Virgin Media Community

[Sandbourne]

I have been a Virgin customer for more than 15 years. I previously had 2 Tivo boxes (downstairs in Lounge and Living room) . They were both connected to the VM externally  via a splitter to provide VM Tv to the 2 V6 boxes!

I also had the 2 Tivo boxes  (both on the ground floor) connected to eachother via a long (10m) Ethernet cable so that I could watch programs from either boxes in both rooms. This worked fine.

I also had Virgin broadband (200mg speed) - the router was located on the first floor ( which was connected to a separate VM external box outside - different to the one on the ground floor supplying TV services).

I recently upgraded to the oomph bundle. This gave me 500mg broadband and upgraded the 2 Tivo boxes to 2 V6 boxes.

The engineer used all the existing cabling that was already there - Except he connected the 2 V6 boxes wirelessly ( even though I had the Etthernet cables already wiredbup between the 2 rooms). This works fine. However we are getting worse wifi connections now (with 500mg broadband comparedbto 200 before). I wondered this might be because the 2 V6 boxes were also using the wifi to "talk to eachother".

I tried to (instead) use the ethernet to connect the 2 V6 boxes. But I am unable to watch programs from the the other box. This worked with the Tivo boxes - why is this not working with the V6 boxes? Nothing else has changed!

I would prefer yo use the ethernet connection between the 2 V6 boxes  - Not wifi. Can anyone help?

[Jake_S]

Hi,

The V6 boxes are designed to communicate via the hub as they do not contain their own modem and rely on the hub for internet based services, usually we would connect the V6 next to the Hub via Ethernet and the one in another location via WiFi you could instead connect both to the Hub via Ethernet to each V6 connecting them to each other directly will do nothing.

Hope this helps
Jake
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a Virgin Media Field Technician. All and any advice given is based on my experience in the field or my personal experiences with my own set up at home. If my answer was helpful to you please Mark as helpful or consider leaving the post some Kudos.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Want to save £50 off your bill by referring a friend? Send me a PM and I'll let you know how!

[Sandbourne]

Thanks Jake.

Is this why my wifi (for other devices) is slower than it was before (when I had 200mg broadband compared to 500mg now)?

Would this improve if I put the hub next to the first V6 box on the ground floor and connect both V6 boxed to the hub.

I have a 3 storey house ( ground, first and loft extension). The reason I put the hub on the first floor was to get wifi evenly throughout the house - I have always had there.

If I move the hub to the ground floor then I might have poor wifi upstairs ( particularly in the loft). As I said earlier wifi is already an issue currently - probably because of 2 extra devices (V6 boxes) using the hub. Am I right? if so any solutions?

[Jake_S · Accepted solution]

Hi again,

Yes relocating the Hub would likely cause worse WiFi reach as it sounds like you have it in the best spot currently with regard to the speed I would think the 2 V6 wouldn't affect that but obviously they will be adding to the draw on the bandwidth available, if you can run Ethernet from the hub to the V6 then do so (not sure how far from the hub each of your boxes are based on you stating before that you had a long Ethernet lead between the old TiVo boxes you could re-purpose this to connect one of the V6s) otherwise I would say as long as both V6 boxes can connect by the 5GHz band then they should communicate well, if not it might be worth looking at a power line to connect via Ethernet at each end or mesh system to improve coverage within the property. 

Hope this helps
Jake
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a Virgin Media Field Technician. All and any advice given is based on my experience in the field or my personal experiences with my own set up at home. If my answer was helpful to you please Mark as helpful or consider leaving the post some Kudos.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Want to save £50 off your bill by referring a friend? Send me a PM and I'll let you know how!

[Eeeps · Accepted solution]

All the other comments on this thread are valid - especially the 5G band for Wi-Fi - as long as the signal levels are good.

One other thing, however, did you get a change to your Internet hub when you upgraded? What did you have and what now.
This may be the cause of your changes in Wi-Fi speeds.

For the V6 sharing, this should work over Wi-Fi or Ethernet, did it work before you connected the cable?

What happens when you try to play recording from one box to another?

[Sandbourne]

Thanks for your very useful replies.

The router was HUB 3

The 2 TiVo boxes do connect via the WiFi - and I can watch programs from other boxes. However the WiFi on the rest of the devices is affected (worse than before when I had slower speed). Hence the reason to see if I could take the load off the WiFi.

The hub is too far away from the V6 boxes - so impossible to connect via Ethernet.

I therefore get WiFi blackspots. As you mentioned the solution might be a power line of a mesh.

Will the power line work if all my 3 floors are on separate circuits (separate connection for each floor to the consumer unit). I had read somewhere that (and believe that a Virgin engineer had also confirmed) that the Powerline adapter will only work if they are connected on the same circuit. IS THIS TRUE? If this works then I would require 2 Powerline extension - 1 for the ground floor and 1 for the loft (the router on 1st floor).

If I was to explore the Mesh option - then any recommendations of which ones are good?

Thanks in advance for your expert responses.

[Czarcasm]

I have tp link powerline connecting my V6 upstairs and it works fine. As long as the circuits all connect to the same consumer unit then powerline is good to go. Obviously my downstairs circuit is separate from the ring main for upstairs and all is good.

[Jake_S · Accepted solution]

Hi,

Yes unfortunately to use power lines both the Hub and the areas that you need to improve connection must be on the same ring main (same circuit back to consumer unit) being that your hub would be on a separate ring its unlikely getting power lines will work in your property as efficiently as you would need and so I would lean toward a mesh system to rectify the WiFi black spots. With that in mind with mesh systems the cheaper ones are not worth going for Netgear have the ORBI system with lots of different kits depending on your needs but they are relatively pricey but i have come across a number of customers who use them with great success in medium - large properties obviously I would recommend looking into it yourself to be able to make the right choice on what suits your property and needs.

Hope this helps
Jake
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I am a Virgin Media Field Technician. All and any advice given is based on my experience in the field or my personal experiences with my own set up at home. If my answer was helpful to you please Mark as helpful or consider leaving the post some Kudos.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Want to save £50 off your bill by referring a friend? Send me a PM and I'll let you know how!

[Sandbourne]

looks like the mesh system is my main option.

Any recommendations from others who have them installed?

i have browsed at TP link M5 or M9 plus.

Any thoughts on these or others?