Am I screwed? Virgin is my only option

spalpeen

Hi,

Where I live, Virgin is the only option. I signed up with them originally and the wifi was so bad, at 1gb which is the highest speed, that a simple video woulndt buffer. I didn't troubleshoot but just canelled.

I tried sky/digiweb/eir and they all come in through a box on an esb pole, and so a line would need to be brought over multiple people's gardens to get the line into the place, so that wasn't an option.

I was then advised to get eir copper, but the technician who came said there is no box in the house and they aren't allowed to bring a wire up from a box downstairs in a common area.

Am I screwed? What are my options?

1. Sign up with virgin again and troubleshoot with them? It's not fibre in my area. Unsure if this will help?
2. Use phone data - this hasn't worked well so far
3. What else is out there? I might need to get creative. What about dongles etc, starlink is something i also dont understand

theintern

It doesn't sound like you have done much troubleshooting on Virgin.

Is the problem the same if you plug into the box directly over Ethernet?

Have you tried doing a scan of the wifi frequencies in use around you? There are apps that can do this. You mention a 'common area' so maybe there's a lot of wifi networks around you and they're all on the same channel? You can change the channel that wifi uses in your wifi router and it may help.

If the Virgin provided wifi router is truly that bad, then you could always buy and use your own wifi router instead to improve wifi performance.

I'd be troubleshooting Virgin rather than looking at satellite or copper for sure. You have access to a connection that a lot of people would die for. I'm sure you can make it work.

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123893894#Comment_123893894

Thank you. My only concern is I would have to sign up and then troubleshoot and then cancel all over again. Any idea how likely the troubleshooting is to be successful? I am sceptical. The common area is apartment hallway which provides access to other apts.

XsApollo

Virgin will supply you with extra hubs free of charge if the wifi isn't acceptable with just the router, which it more than likely wont be.

We had the same, 1 gig plan and the wifi was crap , got the hubs free of charge and sorted, mesh wifi hubs and they work great.

Explosive_Cornflake

The wifi was so bad, at 1gb

You're making a fundamental error in mixing up WiFi and Internet.

When you wired something to the virgin modem directly what was the result?
Wifi within the house is 100% something you can control. If the speed is fine at the modem via wire, you have an issue you can solve, and TBH another provider is not going to solve that.

user060916

Ask your neighbors if they're with Virgin and what speeds they get.

If they're good, sign up again and troubleshoot

pjdarcy

A colleague of mine just got Starlink. He said it was very easy to setup and he's getting a download speed of 280Mb/s

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123893930#Comment_123893930

It's true that I don't understand the details well. I bought a 1gb package and turned the modem on. It was right beside the TV which I connected. Then it barely worked. Is this still a sign that I can benefit from troubleshooting/extra hubs?

Explosive_Cornflake

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123894057#Comment_123894057

you want a laptop, and any RJ45 (standard network) cable.
Disable wifi on the laptop and test via speetest.net and fast.com

There's plenty to check after that.

As above though, see what your neighbors are doing.

The phrase "It's only as strong as the weakest link" is so true in networking, and there's a lot of links. Some are virgin media's, and some are yours.

Do not go to copper though via Eir.

spalpeen

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123894113#Comment_123894113

Ok I will sign up again and try all that.

Copper isn't an option here anyway

Flinty997

Historically the Wifi equipment VM supplied want very good. The actually wired connection was very good.

The solution used be turn off VM WiFi and buy your own Wifi equipment. I use a MESH with mine.

Explosive_Cornflake

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123894163#Comment_123894163

Do post back on the thread and I'll give you a hand to test

dub45

it’s important as a first step to establish what speed is reaching the router from VM. The only way to do this is to connect your laptop via Ethernet cable to the router. However more recent laptops may not have an Ethernet port so you may need a usb to Ethernet adapter. It’s also important to check the capacity of the Ethernet port on the laptop. Older laptops may not have a a Gigabit Ethernet port. You should also try and find out the spec of the WiFi card in your laptop. This will tell you what speed you are likely to get. Especially with older laptops, the WiFi card can be a limiting factor.