Virgin Media Community

[SCA1972]

@chico123 So to be clear, you want VM to supply a router that can't be reset to defaults?  I'm not sure even the best parental control routers can stop someone physically resetting them.  The best I have seen is that some will alert parents by text or email that a reset has occurred.

You can set time limits on the PS4:

https://support.playstation.com/s/article/PS4-Play-Time-Management-for-Child-Accounts?language=en_US

You can set screen time limits on Android devices:

https://support.google.com/families/answer/7103340?hl=en

No parental controls are fool proof and many experts say that talking to kids and educating them about screen time is more effective.  If they can't be trusted with electronics then I hope they never discover anything more dangerous.

______________________
Scott

My setup: V6 TV box, M350 Fibre broadband with Hub 3 in modem mode connected to a Netgear R7000 router. Telewest/VM user since 2001.

[Anonymous]

Parenting is the answer. Its not a technical problem. If they are doing something they shouldn't or have been told not to. Punish them. If they are playing PS4 take the PS4. if they are spending to much time online take the phone/laptop.

[wideboy32]

This is a rediculous answer. It's difficult enough parenting kids but when they need devices for school or social engagement, it's even worse having to battle and remove devices from room day after day. It's tiring and is fine when they're small but when they get to those young teenage years, things get very difficult. As parents, all we're asking is for a media giant such as Virgin to add the ability via the portal, to set blocks on specific devices during certain times or limit amount of time in a period. They already do it for specific websites so I really don't understand why this can't be done at the account level? It should also be possible to have web safe set to specific devices as well. Just on or off is rediculous. And the Connect app is utter crap...takes so long and only being able to pause a device if it's already connected is just as tedious as physically removing a device. I'm an IT professional and I just don't understand why this would be so difficult to implement? Seriously considering leaving Virgin.

[DJ_Shadow1966]

Hello

One of the problems that is now en-counted is that both iPhones and Android devices have the ability to set a random MAC address everytime a device reconnect to the wireless, so therefore that device will get a different IP address each time so you will be forever chasing the device, as the hub use the IP address to implement the restrictions which ever is used.

Regards Mike

[wideboy32]

Then how about an option to put mine and my wife's MAC address in...and all others are limited to certain times. Seriously, my kids are great kids, but as a family we're battling with this addiction. Virgins option seems to be to buy a 3rd party router which has this functionality. My girls wouldn't have a clue how to change their MAC address anyway, but it would be far better than the limited options currently offered.

[用心棒]

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@DJ_Shadow1966 wrote:
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One of the problems that is now en-counted is that both iPhones and Android devices have the ability to set a random MAC address everytime a device reconnect to the wireless, so therefore that device will get a different IP address each time so you will be forever chasing the device, as the hub use the IP address to implement the restrictions which ever is used.
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AFAIK the MAC randomisation feature is per network, not every reconnect, and it can be turned off for specific network connections,

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[SCA1972]

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@wideboy32 wrote:

This is a rediculous answer. It's difficult enough parenting kids but when they need devices for school or social engagement, it's even worse having to battle and remove devices from room day after day. It's tiring and is fine when they're small but when they get to those young teenage years, things get very difficult. As parents, all we're asking is for a media giant such as Virgin to add the ability via the portal, to set blocks on specific devices during certain times or limit amount of time in a period. They already do it for specific websites so I really don't understand why this can't be done at the account level? It should also be possible to have web safe set to specific devices as well. Just on or off is rediculous. And the Connect app is utter crap...takes so long and only being able to pause a device if it's already connected is just as tedious as physically removing a device. I'm an IT professional and I just don't understand why this would be so difficult to implement? Seriously considering leaving Virgin.

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We get a lot of "IT professionals" around here that don't understand things.

The ease (or not) of implementing the level of controls you want is one part, cost is the other and probably larger consideration.  Who pays for these extra online parental controls?  Are you willing to pay for it as a bolt on service?  Or should everyone's bills go up to pay for it, even those without kids?

I'm curious which ISP are you going to move to that will provide the level of parental controls you are asking for?  I'd love to know so that we can point others in their direction when this question inevitably pops up again in the future.

While I am not a parent I know many people who are and they ask me for advice and guidance on many aspects of their broadband, but never about parental controls. Perhaps all their kids are feral, but they seem fairly well adjusted when I have met them.

______________________
Scott

[Anonymous]

its impossible for websafe to know what internal device accessed a website. It will only see a dns query from your public IP.

But as an IT professional you know that

[Anonymous]

"One of the problems that is now en-counted is that both iPhones and Android devices have the ability to set a random MAC address "

So does windows and Linux and I'm pretty sure Mac does as well

[wideboy32]

So the Sky Broadband Buddy looks like the sort of thing I'm looking for. As for the technical difficulties, yes I get that the public IP cannot differentiate single devices but could the router not add a header to distinguish the device? Ok, I admit I don't work on networks (mostly backend services and databases), but I don't think the industry should bury it's head in the sand. If it can't be done now, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be looked at in the future. Unplugging and removing devices from bedrooms every night shouldn't be the answer. But with any addiction, you need to be able to control it, which as a parent I can do in the day...but not in the middle of the night. Some people say switch the router off at night...but then we can't control our lights or heating. Yes I'm prepared to pay a little more extra for it. But I just don't understand why such a simple thing to set up on the router doesn't come as standard. I don't really want to buy another router just to set some time limits on my kids devices...but I'm looking now. Anyone got any suggestions for routers with this feature?