Virgin Broadband Question

[haza68]

Can some tell me why Vm will post the new super hub to me when i choose the 30mb B/B (£30 cost)

But if i upgrade to 50Mb i have to have a engineer call(what do they have to do)

Any ideas thanks

[TheCoder]

The 50Meg is fairly critical of having the signal level just right so they tend to send an engineer to check things even though they actually do very little in more than about 20% of cases.

The other reason, is that the PC has to be 'tweaked' to get 50Meg. A PC with standard setting rarely gets more than about 30Meg. Something to do with TCP window size and various other esoteric settings. You can do it yourself using a free program called TCPOptimizer (which is what the VM guys use anyway). VM would prefer this is done by an engineer though as they cant handle loads of people complaining when they cant suss how to properly configure their own PC.

[Bandit1.3]

Hi the coder is bang on here i was very lucky to test the 50MB before it was released to the public. I was just picked at random sent all the equipment by post. But after setting up the very one program that vm said you had to use to get the best download speeds was TCPOptimizer.

[faz432]

I just got VM broadband again and have 2 lines from the 1st time I had it (I asked the engineer to run one directly into my bedroom as well as the one in my living room), now when I had it before I just hooked up a 2nd modem to my bedroom line and it worked, will it still work now with these super hub things?

I think it should do, I've tested the hub upstairs and it's fine but just want to make sure before I go and buy another modem, I don't know what's going on now whether they're checking MACs or whatever.

If so any suggestions on what modem I should get would be welcomed, cheers.

(thought I'd hijack this thread instead of starting a new one)

[TheCoder]

The superhub is nothing more than a modem with an integrated router stuck on. Its really no different than the individual modem/router combinations they originally supplied except its now all in one case.

As a piece of kit, the superhub does have some reliability issues and some router 'quirks'. It doesn't seem to like to handle a large amount of simultaneous connections (may be deliberate to limit p2p functionality) and it doesn't really like to be used for any server system. For some strange reason, the router also seems to have problems with various social network type sites.

[faz432]

Thanks for the response and the explaination.

So can I do this -

VM
l
l
l
l
---------[Split]---------
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
(([HUB]))llllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll[Modem]
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
llllllllllllll(([Laptop]))llllllllllllllll
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll
[PC downstairs]lllllllllllllllllllllll[PC upstairs]

Would that work or should I just get a range extender?

[TheCoder]

You could do that if you have a 2nd working modem.

The wireless extender is probably the better (certainly more legal) solution. You can prety much use any wireless router as an extender - they usually have some option in the menu's somewhere to do such things. You can often pick something up on ebay for £5 that will do the job.