Virgin Media Gig1 - Installation and Observations

As per my recent posts, have now had VM Gig1 installed.

Decided to do a blog post showing some of the before/after speedtests, share a few observations and provide some detail on the Hub5x (as this is sorely limited from a VM perspective).

Anyway, if anyone is interested, it's a reasonably deep dive, it can be found here.

Hey! Congrats on the install (even despite it being VM and all)! Out of my own curiosity for the new network, I decided to click on your link, and unfortunately, it seems to be dead. It responds to pings, so the connection is likely up, but the server is down. Just thought to let you know.

In reply to a post by Retr0:

Hey! Congrats on the install (even despite it being VM and all)! Out of my own curiosity for the new network, I decided to click on your link, and unfortunately, it seems to be dead. It responds to pings, so the connection is likely up, but the server is down. Just thought to let you know.

Hi..

Apologies, we had someone trying to get into the system so i had to take it down for a little bit.

Should be back up and running now so please feel free and thanks for letting me know

I am guessing you are in a nexfibre area??

Virgin Media sells Gig1 on three different types of network depending where you are in the UK:
* nexfibre FTTP - relatively new areas
* coax cable DOCSIS areas - the bulk of VM's installed base, the old cable-TV networks
* VM FTTP - some coax cable areas are being converted to full FTTP

in a nexfibre area you get the 5x "hub" router and the FTTP connects to the router. In a coax area you get the Hub 5, which connects to a wall box using a cable TV coax cable.

In nexfibre areas you have a 2Gig service available, and can pay more for symmetric options, which don't exist elsewhere.

In reply to a post by jchamier:

I am guessing you are in a nexfibre area??

Virgin Media sells Gig1 on three different types of network depending where you are in the UK:
* nexfibre FTTP - relatively new areas
* coax cable DOCSIS areas - the bulk of VM's installed base, the old cable-TV networks
* VM FTTP - some coax cable areas are being converted to full FTTP

in a nexfibre area you get the 5x "hub" router and the FTTP connects to the router. In a coax area you get the Hub 5, which connects to a wall box using a cable TV coax cable.

In nexfibre areas you have a 2Gig service available, and can pay more for symmetric options, which don't exist elsewhere.

Yep Nextfibre area here.

We do not have cable at all and this was the first FTTP that came into the area.

Jumped at the chance to have some decent bandwidth.

Was reflecting on the symmetric and even self hosting a bunch of stuff i dont currently have the need for it, but i know we can add it on (think they said about £6 a month) but the 100 up is rock solid and faster than our previous download rate!

As for the 2gb, mulled that over and couldnt really find much of a use case even with everything we do here. Run a ton of systems and forever installing various OS for them so even downloading isos or huge updates are unbelievably snappy.

The 5x is adequate but feels quite generic in its options. I'd like to do a few more network tweaks to seperate out some of my gear but modem mode is problematic so i've just adapted to having less wiggle room with ip addresses. My use here is fairly non typical so i'm not too fussed.

Not had to deal with Virgin CS yet. Hated that when we had cable elsewhere, they were horrible to deal with, but the broadband is aboutley rock solid and when we consider the cost, its a no brainer for me!