Thanks for the link. I wonder if this firmware update will apply to the standard hub as well as the super hub?

They'll need to I suppose as the standard hub is reckoned to be a real crock.

I upgraded to 50Mbps and got the superhub. It has sufficient basic functions for me but there are no "nice" ones like SNMP, QOS, DynDNS support, DNS override, telnet interface etc. etc. I once had to reboot it for my mobile to be able to connect but that seems to have been a one off. After rebooting it I also have to reboot my VOIP ATA box for some reason (to force a renewal of the DHCP lease would be my guess). This was never needed with my old setup. The N wireless seems to be weaker with my HTC Desire (G only) than my previous router was but it still connects well enough and everything else is wired.

The biggest failing is that to avoid packet loss within the router you have to turn off the SPI firewall. I've seen reports that SYN flood detection causes problems too so I've turned that off along with UPnP which I always do as a matter of course.

Since the upgrade I've had one short (minutes) outage and seen the odd T3 reported none of which happened before to my knowledge but this is all probably just coincidence.

To turn the wireless feature off on the Netgear VMDG280,
you have to press and hold the Wifi button in for 10 seconds,
release and it and the green light will go out, making it a modem only.
Setup yr existing/new router, connect the ethernet cable from
your existing/new router to no.1 ethernet port on the Netgear VMDG280,
and turn it on.

That's what i did and haven't had a problem with connection at all.

Hope this helps

Hi Hellooboyo, Just to confirm that whilst your instructions may switch the wireless off, it does not turn the netgear into a modem. It remains a router with NAT on all 4 wired ports.

After 14 years of nynex/C&W/NTL/Virgin my old modem died (the PSU went over voltage) had an engineer come out and plug in this VMDG280 and said he would now set up Internet Explorer on my computer. I told him in no uncertain terms he was not setting up my computers and I just connected a router not a PC to the broadband. Anyway I use mostly Linux, he wouldn't have had a clue.

As we know this piece of [censored] disabled access to my security webcams, DDNS and several VPN's to universities. Simply put because it had no bridge mode, no QoS (I know this is not much use with VirginMedia variable bandwidth throttling [censored], but I throttle the 2Mb to 600K so I run less risk of hitting any throttle - ironic isn't it).

Anyway got on the phone to 150 and after being swapped 5 times between operators rejecting my problem have been promised a plain modem in a few days. I wait in anticipation that I can go back to what I called to them Internet access rather than filtered Internet. I also told them that if they didn't issue a plain modem for Internet access as I signed up for 14 years ago and was my contract, they have downgraded me because of their equipment going faulty. I also pointed out that as such I would go to trading standards/ASA and deal with the matter under the sales of goods act as they were in fact making my Internet filtered and as such should be banned from using the term ISP in all documentation without prefixing it filtered-ISP.

Needless to say I will proceed to BT line if I can't get back to Internet access without NAT filtering in the Netgear, which results in a double NAT if you connect your own router, which Netgear describe as:

"Double NAT (as the phrase is used by NETGEAR) means connecting one router directly behind another for the purpose of having multiple LANs. Double NAT may cause problems with VPN and visiting secure sites with SSL."

If Virgin were to release a bridge mode firmware then we could all be happy, but I doubt it will happen, they seem to think this is a premium service reading other threads. 600K is fine for what I need, I don't need 50Mb just to get direct Internet access.

To be clear I am not creating public web servers or using great bandwidth. I use VPN to access my home to observe IP cameras, when I recieve an autodial from the burglar alarm and since I am the only one using that and on very rare occasions, it places no real load on the network. VirginMedia are really crippling basic users and promoting abuse with 50Mb broadband. They need to really think about the fact that a single 50Mb broadband hammers 25 other contracts in bandwidth use. Or in laymans terms making the motorways only available to drivers who drive at 250mph. RIP Virginmedia.

Will post update when/if plain modem arrives.

A quick word of thanks to helloboyo for the post at 19:32:32 on Tue 04-Jan-11.

Today, 18July2011, VirginMedia replaced the failed NTL modem on my 10mbps cable service with a Netgear VMDG280. Its wi-fi was on, which I regard as a security risk. Thanks to helloboyo, I was able to switch it off.

The VirginMedia engineer was happy to plug the WAN cable from my Draytek Vigor 2900G router into one of the Netgear VMDG280's LAN ports, and everything seems to be operating as before.

Just got my new Netgear Super Hub.
If you go to the 'Super Hub Settings' which is http://192.168.0.1/superhub_settings.asp
There's a modem mode option there which removes all router functionality. You then need to connect your own router to the port closest the cable connection.

Mine is software version R36 and Hardware version 2.00

Hope ths helps someone out there!

When this thread was actually live over a year ago modem mode didn't exist on the Superhub and still isn't available on the plain old VMDG280 which this thread was about nor ever will be as it is no longer issued by VM.