Problem with Virgin Media

first78

I wonder if anyone can offer any advice. I moved house just over a week ago, as I was with Virgin for phone,tv and broadband at my last property I called them and arranged to have everything carry on at my new property.

A guy from Virgin came out the day after we moved in. There were a few points in the house that had clearly been where the previous owner had tv and internet and I said we weren't sure where we wanted the computer. The guy said that everything needed for the tv,phone and internet was in the living room and that he could fit a hub that would give us wireless internet access so we could use the coimputer anywhere in the house, all he said we would need to do was buy a receiver and a dongle which would be straightforward to set up.

Well I spent £50 on a wireless router and a dongle and could not get it set up to work. I called Virgin who were less than helpful and in the end called an independent guy out who got me connected but there seems to be virtually no signal so 9 out of 10 times my connection fails.

I tried moving the hub the Virgin guy fitted to another point in the house but for some reason it doesn't work. I called Virgin again and was told I could plug the computer into the hub...not at all convenient as it's right by the tv.

All I want is for someone to come out and move the hub that was fitted to another part of the house but when I call Virgin they seem to just try and find solutions over the phone, or they have said a call out would cost £99!!! Being as they never checked the wireless signal when they initially installed the hub I am appalled at their customer service. Does anyone have any advice or can anyone advise me if I would have to pay to switch providers as I'm on a 12 month contract. Thank-you.

kwikbreaks

If you have a VM hub then you didn't need the wireless router because the hub is a modem and router combined. All you would need is WiFi dongles for any computer that don't have WiFi built in.

The VM hub needs to be connected by coax to the VM cable box on the wall so no you can't just move it around the house and you should have arranged with the installer where you wanted it.

Getting telephone support to set up your wireless connections is pretty much par for the course - no ISP is going to send somebody out to do it for you.

There should be a 30 day satisfaction guarantee for new customers but as yours was a house move I don't know - best bet is to phone and ask if you can cancel because you aren't satisfied.

spike7451

The reason the hub won't work on the other points is they have been disconnected in the Onmi box,(the box on the outside wall of the house) which is standard practice if they are not to be used.As for the Hub you bought,VM will not support any equipment not supplied by them. (come to think of it,most ISP's are the same)
One of the reasons is simply because the are so many different types,makes whatever of router,modem,dongle,hub ect out there on the market that for an ISP to provide tech support for them would be impossible.(and I've first hand experience at this working for Sky Broadband)
Partly your own fault 'first78' as you hadn't decided where you wanted the hub installed nor did you have any wireless dongle,the installer probably provided you with the best advice he could under the circumstances.
Because you hadn't decided where you wanted the PC on the install,a call out charge is normal as this is an additional service after the install,nor does the installer have the facility to test your internet connection if you don't have the kit at the time of the install.
The is/was a 'seven day fail' against any installer where any issue had to be fixed free up to seven days after the job was done,but you say it's over a week ago that it was dont so you're out of it.
Sorry to be blunt but I've been to so many service calls in order to fix something that's not broken,ie..customer get's a new TV & want's it tuned in ect.Each one has been a £50 call out charge.

first78

kwikbreaks wrote: »

If you have a VM hub then you didn't need the wireless router because the hub is a modem and router combined. All you would need is WiFi dongles for any computer that don't have WiFi built in.

The VM hub needs to be connected by coax to the VM cable box on the wall so no you can't just move it around the house and you should have arranged with the installer where you wanted it.

Getting telephone support to set up your wireless connections is pretty much par for the course - no ISP is going to send somebody out to do it for you.

There should be a 30 day satisfaction guarantee for new customers but as yours was a house move I don't know - best bet is to phone and ask if you can cancel because you aren't satisfied.

