Ordering Wi-Fi Pods

[JLX25]

Hi All,

In a couple of rooms in my house I'm getting WiFi speeds below 30Mbps and I get frequent drop outs where no internet is being picked up at all. I've been through the instructions on the VM connect app, and trawled the website but can't find how to order a WiFi pod to try and improve on the situation I'm having.

I'm an M125 fibre customer, and believe that as part of the WiFi guarantee, a first pod is free of charge. Is this correct and if so can someone please advise on how to get one ordered?

[jbrennand]

See my reply on another thread here..

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Networking-and-WiFi/Ordering-Wi-Fi-Pods/td-p/5546675

[Gareth_L]

Hello JLX25

Thanks for your first post on our community.

Sorry to hear about the problems you're facing ordering a pod. 

Before we look into this for you, Were you able to follow the advice given above by @jbrennand?

If so? can you please let us know if you need any further assistance?

Gareth_L

[JLX25]

I'm continuing to have problems daily. I have had engineers visit twice to try and resolve this, once to replace the original hub3 I was provided with, and the second time to alter some cabling in the street. Neither of which have permanently resolved my issues.

At this point I'm unsure whether Wi-Fi signal is the issue as although I'm getting some low readings from the VM Connect app, but then moments later the speeds will be fine again. It's problematic even getting speed tests run due to seemingly there being no internet connection there, even though my mobile device is connected to the Wifi, and the signal strength is full. I have noticed that disabling and reenabling Wifi on my mobile device sometimes can get it working, but then it will fail again moments later - sometimes deferring to my mobile data which is incurring me additional data charges when I am sat in my own home! This is especially frustrating when working from home as I'm having to deal with flaky connections.

When I run broadband tests using the My Virgin Media app, it tells me to reboot the hub EVERY time. I have done this dozens of times and it does not resolve the issue. Complete factory reset has also not helped.

I have read numerous threads on these community forums about the hub3 being unreliable and not fit for purpose and this is the experience I am having so far since coming to Virgin from Sky. The Sky hub I used previously served my modest home absolutely fine and I had little to no issues with it at all.

Do I need yet another replacement hub, further checks running on the cabling into/out of the house, or a Wifi booster pod? I'm at a loss where to go next with this. All I know is that I'm extremely disappointed by the service as a new customer and feel like its extremely difficult to get the help that is needed.

[John_GS]

Hi @JLX25 

Thanks for coming back to the thread. We're sorry it's not sorted. 

We've ran a diagnostic today and can see no issues, all the levels are in spec for you and there's no area outages.

Pods are only free on the Volt packages and 1GB ones. Otherwise it would be £8 per month to add them, see more here - https://www.virginmedia.com/wifi-max

The router has been up for over 20 days, can you do a full reboot for me. Then go round all your connections, making sure they are finger tight. 

Then leave it a day and pull up your stats by logging in to the router;

Post up your Hub/network connection details and someone will check to see if there is a problem there.  In your browser’s URL box type in http://192.168.0.1 (or http://192.168.100.1 - if in modem mode) (DONT click these links) - and hit return. No need to log in - just click on the “Router Status” icon/text at bottom-middle (Hub3/4/5) or top/right (SH’s) - of the Login page.
Then… Navigate to these “data pages” and just copy/paste the normal “Formatted Text” (not images) 3 FULL sets of data onto here – 2 tables from the Downstream, 2 from the Upstream, & the Network Logs pages. Don't worry too much about the formatting it can be easily read & DON’T include personal data or MAC addresses - blank them out - if you copy/paste the data, the board software will do this for you (you may need to click the "submit" button again). If character limits are “exceeded” - just do two posts

Also, If you haven’t already, set up a free, secure and “offlsite” - “Broadband Quality Monitor” to continually monitor the state of your connection and record any true network dropouts , latency issues, packet drops, etc - it will thus allow you to differentiate between those and simple wifi dropouts. It does it 24/7/365 and it keeps a visual record of any/all of your network disconnections, useful data to have to match to the Network logs (in your Hub settings) and also in discussions with VM - note it will take a few hours to start seeing a sensible picture - post up the “link” to the “share live graph”. Click the lower link (Share Live Graph) then, click generate. Copy the text in the Direct Link box, beware, there may be more text than you can see. On here click the Link icon (2 links chain to the left of the camera icon) In the URL box paste the link you copied and then click OK
https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

(Credit to Jbrennand for the above, thank you)

[JLX25]

Hello.

