Virgin 1Gb now available.

alec76 wrote: »

Wouldn’t it better for you pay someone to setup such expensive equipment?

Yes you're absolutely right. You available?

It's not that expensive if it lasts 10 years. Previous Apple AirPort Extreme, Time Capsule, Express system cost the same and lasted 10 years. It was true plug and play and the only thing I had to change was bridge mode on the router. Its been that long since I have had to dabble in such stuff so excuse me if I come across as a total plank, I resemble that comment! :-)

This Orbi thingamajig has the reach and range, but I just need to figure out how to get the speed through it. We have the devices to use the speed.

Re Fast and Speedtest I always found Fast to be the more accurate as it wasn't affiliated with service providers, but things must have changed.

ronoc wrote: »

1 GB is available in my area but I already have Vodafone FTTH.

Virgin works out cheaper but I had a terrible performance with them before.

Would it be worth switching ?

If you're unhappy with Vodafone switch to any of the other providers which can run over your GPON FFTH (AirWire, etc.)

Switching to Virgin from GPON FTTH is a massive downgrade, optical technology is far superior to the DOCSIS coaxial technology employed by Virgin for the connection into your house.

New box arrived yesterday but I didn't switch over till this morning. Setup and change over to modem mode was quick enough and my speed tests are looking ok. Pings seem are the same ~7ms. Upload is ~50mb (no change, as expected). Downoad tests (wired) are showing ~900. Let's see how this goes. Router is an Asus AC5300 (merlin firmware).

Ok so my problems have been sorted!

I was on whatsapp support most of the day yesterday and they concluded that there must be a line issue and a technician was booked for today.

One thing they did notice was that the system was reporting i had the 500mb package only.

I noticed this was strange when i logged into my virgin media it said i had no services.

They switched this to the 1GB package on their system and i noticed this morning my ring alarm system didn't have any dropouts during the night.

When i login to MyVirginMedia now i can see 1GB package and see download and upload statistics etc i didn't see any of this before

I rang them this morning and they did some tests and said the line all looks clear now as i have noticed so we cancelled the technician.

I think when the router is trying to provision itself it tries to see what package is on your account and there was a mixup somewhere?

I am not sure how this has solved the problem but everything is working perfectly now and i have a stable 1GB connection

I have been testing this since 7am and have not experienced any dropouts or issues where as yesterday they happened every hour.

denisor wrote: »

Did you get this router from Virgin Media Ireland? I got the Arris TG3492LG-VMIE

I think he means that's the main router he's using and the VM router is in modem mode.

Same business for me today - On hold for an hour to 1908 and then call dropped. 3 calls like this - unbelieveable!

DecTenToo wrote: »

Apologies for the lack of clarification.

Yes, my VM hub is the Arris TG3492LG-VMIE.

I have it in modem mode only connected to my router (the AC5300) which is handling Wifi, firewall, ad-blocking, stats and logging. I'm using the merlin firmware with this with some extra packages.

Gotcha!

Did you have any issues changing to modem mode? I changed mine to modem mode today and after it rebooted I had no internet via ethernet (Virginmedia wont discuss it as they dont support this mode)

DecTenToo wrote: »

No. Not at all. Swapped out the original hub this morning, connected the new one, and followed instructions to make a cup of tea. Came back after 20 min or so and all the updates were done.

I directly connected to the hub from my PC via network cable, logged in and changed it over to modem mode.

A reboot followed and I connected my Asus router to the box, rebooted the router to make sure, and all was working fine.

Ok thanks thats all striaght forward, I will try it again here and see how it goes.

Tempora wrote: »

Would love to see some BQMs (broadband Quality Monitor) from people with the new modem/package/etc.

Here's my BQM from yesterday on the new Arris TG3492LG-VMIE:



And here's a day from back when I was using the Cisco EPC3925:



The spikes on the Arris coincide with times of the day I was having drop outs and issues with calls.

You can create your own monitor: https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

I got mine installed this morning:

No idea what happened at 3pm...

LoGiE wrote: »

The Orbi's are very easy to setup. Just follow the instructions

Also, make sure the options below are all enabled. They do make a difference.

They are found under -> Advanced Setup - >Wireless Settings

• Enable Implicit BEAMFORMING - Boosts WiFi speed, reliability, & range for all mobile devices
• Enable MU-MIMO
• Enable Fast Roaming

Regarding speed tests, I've found fast.com and speedtest.net to be about the same. When you see your connection speed going to 700mbps on Fast.com it's possible your seeing burst speeds from VM. They had a lot of issues with Netflix buffering a few years back and Netflix operates fast.com. Burstable speeds configurations are common on the business connections I've used from them over the years.

In any case, to push the connection, I just use the old fashioned way and download the 3 Debian DVD ISO's from heanet. Getting 93 MB/s over ethernet.

From my previous post connecting to the Orbi Router on the ground floor.

Speedtests (Fast.com Only)
Wifi Speeds to Samsung S20 Plus 627Mbps / 48Mbps
Wifi Speed to Laptop Macbook Pro 520Mbps / 49Mbps
Wired Speed to Laptop Macbook Pro 910Mbps/43Mbps

Tonight connecting to the Orbi Router on the ground floor.

Speedtests (Speedtest.net Only)
Wifi Speeds to Samsung S20 Plus 580Mbps / 47Mbps
Wifi Speed to Laptop Macbook Pro 563Mbps / 43Mbps
Wired Speed to Laptop Macbook Pro 930Mbps/45Mbps

Update for those interested. Spoke to Orbi Wifi6 Support last night and today.

