superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

So my superhub 1 internal battery is flat and no longer holds settings , a reboot sets everything back to default including SSID.

I phone them and explain the fault, said could they just send a new hub and I'll fit it myself. If its relevant I'm also off contract.

AFTER ringing faults they put me through to CS. CS gave me three options.

1 - Get a newer modem for a one off fee of £20.
2 - Agree to a new 12 month contract, get modem for 'free' and £4.82 off bill for 12 months.
3 - I reminded her the superhub 1 was faulty, she said all an engineer would do is replace like for like and I'd get a new superhub1.

1 went option 1.

Does any of this seem correct?

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Yeah just say you want it replaced as faulty, your more likely get a newer one!

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Do the engineers even carry the old hubs anymore? I thought the SH2 was now the default one.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

That's what I'd assumed but the CS lady insisted noooo repairs would only be like for like.

If I can prove she was BSing me just to extract more cash from me, I shall phone up and complain, I've been a customer over a decade and I'm off contract, you'd assume they'd want me happy :)

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

It's a Netgear router - I'm sure it won't have a battery, settings will be stored in flash, which if faulty is faulty.

I would never pay for a replacement!

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

As already mentioned they wouldn't pay for a replacement if it's faulty, but the replacement may not be the latest version of the SuperHub.

That is what they are paying for.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

What are the benefits of the SuperHub 2 over SuperHub1? :confused:

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

The Superhub does not have any batteries.

Unless you desperately wanted a Superhub 2 it's their obligation to provide you with a working device to use the service, so the only option I'd have accepted is option 3.

---------- Post added at 11:27 ---------- Previous post was at 11:26 ----------

^^ Correct.

---------- Post added at 11:27 ---------- Previous post was at 11:27 ----------

Much faster wireless, better range, better reliability, less ugly.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

As others have said, I wouldn't pay for a faulty hub replacement, even to get a newer model. Either get retentions to send one out for free or just get a fault replacement. There's no guarantee you'll get a like-for-like replacement, nor is there a guarantee you'll get a newer model. It depends on what the fault tech has in his van that day, or what they have at the distribution centre when they post one out. However, you're not out of pocket due to it.

Instead of forking out £20 on another VM hub, I would suggest you spend a bit more and get yourself your own wireless router. It's much better in the end and means if your hub conks out, the replacement isn't going to wipe your network settings.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

shub2 works

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

shub1 works for me, in modem mode!

But what quality firmware, look at this critical error in the log, from yesterday

Error by 1 in the month.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Its just letting you know that its established the Time Of Day.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Ill link you to my post from last year...

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/35726782-post1.html

Yes we still install SuperHub 1 routers for new customers, and virgin are starting to get rather strict with it... used to be able to ignore the warnings but not any more...

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

I can't believe they are still making them and/or have such a vast back stock to get rid of after all these years

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

We have to swap like for like and all Shub1s are refurbs.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

talk about being cheap. Given all the problems they have had you would have thought they would be glad to get rid of them and swap them out for shub2s

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

That makes the call centres and forum support self-sustaining.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

true. I am absolutely fascinated to know at what level that decision was made and I would love to see the empirical data used to make the decision. What is the cost of running call centres, sending techs out and paying for the refurb vs saving all the money just mentioned plus negative PR. Given the constant willy waving on tv adverts about wireless routers and unbeatable wireless performance, especially when shub1 is famous for the complete opposite, you would have thought VM would want to take every opportunity to put customers on shub2 to keep everyone happy.

If anything (and if I was a top VM bod) I would say "25% of all calls are due to know shub1 faults. If I get rid of shub1 and replace it with shub2 I can reduce load on call centre, get rid of 20% of staff, still leave myself with an extra 5% and save £Xmillion a year".

It baffles me it does, or as Leonard would say "I am befuddled". :rolleyes:

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Spot on, mon General. Although they do the maths by deducting the number of Forum complaints from the total customer population (silent majority) and deuce that the SH1 is a wonderful device.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

The tech guy swapped my SH1 for another afew weeks ago when my internet conked out ... He said because I use it in modemmode and have a good Linksys router I didn't need a sh2 lol :erm:

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Actually, not an unreasonable call by the tech. I should have mentioned that in modem mode, the SH1 does the job you'd need.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

I think a lot of you vastly overestimate the number of people who genuinely complain about the SH1. It's a terrible device, but the sad truth is that the vast majority of people just don't realise how terrible it is. For a lot of people, they only had a modem before so getting a free upgrade to wireless is a bonus and if it's a bit flaky, well that's just wireless.

I know quite a few people, even some people who should know better, that have a SH1 and are happy with it.

This is why it's still in use, it doesn't actually generate that many support issues, relatively speaking. The vast majority of support calls are usually a genuine fault in the area or user error.

Even when some people do have issues, a lot of them cannot be bothered to push it enough to get it changed. That takes more effort than just dealing with it and that's another thing Virgin takes full advantage of.

Personally, I think it's a side-effect of most ISPs having terrible customer support. Virgin these days are one of the better ones, but TalkTalk and BT are bloody awful. As they're the biggest, quite a lot of people are "used" to it.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Well said, Kush.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Yes, but why CRITICAL, the only use will be for log messages - which get the month wrong, and probably time in UTC not BST. Maybe TOD becomes critical because of previous failure?

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

I can think of one reason. If you don't know the time how will you know if DNS entries are valid and you need to do a new query.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

The Superhub does not store DNS entries.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Having the correct time is exceptionally important when it comes to computers. DNS is just one thing that requires the correct time, security (SSL and such) will rely on the correct time, DHCP will rely on the correct time (to a degree), there's quite a lot of things that can break and fall over if the time isn't set correctly. Results vary depending on how far "out" your time is as well.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

While that is all true, none of it applies to the Superhub. Furthermore, the Superhub does not function as a time server for any other devices on your network.

Interestingly enough the Superhub 1 (not sure about the 2) uses a real-time operating system. Precision RTC timekeeping is an inherent feature of the device itself, making external time even more irrelevant.

Many consumer routers don't have any externally referenced clock at all.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Are you sure about that? I thought ToD was required for correct negotiation of the DOCSIS config?

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

It may be, I don't know.

But it's not required for DNS, DHCP or SSL (or rather the Superhub doesn't do SSL).

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

TOD synch between modem and CMTS is necessary AFAIK - read it in the DOCSIS specs.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Not sure if we're debating whether time is required for those services in general or for the superhub.

I do know that the superhub must establish TOD for the network authorisation to complete properly, this is something at the DOCSIS/Network level rather than at the service level. I don't know how much leeway you have with this as I don't know much about the DOCSIS authentication, just that TOD is necessary for it. I imagine it must use something similar to SSL/TLS in that there are signed certificates at work, which will be timestamped and will break if the date is off by a significant amount.

That all being said, this is probably why a TOD failure is a critical event. It might not knock the hub offline or anything right away, but it could cause major issues later if the time goes too far out of sync.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Thanks - re reason TOD is important, have had problems in past with connecting laptops to a domain network which wasn't properly time synched. Time is important to Kerberos protocol.

But doubt superhub2 any different from 1 in this respect.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

No difference - both models correctly follow the DOCSIS requirements otherwise they wouldn't be able to register when powered on. The Synch is part of the initialisation.

Re: superhub2 - did customer service rip me off?
 

Indeed, this is what I was saying earlier - time is important for a lot of things.