My issues seem to have worsened over the last week or so, with not only frequent disconnections from mobile devices around the home but also the hub frequently rebooting/recycling, or simply not being available on an evening/first thing on a morning. The checks using the Virgin app simply won't work with no connection present, there are seemingly no issues in the area and reboots/factory resets don't seem to resolve the issue in any kind of permanent way. I'll post the logs from the router status page however this seems to only display the last couple of days information.

Downstream bonded channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) SNR (dB) Modulation Channel ID

1	330750000	1	40	256 qam	25
2	138750000	4.3	38	256 qam	1
3	146750000	4	38	256 qam	2
4	154750000	4	40	256 qam	3
5	162750000	3.9	40	256 qam	4
6	170750000	3.7	40	256 qam	5
7	178750000	3.5	38	256 qam	6
8	186750000	3.2	38	256 qam	7
9	194750000	2.9	38	256 qam	8
10	202750000	2.7	38	256 qam	9
11	210750000	2	38	256 qam	10
12	218750000	1.7	38	256 qam	11
13	226750000	1.5	38	256 qam	12
14	242750000	0.5	38	256 qam	14
15	250750000	0	38	256 qam	15
16	258750000	-0.5	38	256 qam	16
17	274750000	-0.2	38	256 qam	18
18	338750000	0.9	38	256 qam	26
19	346750000	0.5	38	256 qam	27
20	354750000	0.4	38	256 qam	28
21	362750000	1	38	256 qam	29
22	370750000	1	40	256 qam	30
23	378750000	0.4	38	256 qam	31
24	386750000	-1	38	256 qam	32

Downstream bonded channels

Channel Locked Status RxMER (dB) Pre RS Errors Post RS Errors

1	Locked	40.3	12	0
2	Locked	38.9	28	0
3	Locked	38.9	7	0
4	Locked	40.3	21	0
5	Locked	40.3	5	0
6	Locked	40.3	5	0
7	Locked	38.9	4	0
8	Locked	38.9	6	0
9	Locked	38.9	2	0
10	Locked	38.9	5	0
11	Locked	38.9	13	0
12	Locked	38.9	6	0
13	Locked	38.9	4	0
14	Locked	38.9	2	0
15	Locked	38.9	6	0
16	Locked	38.9	15	0
17	Locked	38.9	5	0
18	Locked	38.9	6	0
19	Locked	38.9	4	0
20	Locked	38.9	14	0
21	Locked	38.9	6	0
22	Locked	40.3	7	0
23	Locked	38.9	19	0
24	Locked	38.9	0	0

Upstream bonded channels

Channel Frequency (Hz) Power (dBmV) Symbol Rate (ksps) Modulation Channel ID

1	36599991	42.5	5120	64 qam	3
2	23600024	42.5	5120	64 qam	5
3	30100012	42.5	5120	64 qam	4
4	43100019	42.5	5120	64 qam	2
5	49600024	44	5120	64 qam	1

Upstream bonded channels

Channel Channel Type T1 Timeouts T2 Timeouts T3 Timeouts T4 Timeouts

1	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
2	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
3	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
4	ATDMA	0	0	0	0
5	ATDMA	0	0	0	0

[JLX25]

Network Log

Time Priority Description

14/08/2024 09:32:56	notice	LAN login Success;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/08/2024 04:02:38	critical	No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/08/2024 04:01:7	critical	Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/08/2024 03:59:56	critical	No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/08/2024 03:59:56	critical	Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/08/2024 03:59:36	critical	No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/08/2024 03:59:36	critical	Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/08/2024 03:58:57	critical	No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/08/2024 03:58:56	critical	Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/08/2024 03:58:37	critical	No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
14/08/2024 03:58:36	critical	Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/08/2024 23:26:46	critical	Received Response to Broadcast Maintenance Request, But no Unicast Maintenance opportunities received - T4 time out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/08/2024 23:25:36	critical	No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/08/2024 23:25:36	critical	Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/08/2024 23:25:16	critical	No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/08/2024 23:25:16	critical	Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/08/2024 23:24:56	critical	No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/08/2024 23:24:56	critical	Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/08/2024 23:24:37	critical	No Ranging Response received - T3 time-out;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;
13/08/2024 23:24:36	critical	Unicast Ranging Received Abort Response - initializing MAC;CM-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CMTS-MAC=**:**:**:**:**:**;CM-QOS=1.1;CM-VER=3.0;

[JLX25]

Here is a link to the live BQM monitor which I've had running for a couple of weeks now.

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality/share/c1e9861e1e6bcb2437168be33e84cdfe12... 

[Steven_L]

Thanks for coming back to us JLX25, I can see an issue with your connection that will need to be resolved by an engineer visit. I can arrange the appointment from here but would need to confirm a few details via a private message, that I will drop over in a moment. Please look out for the private message and we can get started.
Kind Regards,
Steven_L