It was the guy from Virgin that said I would need to buy a receiver and dongle so I'm not happy that in fact all I actually needed was the dongle. If they had told me in advance I would need this I would have bought it so they could test the connection.

first78

spike7451 wrote: »

The reason the hub won't work on the other points is they have been disconnected in the Onmi box,(the box on the outside wall of the house) which is standard practice if they are not to be used.As for the Hub you bought,VM will not support any equipment not supplied by them. (come to think of it,most ISP's are the same)
One of the reasons is simply because the are so many different types,makes whatever of router,modem,dongle,hub ect out there on the market that for an ISP to provide tech support for them would be impossible.(and I've first hand experience at this working for Sky Broadband)
Partly your own fault 'first78' as you hadn't decided where you wanted the hub installed nor did you have any wireless dongle,the installer probably provided you with the best advice he could under the circumstances.
Because you hadn't decided where you wanted the PC on the install,a call out charge is normal as this is an additional service after the install,nor does the installer have the facility to test your internet connection if you don't have the kit at the time of the install.
The is/was a 'seven day fail' against any installer where any issue had to be fixed free up to seven days after the job was done,but you say it's over a week ago that it was dont so you're out of it.
Sorry to be blunt but I've been to so many service calls in order to fix something that's not broken,ie..customer get's a new TV & want's it tuned in ect.Each one has been a £50 call out charge.

I only bought the receiver and dongle as I was told by the bloke that came out I would need to buy both, so clearly he's not that good at his job.

I also suggested that we might want the computer upstairs where there is a point for the computer but the installer said that it was easiest to fit it all in the same place as there were points all together in the living room for tv,phone and internet.

I have never had a wireless connection before now so had no idea that I would need any additional equipment. I think it's pretty poor that I was not advised of this. I don't see why I should now have to pay £99 for someone to come out just to make another point in the house active so I can use the computer on a wired connection.

spike7451

Problem is as it's over a week,then it's classed as a maintenance call & 99% of the installers are contractors.An cable service can't be installed in a room because you 'might' put the computer,TV there.The are factors such as signal levels,possible interference from unterminated connections that prevent that.
When I worked for NTL/VM,we were not allowed to work on a customers computer unless they signed a waiver or,in the case of installs,paid extra for a 'managed instal'.
Also the contractors/installers don't carry equipment to test wireless connections.

Is the box upstairs like this;
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/altisuk/fm/isolator.jpg
If so,open the grey box outside,you should see a splitter;
http://mediacables.co.uk/shop/images/esi-02n.jpg
You should see a wire disconnected from the splitter.remove the 75Ohm cap from the splitter & connect the wire up.Now move your modem upstairs but screw the 75Ohm cap onto the male F that you removed the cable to the modem from.
http://www.in-home-network.co.uk/ekmps/shops/technetixltd/images/pa029.jpg
That should make the connection upstairs live.

Basil1234

i take it you are on about problems with wireless on the virgin superhub if so there are problems with it which virgin have recongised with a sort of solution to improve the wireless and they are working on some new firmware to sort out a range of issues out in may some time.

anyway read http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-50Mb-broadband/Super-Hub-FAQ-Updated-25-02-11/td-p/247111

also i would try and check see what wireless channels are free where you are range from 1 to 14 as if loads on say channel 6 and you on same channel can cause hassles to say the least.

HappyIdiotTalk

Also Virgin's network is a mess at the moment (check out their support forum, there are lots of very frustrated and angry customers). Which means the equipment you have in your home may be working perfectly, and the problems you see could simply be manifestations of things happening further afield on VM's network.

To test this, download and install PingPlotter Pro. Then set the following settings on the left:

Address To Trace = https://www.google.com
Trace interval = 1 second
# of times to trace = unlimited

Then click the TRACE button.

PingPlotter will then find all the hops* between you and Google and start pinging** them. PingPlotter uses the replies (or lack of them) to calculate statistics about the health of your connection.

Leave your PC on and let PingPlotter do its stuff. Double click all the hops that end in virginmedia.net or virginmedia.com (under DNSName) too see a graph. Red is packet loss, and packet loss is bad. If the jitter line is all over the place thats bad too. If you have problems figuring it all out, feel free to click FILE > SAVE SAMPLE SET and send me the sample file. I'll take a look here and let you know what I think.

* Each hop is a piece of equipment that routes traffic between networks.

** A ping is technically known as an echo request. Imagine standing in front of someone and constantly saying 'Hello'. In a healthy network you should get a response to every single ping sent. In a congested network, echo requests are dropped or lost and these are shown as red spikes in pingplotter.