Virgin suddenly offering me an external modem

coylemj

I have a Horizon box with TV and broadband, I got a call from 01 245 8600 this morning offering me an external broadband router. Was suspicious at first and said I'd think about it as I thought it might be a scam but it's genuine all right. Will get it shipped after Christmas.

I got the Horizon box soon after they became available and unlike a lot of people, I never had a problem with the wi-fi so was surprised to be offered an external router out of the blue. Is this the first step of a process which will replace my Horizon box with a new device which has no built-in wi-fi?

I assume this is the box I will be getting....

https://www.virginmedia.ie/broadband/learn-about-broadband/equipment/

mackersdublin

I got an email from them months ago about replacing my modem for the new Hub, no strings included

fletch

I had nothing but problems with the wifi on the Horizon box...got the external device and never had a single problem since.

coylemj

If you're not having a problem with the Horizon wi-fi, is there any compelling reason to install this router 'media hub'? The additional power plug might be a problem for me so I might just leave it sitting in the box for a while until I can think of a good reason to activate it. I have 5 Ghz wi-fi activated on the Horizon box and it works fine, I tend to use 2.4 Ghz upstairs.

Does the hub come with a splitter for the co-ax lead or do you daisy-chain the Horizon box off it?

daheff

when i had virgin I was moved to a horizon box after i moved house. As I still had the old equipment, I was advised by the Virgin rep not to deactivate the external modem.


Simple advise is if what you have works & aint broken....don't fix it!

coylemj

daheff wrote: »

Simple advise is if what you have works & aint broken....don't fix it!

Can't argue with that but .....

Is this offer of an external router part of a plan to migrate me off Horizon and onto the successor box? In which case I would see every reason to take this router and be in line for the next generation box when they launch it. Because if the next gen TV box has no built-in wi-fi, the migration process will require them to give existing Horizon customers an external router first, then they can later swap in the new box for the the Horizon box.

I never complained to them about the Horizon wi-fi so I'm still wondering why they're offering me a separate router. Feature wise, it doesn't appear to have anything that I don't have already - 4 x Ethernet 100/1000 ports, 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz wifi.

daheff

coylemj wrote: »

Is this offer of an external router part of a plan to migrate me off Horizon and onto the successor box? In which case I would see every reason to take this router and be in line for the next generation box when they launch it.

Its possible, but I'd guess new customers would be priority rather than existing customers for a new box.
More likely if you were migrated to a new box it would all be packaged together & done at the same time.

xlogo

coylemj wrote:

If you're not having a problem with the Horizon wi-fi, is there any compelling reason to install this router 'media hub'? The additional power plug might be a problem for me so I might just leave it sitting in the box for a while until I can think of a good reason to activate it. I have 5 Ghz wi-fi activated on the Horizon box and it works fine, I tend to use 2.4 Ghz upstairs.

coylemj wrote:

Does the hub come with a splitter for the co-ax lead or do you daisy-chain the Horizon box off it?

It comes with a splitter and when mine was delivered the WiFi on the Horizon box was immediately disabled - took me a while to figure that out as I wasn't told in advance and had planned to install it the following weekend.

colm_mcm

coylemj wrote: »

If you're not having a problem with the Horizon wi-fi, is there any compelling reason to install this router 'media hub'? The additional power plug might be a problem for me so I might just leave it sitting in the box for a while until I can think of a good reason to activate it. I have 5 Ghz wi-fi activated on the Horizon box and it works fine, I tend to use 2.4 Ghz upstairs.

Does the hub come with a splitter for the co-ax lead or do you daisy-chain the Horizon box off it?

The broadband on the horizon box will deactivate once you take delivery of the new modem.

Yes, you get a splitter with the modem.

coylemj

Based on the responses above, I can see no compelling reason to take an external router.

Here is a speed test from last night showing the reponse times from a 5 Ghz Wi-Fi connection to my Horizon box.....

Wabbit Ears

if the wifi works then you are right but the horizon box has a limit of how many tuners it physically has for docsis. Horizon cant do any more than 240 megs so to go beyond that you need the external modem.