upstairs location as the current hub 3, and does not leave until it is working

[Dan100]

Of course with the 12 month deals you get whatever discount was offered for six months less...

[Cliffroamer]

Just bought a TP-link AC1750 router and was hoping to factory reset the Hitron router and put it into modem mode before it disables login and connect up my new router.  It did come back after the reset but still unable to log in.  Called Virgin Business support and they tell me that they have no remote access to enable them to put the router into modem mode.  What a joke, I now have to wait for an engineer to visit with yet another router.  I can't fathom how the technical help line does not have the facility to remote access the router.  I would never have migrated to Virgin Business if I had know about the Hitron router issues.

[cybmole]

i do wonder if there is anything non standard about your set up that could explain this. as it has happened with 2 devices now ?

 does windows see the hitron in "devices"- probably not actually - i just tried settings - device and I see all except my hub!

 but I do see it  in network, under network infrastructure

could anything else on our LAN be  using 192.168.0.1, and have you tried .... 100.1 also ?

 grasping at straws now but have you also tried both with and without the http prefix... Login to your Virgin Hitron router (http://192.168.0.1 

 i don't think it want https... but try everything !

 ps there is a similar problem thread, inconclusive, here

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/Failing-to-login-into-Hitron-Business-Rou...

PPS beginning to think I dodged a bullet by not movin to VMB.

a link in that thread above sends me to trustpilot where VMB have 91% 1 star reviews. [ on a large sample] I think that is the worst rating I have ever seen at trustpilot

[Cliffroamer]

After some sort of remote overnight data intervention from Virgin and with the help of someone from Virgin at the end of an email, I have finally managed to log in to the Hitron router and configure it for modem only mode.  After a reboot, the IP address is now 192.168.100.1.  I hope to god that this is the last time that I ever have to touch the thing.  My TP-link router is now plugged into the Hitron and at last I have a router that I can configure without the fear of a lockout.  The TP-link AC1750 has about as many options as I could possibly want, I can also log in remotely via an app.  My speed is still 384/10.  At last, eight days from first install I have what I should have got in the first place. Any one considering Virgin Business broadband should add into the price the cost of supplying their own router, in my case this was an additional £69. I hope that this brings an end to my woes and buyer beware , if you go for this business package make sure that you have the additional router ready on the day of install and get the installation enginerr to set the router to modem mode from the start.

[cybmole]

seems like good advice.

I don't suppose you know exactly what they did that ere-enabled login? the sufferers on the other thread I linked to would probably like to know...

 TBH , modem mode is something i could and maybe should do anyway. I already have 2 ( old but reliable)  ASUS routers which I have configured as access points.

 the one hassle that puts me off is that my addreses are all 192.168.0.xxx and the ASUS routers by default will want to use 192.168.1.xxx instead. So it would mean either tweaking that or changing   the static addresses I have in tablets and Nvidia Shield TVs. I have staic in android tablets so that I can force use of different DNS - the 2 features are linked and you can't have your choice  DNS unless you go to static. I like open DNS for its clickbait filtering options

 I noticed today, when VM did the "we are improving our network for you by turning it off or an hour" trick, that I could not use Plex Media Player to stream from plex libraries on the same PC , while internet was down. It was down for about 90 mins.at mid-day  . Plex really does not play nice with no internet. Neither do Fire TV boxes. Plex can cope if you set static server addresses but I avoid that on actual PCs because other network activities ( like copying files between PCs ) tend to then randomly fail with network path not found) . Again, that may be fixable if I had nothing better to do that wrestle with windows networking peculiarities.. Maybe my current set up would work, I got fed up of windows 10 PCs not seeing each other on LAN , when I had no passwords at all, so I added user accounts called shared with simple passwords and put the stuff I was most likely to need access to into shared folders. Once I trained each PC to access the other by using that user account, they  have been better behaved.

 I set my 2 x Nividiaz Shield Plex drives as named letter shared network drives on the PCs and again that works better than before, they are alwasy visible and no longer randomly vanish from network view

[Roger_Gooner]

Go for modem mode as resetting static IP addresses won't take long.

Do you have Android tablets? If so, Android Pie supports Private DNS which uses DNS over TLS to secure your queries (so unlike previous versions of Android it does not need to be configured for each new WiFi network). I'm experimenting with dns.adguard.com on my Samsung Galaxy Note phone which is working well, other options include one.one.one.one or 1dot1dot1dot1.cloudflare-dns.com.