Re: Not a happy VM customer and maybe soon to be ex
 

jeepers, i've always used Modem mode but never spent more than £40 on a router. Always reliably given more than my advertised speed.

What so these several hundred pound ones do ? travel through time and space ? ;)

Re: Not a happy VM customer and maybe soon to be ex
 

Generally speaking cheaper ones will not run at higher speeds, especially if you have multiple users (wired and WiFi).

If yours work ok for you, then no need to worry.
I'm still using my old VM provided Dlink 615 to provide my Wifi (I think this is its 8th year of service now).

However, its not my main router - thats a TP Link dual wan router.

Re: Not a happy VM customer and maybe soon to be ex
 

Im running a Nighthawk X6 AC3200 running merlin firmware as my main router in the front room and I have Asus AC56u piggybacking off my main router on the other side of the house that way I get decent connection no matter where I am in the house.Maybe overkill for a lot of people but i consider it to be future proofing

Re: Not a happy VM customer and maybe soon to be ex
 

Thanks for a helpful thread, although im not sure insulting another user is quite the way forward.

Ive been having similar problems over the last month, 3 or 4 times a day requiring a reboot. Up to that time I have to say its been totally reliable and never had problems with dropping wifi.

whilst it looks good advice to get another router, it does seem to me that VM are in some way culpable for this.

Re: Not a happy VM customer and maybe soon to be ex
 

They sure are but what you lack is years of experience of having to deal with it. You might think i am being too hasty and jumping the gun by suggesting you get your own router as at the end of the day it is VM's problem to fix. What you dont realise is that from day 1 since shub1 came out there has been problem after problem. It takes them ages to acknowledge that there is a problem, they rush out an untested fix and introduce more problems and so on and so on. This is why they invented mode, it wasn't available to start off with.
When you have your own router you dont have to worry about any of the issues that plague other users and your connection will be mint all the time. You might think getting your own router may be a bit extreme or a last resort but it is a balancing exercise, not just in cost but patience, and i have very little of it. Four or five times a year you will see people flooding to the forum complaining about something not working (more often than not the dns servers have gone down) and the only people who arent affected are the people who have their own proper router.
Feel free to moan as much as you want but if you want to waste your time talking to tech support and waiting for VM to come up with a fix then be my guest. My crystal ball tells me that they wont even bother trying to fix this and will brush it off and rush a shub4 out.

Re: Not a happy VM customer and maybe soon to be ex
 

What people seem to forget is that all ISPs need to provide is the means to connect. i.e. a modem. Anything else is just a smokescreen to look as if they are providing more.

IIRC it was SKY who first offered an "all in one" modem/router and all the other ISPs followed suit.

There is one thing to remember about all of them, what they supply is cheap and tacky dressed up in a nice looking box. All are locked down with the ISP's "One size fits all" firmware which won't do even half of what a decent third party router will do.

Re: Not a happy VM customer and maybe soon to be ex
 

Exactly, you pay for what you get and if it is free then you arent getting a lot.

Just remember that when the wireless on shub1 was absokutely cack and barely worked VM were advertising as "unbeatable wireless performance" months after they knew it didnt work.

You need to take everything VM say with a pinch of salt.

Re: Not a happy VM customer and maybe soon to be ex
 

I have the Asus RT-87u running Merlin firmware and does everything i want, all in all when all wireless\wired devices are connected it manages 3 laptops, 3 tablets, 2 tvs, 2 sky boxes, 2 pcs, 3 phones and 3 printers so 18 devices in total.

Re: Not a happy VM customer and maybe soon to be ex
 

lol, I don't know how I missed it (lack of email notifications coming through) but I completely missed all the posts on page 2 and have just gone back and read them :)

For any newbies that read this at any point we might come across as being dicks as some of the responses are quite blunt and to the point like "buy a proper router". It obviously isn't what anyone wants to hear, especially when £££ is involved but believe it or not anybody who says it is doing you a huge favour by getting straight to the point and solving your problem for you pronto. If it was easily fixable then the op and many others wouldn't have spent so much time being mucked about by VM on the phone. If it was possible to change some settings on the router and especially wifi channels etc somebody would have suggested it. In this case the op described the symptoms of the fault and the steps he had taken to remedy it. We followed up by explaining the cause of the fault and the "only" way it can be fixed.

When there are known firmware issues which everyone is moaning about or connectivity issues VM's end then there is only one solution and it saves you so much hassle in the long run; buy your own router. I even went to the effort of making some sensible recommendations :angel: