Connecting Virgin TV to another Internet Connection (Load balancing)

[10gbnetwork]

Hi 

I have a few problems with the reliability of Virgin Broadband. I now have a load balanced connection (I use Unifi equipment at home to achieve this). I use 3 Mobile broadband to balance the connection / fail over if there is an issue with Virgin Media. My internet connection is now rock solid and as I use lots of home automation / work from home I can just about justify the cost. For instance broadband went down for a few hours in the area last Friday and I carried on working not even noticing 🙂

My only problem now is with the Virgin TV boxes. They are randomly not working as they insist on only working if they connect via the Virgin Media broadband connection. If they connect using 3 then I just literally 'get the bird' from the box. Displaying the broken wire picture. 

I called up Virgin media and after an hour and speaking to 3 people I just got the response that they could not help and suggested speaking to the forums. 

Has anyone managed to use Virgin Media TV with a load balanced connection? I can probably achieve this via some traffic rules but I ideally I just want the TV boxes to be able to continue to work regardless of 3 Internet or Virgin Media Broadband. Then when Virgin Broadband fails I don't need to worry about not being able to watch TV. 

Thanks 

Andy 

[nodrogd · Accepted solution]

The short answer is no you can’t. Virgin’s TV boxes work on an internal IP system that is only accessible from their own network. In other words they are using an intranet rather than any external connection. Hence they have to be connected through the Virgin hub to talk to Virgin’s local cable headend servers.

Whether you can watch TV or not will depend if the broadcast service down the cable is still operating. Live TV channels are delivered by DVB-C broadcast methods. Everything else (On Demand, Catch-up, App content, Updates & EPG) come via the Virgin hub from your local cable headend server systems.

[10gbnetwork]

Thanks for you help.
I will try and set traffic routing so the boxes only connect to Virgin Media. Little bit of a pain but... if Virgin Media wont make an exception no point in wasting my time speaking to them 🙂