Replacement for Virgin Media 1Gbit and Superhub4

[boris88999]

I've seen a few threads here about Virgin Media. Their hardware has been terrible for years now and I've just about had enough.

• their Wifi range is terrible, even with their extenders
• the features of their equipment besides the basics are minuscule
• if there is a problem with broadband, all the other services on the router fall apart

I'd like to move away from their kit and just use their router in modem mode, but what equipment would I need?

• my router (and broadband termination) is in a corner of the house and there are a number of brick walls in the premises which does limit the wifi reliability at present
• However, I do have patch cabling to various parts of the house so can easily use wired backhaul to the router. As I understand it I wouldn't necessarily need a mesh system to support this, just good quality APs?
• I do have the the 1 Gbit service with Virgin Media so would like to ensure that my router isn't the limiting factor in the chain - so it should be able to process 1 Gbit in / 1Gbit out and probably can't be deployed on a stick (VLAN)
• I already have some 1Gbit managed switches so these aren't a requirement (in fact, these can do channel bonding as well)

I've read some stuff which has suggested using a RP4 but I doubt this would be able to handle the full 1Gbit, plus I don't really want that much of a roll-your-own solution (either VLAN based routing or hanging a USB3 network port off it).

So some good quality APs and a good quality router replacement I'm a guessing? I'm assuming I don't need a mesh or any new malarky - just having the APs announcing the same SSID?

thanks

[frollic]

So you have 500Mbps-1Gbps fiber and need a router READ THIS FIRST

It's such a frequently asked question over the last few years that we really need a post we can point people to. So your cable company rolled out 500Mbps or 1Gbps download speeds, or you have 1Gbps symmetric fiber (GPON/EPON) from ATT or Centurylink or Orange or whoever. You realize your old all in one router from 2009 is not up to the task of handling this, but hey by now stuff should be cheap and available that will handle your new fiber connection right? So you want advice about a router for…

[dlakelan]

@boris88999

I doubt this would be able to handle the full 1Gbit, plus I don't really want that much of a roll-your-own solution (either VLAN based routing or hanging a USB3 network port off it).

To handle the gigabit will require a USB network interface but beyond that it performs flawlessly.

[jamesmacwhite]

Hi @boris88999

Fellow Virgin Media UK customer here. It's a good plan putting the Hub in modem mode for sure, I don't have specific product recommendation but here's a few things to note for modem mode.

1. In modem mode only the first ethernet port is active on the Hub4, so that needs to be your wired link between your primary router, none of the other switch ports will function in modem mode. As you mentioned you have gigabit switches already this shouldn't be an issue for you.

2. In order to have access to the modem at 192.168.100.1 with an OpenWrt router you will likely need to add another network interface labelled. "modem" and assign it an IP address within 192.168.100.x e.g. 192.168.100.2, that will allow you to access 192.168.100.1 on your LAN. https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wan/access.modem.through.nat

3. Due to the general overhead you are probably going to get around 900 - 980 mbps rather than full gigabit. Equally with the BestEffort scheduling it may dip below this but that's a general service issue, nothing you can do, but don't be surprised if you can't get 1,000 mbps.

[moeller0]

@jamesmacwhite

Due to the general overhead you are probably going to get around 900 - 980 mbps rather than full gigabit. Equally with the BestEffort scheduling it may dip below this but that's a general service issue, nothing you can do, but don't be surprised if you can't get 1,000 mbps.

A raspberry pi 4B only has 1Gbps ethernet ports, and in ethernet the nominal speed is aa gross rate, while typical speedtests report net throughput with per-packet overhead not reported (this is also called goodput). For plain gigabit ethernet (38B), IPv4 (20B), TCP (20B) you can calculate the theoretical max goodput for packets of maximal ethernet payload size (MTU=1500B) like so:

1000 * ((1500 - 20 - 20) / (1500 + 38)) = 949.28 Mbps
with
(1500 - 20 - 20) being the per-packet-payload size that gets reported on the desired layer
and 
(1500 + 38) being the effective on-the-wire size of the payload, plus all applicable overheads

The odd calculations based on the MTU allow easier changes of the encapsulations, but the whole thing could be reframed in terms of relevant-layer-payload-size....

If you use different encapsulations/overheads you need to adjust the relevant terms in the equation above, for example if we add PPPoE (8B), rfc 1323 TCP timestams (12B) and a VLAN tag (4B) we would get:

1000 * ((1500 - 8 - 20 - 20 - 12) / (1500 + 38 + 4)) = 933.85 Mbps

because the VLAN tag lives outside of the MTU, while PPPoE and TCP options take space from inside the ethernet payload....

[krazeh]

@jamesmacwhite

In order to have access to the modem at 192.168.100.1 with an OpenWrt router you will likely need to add another network interface labelled. "modem" and assign it an IP address within 192.168.100.x e.g. 192.168.100.2, that will allow you to access 192.168.100.1 on your LAN. https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wan/access.modem.through.nat

While I can't speak for any other ISP, this isn't necessary on VM.

[jamesmacwhite]

It is for me, I can't access 192.168.100.1 without a separate network interface configured as static 192.168.100.2, I have multiple WANs and policy based routing in play, so it could be related.

[tapper]

Hi I am on VM UK. My hub is in modem moad. I don't have to add a interface for it i just use dhcp on the WAN. The MTU is 1492. My mane router is a r7800 but my speeds are 220 down and 22 up. Running SQM I get 165 down and 17.50 up. I mite beable to get this to be a bit faster with some tweacking.

[dlakelan]

@jamesmacwhite

multiple WANs and policy based routing in play, so it could be related.

Yes that would be the issue. If you're load balancing multiple wans them it's not well defined where the connection will get routed. But if you set up a specific interface then it will know where to send the packets.

[jamesmacwhite]

I use mwan3 with failover and my primary is Virgin Media but due to multiple WANs it still applies, when the routing table could technically choose whatever, unless explicitly defined I guess.