New router for Virgin Media

d0nkeyk0ng

I have VM fibre as it means no BT line rental. It's good until "too many" devices are connected and then it struggles. I have superhub 2ac which is meant to be pretty good as a modem but not as good as a router. There are some older devices that will connect at only 2.4Ghz.



I'm looking at buying a router that will connect to the virgin media hub (which will be in modem mode). Suggestions from the virgin media forums include: netgear r7800, R6400, R7000 or asus RT-AC3200, RT-AC5300, RT-AC66U, RT-AC87U.


I'd also want it to support VPN.



Does anyone have experience with any of these routers?

arciere

Why do you say it's not good a good router? Are you referring to the WiFi?

debitcardmayhem

Asus are good and may allow you to have a home VPN , but sure as a router only,

esuhl

Have a look at DrayTek routers too. I haven't checked for a while, but they've always been very-well reviewed over the years.

They're aimed more at businesses and are a little pricey, but if you don't need the latest model (probably not), you might be able to get a bargain on eBay.

I got mine for £9.99, and the only thing it lacks is 802.11ac wireless.

arciere

Apart from some (quite worrying, but promptly fixed) security flaws, Draytek are quite reliable and a good choice for the price, definitely a better alternative to Asus.

I personally have an old-ish 2860, but the WiFi comes from a UniFi device, so it's more than enough for what I need for now.

RumRat

Before you buy another router call Virgin and ask them for a new Hub3 and try that first, the one you have is ancient. The new one is dual band as well... Just turn of your router and tell them it's died. it may save you a few bob....If not, you won't be any worse off.
My Hub3 has at least 11 things connected at any one time and works great on WiFi.

cranford

The superhub 3 is dual band but you need to change the ssid for one of the bands to prevent auto assignment. There are reports on the virgin media community blog that the superhub 3 does not always work with VPN as the poster would like to use. Some VM customer have found a way round but it does not work for everybody.

that

d0nkeyk0ng wrote: »

I have VM fibre as it means no BT line rental. It's good until "too many" devices are connected and then it struggles. I have superhub 2ac which is meant to be pretty good as a modem but not as good as a router. There are some older devices that will connect at only 2.4Ghz.

There are a few issues, the first being more stations you have on wifi, the more clashes you get between the devices and this will cause a lower throughput.

then there could be a router issue where the nat table may only be able store a limited number of open connections and is often governed by router memory. The time to look up the nat list and do port type things is governed by the routers cpu

Then there is signal strength which you have not yet mentioned.

If it is a wifi throughput issue, then cheapest way is to hardwired as much as you can.

this may also interest you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtDRs434LYQ

RumRat

cranford wrote: »

The superhub 3 is dual band but you need to change the ssid for one of the bands to prevent auto assignment. There are reports on the virgin media community blog that the superhub 3 does not always work with VPN as the poster would like to use. Some VM customer have found a way round but it does not work for everybody.

Never had any trouble using it with a VPN personally.

Johno100

RumRat wrote: »

Never had any trouble using it with a VPN personally.

Seemingly it is dependent on the protocol used by your VPN provider. My VPN uses OpenVPN and apart from an expected drop in speed I haven't had any problems.

BTW I always use my VPN at device level rather than router, I assumed that was the norm.

onomatopoeia99

Bear in mind that if you pay VM to have a static IPv4 address you cannot use the "superhub" in modem mode as VM does not send the static address to the router by DHCP like anything sane, but has stuff in the "router" part of the firmware to establish a GRC tunnel over which the static IP gets used. Consequence is if you put it into modem mode the router you using instead won't do this and you lose the static IP and the routing from VM borks.


I've been through this at work, we wanted to replace the superhub as it has a tiny state table so just drops established connection meaning ssh shells die in a few minutes unless keepalives are enabled, and in any case eventually runs out of memory and needs to be rebooted with prejudice (turned off at the mains).