September 2021
I have taken delivery of the latest Virgin hub 4 and I’m surprised! It doesn’t look like any router I have ever used, instead of the standard “brick” design; it is a sort of “Square Cone” vase shape and has no visible antennas. It is obviously designed to be used in an upright manner. It has 4 Ethernet ports and 2 “phone” ports along with the standard Coax connection. So apart from the “radical” design, it is pretty much the same as the Hub 3 with regard to connections.
It doesn’t look bad, just different. I actually quite like it but looks can be deceiving!
Once you have powered up the router (after connecting all the cables) it automatically gets “authorised / activated” to use on the Virgin network, so you don’t need to phone Virgin to get it “authorised / activated”.
If you’re a (apparently) typical Virgin customer with no technical knowledge (similar to the decision makers at Virgin) it is just a “plug and play” job. Just connect the cables, power up and you’re good to go. The dual WiFi works fine, I did a “Speedtest” using my iPad on the 5 Ghz connection and got an impressive 106 Mbps download (I’m on the Fibre 100 thing) so no problems there. There is an option to rename the SSID, so in theory you can rename the SSIDs and have “New SSID name” for each connection e.g. 2.4Ghz can be called “slow” and the 5 Ghz connection can be be called “Fast”. Strangely only one of the “renamed” SSIDs seems to show up on devices you want to connect (using WiFi). If you give each connection the same SSID name, you can connect to that SSID and your device will use either the 2.4Ghz connection or if it’s able it will default to the 5Ghz connection. My Android devices are on version 11 and my iPad is on 14.8 so using the 5 Ghz connection is dare I say awesome! I have a few devices that can only use the 2.4 Ghz connection and this is very much NOT awesome.
If you are connecting to the hub using Ethernet, again it’s plug n play. Connect the cables, power up the router and then power up the PC and you’re good to go.
I would anticipate that for most Virgin customers, the router will be fine and dandy, especially if you use the “defaults”. So setting up should be trouble free for most people. If you are (apparently) a typical Virgin customer, you don’t need to read any further. Once you are connected, you will be using a robust and reliable broadband connection that should give you a trouble free service.
For those with any technical knowledge of “networking” (apparently unlike the decision makers at Virgin) and for those who have their own “kit”, such as network printers, file servers etc read on. Virgin is not your friend! The Hub 4 router is another one of Virgins half baked offerings. Even the Virgin Connect App doesn’t yet support the Hub 4. Unbelievable!
Since hub 3, you can only use the 192.168.0 (“old” class c) network address for the LAN but with the hub 3 you could amend the 3rd octet (of the LAN network address). With the hub 4, there is an option to amend the 3rd octet but it doesn’t work! Any number you enter will give an error that advises the “Starting address is currently being used by the hub for some other reason”. This means that you can only use the 192.168.0. network address. I’ve managed to splice in an extra router to allow me to use my “additional kit” but it is a cludge! If you have your own kit e.g. samba server and “Home LAN”, the hub 4 is not your friend and neither is Virgin Media; who appear to use the mantra of Henry Ford. “You can have any colour car you want as long as it is black”!
However, for those people who have a “Home LAN” that uses either the 172.16.0. or 10.0.0 network, you shouldn’t have much of a problem. I found it best to have a “Dynamic” WAN IP address on “my router(s)” instead of giving it a “Static” IP address and then I went to the DHCP client list (on the VM Router) and selected “My router” (you will probably need to know your routers MAC address) and “reserved” the IP address but amended the last octet to one I wanted to use. Rebooting my router then allowed it to pick up the reserved IP address. Job done.
NOTE regarding DHCP. I like to limit the scope / range of IP addresses (so that I can limit the number of connected devices) but the hub 4 (and hub 3) use a “Starting address and then has the option to amend the number of CPEs. You might need to play around with this number but its easier to accept the defaults of 243 or 245, depending on what you want the WAN IP of “your router” to be. Standard networking practice would be to assign a scope of IP address (for devices on the LAN) and then use “static” addresses outside of this scope for devices that need a static IP. Reserving IP addresses within the scope works fine, its just a different way of doing things that isn’t industry standard and doesn’t make much sense!
Virgin Media are forcing its (broadband) customers to use the (“old” Class C) 192.168.0. network “internal / private” address for the LAN address. The 2 other “Private IP address ranges (10.0.0.0 to 10.255.255.255 and 172.16.0.0 to 172.31.255.255) are not an option and there is no rational reason for this other than making sure that people can only use a “Private IP Address” for the LAN. Sled hammer, nut come to mind! Virgin should only be concerned with the WAN IP address of their router, the LAN IP address should be the choice of the customer buy hey ho!
With regard to DNS and DNS Servers, Virgin routers (since hub 3) have no option to use DNS Servers of your choice. With the hub 3, if you have an additional router it was possible to use DNS Servers of your choice but with the Hub 4 you can only use the Virgin DNS Servers. This would suggest that Virgin want to “record” your “Internet activity” and use this to spy on your use of the “Web”. Maybe they are selling this information to advertisers or maybe it’s just another idiotic choice made by the (apparently) technically incompetent “decision makers”!
In conclusion, if you have your own kit, the hub 4 may not be for you and hub 3 is not ideal but it does allow you to amend the 3rd octet of the LAN IP address.
If you don’t want to use the 192.168.0. Internal network address, the hub 4 is not your friend but if you have a separate router and your “Home LAN” uses the 172.16.0 or the 10.0.0 network, it won’t be a big problem. Your “Home LAN” could also use 192.168.”1 to 254″ (3rd octet) if you have your own router. Not being able to amend the 3rd octet on the hub 4 is a major fail, however the option is there to do so and this may be fixed in the fullness of time!
If you have your own kit (Home LAN, Network Printers etc), the best option is to make sure it uses the 172.16.0 or 10.0.0.0 network and make sure “your router” has a “reserved WAN IP address” on the Virgin router, which uses 192.168.0. network for the LAN.
If you are an apparent typical customer with little or no technical knowledge (apparently like the decision makers at Virgin) the Hub 4 will be a good option. The Virgin broadband service is normally rock solid and very reliable, mainly due to the brilliant network engineers and techies who manage to do their jobs in spite of the idiotic / clueless decision makers!
WARNING WARNING if you try the hub 4, it seems that it isn’t possible to go back to the Hub 3 if the Hub 4 isn’t suitable because it seems no one at Virgin customer support knows how to amend a simple “Config file”! It also seems that the Virgin network tech’s are (apparently) not contactable by “Customer support”.
After an uphill struggle, I managed to arrange an engineers visit. I explained the problem of not being able to amend the 3rd octet. I advised that the hub 3 was working fine. So he decided to get the hub 3 (re) authorised, a phone call to the network techs got the hub 3 authorised within minutes The irritating thing is, It doesn’t need an engineers visit, its just a simple config amendment that needs doing by the Virgin network techs so why do they give so much grief.
So now I’m back on Hub 3 and enjoying the fibre 100, which is doing everything I need except using the DNS servers I prefer!