Last night we tinkered with some Orbi settings to see if we could get more than 200mb from the Orbi Wifi (with 1gb VM pipe) changed chanels, reducedb MTU size, etc, but overnight saw no gains and kept getting no more than 200mbps on Wifi and Ethernet from the Orbi gear.

So today we did a full system factory reset, lost all settings, and then restarted Orbi Router first, and tested (940 mbps on ethernet), then satellites and tested one by one (getting 700 mbps on wifi), all together in the one room, and now have the mesh network running as expected (650-700 mbps on wifi), we then repositioned the satellites throughout house over all floors through concrete walls and insulated floors and the 700 mbps speeds are retained. Note this is not setup using cat6 cables as hardwired backhaul, this is completely wireless mesh, which is pretty impressive, (hardwired cat6 backhaul support will come in a few days)

Tomorrow I will deal with making the 1gb Virgin Arris Device work in bridge mode, as per Netgears advice, I assume this is modem mode? ie not router mode? I could not get this to work earlier today, when I did it nothing worked, wifi or ethernet ports, but I found some reports online that suggest rebooting the modem in modem mode with no ethernet cables connected is better otherwise the modem can get confussed and it will confuse wlans and lans...

Netgear support suggest we can get about 100mbps more from Orbi wifi if the VM gateway is set to bridge mode and then wired straight to Orbi.

Bare with me if I sound like a clown here, as I am also juggling some Airport and Network Printers in the house that need to be working 24/7 and a 10 camera CCTV system plus about 50 smart wifi plugs, plus 3 teenagers with phones, tablets and 4k game consoles, and any downtime creates alleged unnesesary hardship and misery for them and serious mental pain for me :-)

denisor wrote: »

Update for those interested. Spoke to Orbi Wifi6 Support last night and today.

Last night we tinkered with some Orbi settings to see if we could get more than 200mb from the Orbi Wifi (with 1gb VM pipe) changed chanels, reducedb MTU size, etc, but overnight saw no gains and kept getting no more than 200mbps on Wifi and Ethernet from the Orbi gear.

So today we did a full system factory reset, lost all settings, and then restarted Orbi Router first, and tested (940 mbps on ethernet), then satellites and tested one by one (getting 700 mbps on wifi), all together in the one room, and now have the mesh network running as expected (650-700 mbps on wifi), we then repositioned the satellites throughout house over all floors through concrete walls and insulated floors and the 700 mbps speeds are retained. Note this is not setup using cat6 cables as hardwired backhaul, this is completely wireless mesh, which is pretty impressive, (hardwired cat6 backhaul support will come in a few days)

Tomorrow I will deal with making the 1gb Virgin Arris Device work in bridge mode, as per Netgears advice, I assume this is modem mode? ie not router mode? I could not get this to work earlier today, when I did it nothing worked, wifi or ethernet ports, but I found some reports online that suggest rebooting the modem in modem mode with no ethernet cables connected is better otherwise the modem can get confussed and it will confuse wlans and lans...

Netgear support suggest we can get about 100mbps more from Orbi wifi if the VM gateway is set to bridge mode and then wired straight to Orbi.

Bare with me if I sound like a clown here, as I am also juggling some Airport and Network Printers in the house that need to be working 24/7 and a 10 camera CCTV system plus about 50 smart wifi plugs, plus 3 teenagers with phones, tablets and 4k game consoles, and any downtime creates alleged unnesesary hardship and misery for them and serious mental pain for me :-)

Thanks for posting all the info re: orbi wifi6. I'd love to buy as well as I'm sure it would beat the speeds coming from my deco m5. So your experience will help me decide one way or the other.

I'm just wondering if it could help improve my sky q mini in the kitchen which has significant drops and drives the other half mad.

What is the sq footage of your home? Mine is just around 1700 sq ft. I also have a huge back and side garden compared to most. Have you tested how far outside the house you can get decent enough speeds? Decent = 200mb. I can get 50mb at best once I'm outside.

So I did a factory reset last night (guess when):


And it is looking a lot healthier now. BUT when I attempt to log into the unit it doesn't recognize the default password from the bottom of the unit (or the previous one I had set it to)...

The reset worked as the SSIDs defaulted back and I get the "Hello - Please choose your language to continue." page... I will manually reboot before I do another reset.

Tempora wrote: »

I'd be very interested to see your BQM in a couple of days time. My testing so far has seemed to show that even a simple reboot gets the modem back to performing very well, but within hours the performance starts to degrade.

Yup, have noticed that too, started getting hourly drops again today, did a reboot and it stopped.

Tempora wrote: »

Out of interest does the modem page show a UPC logo? This is the issue I had too, for some reason after a factory reset, the modem sometimes decides it's a UPC modem and provisions itself with different settings (including default password).


I'd be very interested to see your BQM in a couple of days time. My testing so far has seemed to show that even a simple reboot gets the modem back to performing very well, but within hours the performance starts to degrade.

I hadn't noticed it, but yes it has a UPC logo in the top left... How did you "fix" the login issue?

FYI My image above is a link to the live image, so you will see it go bad when I do!!!

Tempora wrote: »

Factory reset roulette!


Just keep factory resetting it until you get the Virgin page. Anecdotal theory but you should plug all WAN/LAN out of it while factory resetting it and wait like 5 minutes afterwards before you plug back in and try to access settings. Seems like I always got UPC when I was hammering away at the refresh on the settings as it reset.

I have a horrible feeling that its gonna work really well in UPC mode and have issues in VM mode!!!