Gig1 service
 

Hi all,

Just signed up for Gig1 service here in Glasgow. Hub4 should arrive on Saturday for self install.

Anyone else already on this and can share feedback so far?

Re: Gig1 service
 

I am on this service, but I have the Hub 4 in modem only mode.

I did a self-install. It just required a call to a specified number to get your modem registered and active.

If you are using your Hub 4 in router mode there is little you have to do any different than when you used Hub 3.

Be aware that although your modem will be configured for 1.2Gb the Ethernet ports are only 1Gb, so don't expect to get over 1Gb. Allowing for overheads, you may get very slightly less, assuming you have at least CAT 5e Ethernet cables and 1Gb network cards and switches. However, if you do a speed test using Samknows real speed test you will get a true measure of broadband available, but realistically you only access all of that via multiple devices using a total of up to 1.2Gb. The WiFi is apparently capable of 1.3 Gb on the 5GHz. I cannot confirm what you might get if you have devices capable of accessing this. https://samknows.com/realspeed/



If you are using modem mode, the conversion from router mode is the same process as in Hub 3. In my experience, it took more than one attempt to get my router to pick up the connection. Be very aware that if your router has a WAN to LAN throughput of less than 1Gb then you won't get close to that speed. Most routers have a WAN to LAN throughput of less than 700Mb! Here's a list of routers with higher throughputs. https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/old-.../74-wan-to-lan My GT-AX11000 is not on the list, but it has an appropriate throughput. I max at 948Mb via ethernet. My upstream is usually 52Mb. None of my WiFi devices, even those with WiFi 6, has managed any higher than 950Mb even though the AX11000 dishes out over 1Gb WiFi.

Having said all this, my connection has been pretty reliable, but not as consistent as I used to get on the 350Mb and 500Mb services. On a few occasions I have had to reboot the modem because of sluggish speeds below 500Mb. This usually does the trick.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Thanks so much for this information, very useful.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Are you likely to be using Hub 4 in router mode or modem mode?

Re: Gig1 service
 

I'll be using it in Modem mode along with r8000 router and ax8 mesh extender.

Re: Gig1 service
 

That will do the trick. You should easily achieve over 900Mb.

I forgot to mention that with your Hub 4 in modem mode, the Samknows real speed test will not be able to detect it, so you won't be able to test your modem to WAN connection speed. It makes no difference to what down speed you will get in the real world though.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Thanks again Roughbeast ;)

Re: Gig1 service
 

ye my router is also not on there and i hit 940mb constantly through ethernet

Re: Gig1 service
 

Looks like that list is pretty out of date, part of the reason devices aren't listed on it is because they haven't been tested it seems.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Yes, I'm afraid so. My AX11000 and gmudos' R8000 don't appear. I expect there are others. There's no excuse for the AX11000. It's been out for over a year now.

Do you know a more reliable source for that sort of data? It is rare for WAN to LAN throughput data to be published, in commercial descriptions anyway. There's probably a reason for that! :rolleyes:

Re: Gig1 service
 

I'm afraid not, I don't even know many sites that test it these days.

Re: Gig1 service
 

I have been checking out why SNB reviews are out-of-date. It appears that Tim, the guy who does all the testing and reviewing, has had to put that function on the back burner, since 2018. Lack of traffic, and therefore revenue, means that he can no longer run the site full time. He is now employed as a tester for a different company, so only very occasionally gets time to do full tests and reviews of the kind we are used to.

In the explanatory link below, is a link to Tim'snew company Octoscope. They sell tests beds for routers, servers and networks, but do not do router reviews. We are now at the mercy of the commercial giants unless we do our own testing and take full advantage of their returns policies.

https://www.smallnetbuilder.com/othe...new-door-opens

Re: Gig1 service
 

That's such a shame, really. I guess it's just not popular enough.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Another reason for not getting enough revenue was that the traffic he did get consisted mostly of folk with ad blockers running. A lot of his revenue came from advertisers.

Re: Gig1 service
 

That's tech enthusiasts for you.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Let us know how it goes, e.g. the downstream you get and how consistent.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Sure, will do.

Re: Gig1 service
 

So, a little underwhelmed at the download speeds i'm getting. Hub4 in modem mode and getting 264mbps max. Upload seems good at 52.87mpbs.

I'm hoping it improves as the results indicate i'm getting less than I was on the 500mb package.

Re: Gig1 service
 

I'd suggest running the Samknows test at www.samknows.com/realspeed when the Hub 4 is in router mode.

That will tell you what speed you're getting to the Hub itself rather than in between a internal network device and the Speedtest.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Ok, I'll give this a try this afternoon. Thanks

---------- Post added at 13:40 ---------- Previous post was at 12:35 ----------

Great. That certainly seems to have done the trick and now getting upwards of 650mbps on download. This is with my desktop machine plugged directly into the Hub4.

Now need to try and figure out why I'm not getting similar speeds when connected via a gigabit switch from my own r8000 router.

Edit - just ran the speedtest again from your link and it's maxing at 1084mpbs on download and 680mbps on upload!

Thanks again!

Re: Gig1 service
 

680mbps on Upload?

Re: Gig1 service
 

You can't get 680Mbs on upstream. 53Mb is the very best you can get.

On Samknows you can get something like 1.17Gb downstream although 1.2Gb is technically possible.
With Hub4 in modem mode, your R8000 should get significantly over 900Mb, although I don't know exactly what its WAN to LAN throughput maxes at. Things that may stop you getting >900Mb include a faulty ethernet cable or a faulty switch or something else in the house using bandwidth. Another possibility is that you have QoS enabled in the R8000. This is of no benefit on a 1GB connection. It may peg back the maximum down speed on certain devices to as low as 400Mb.

Other possibilities include the processor capacity of your PC. Speed tests are processor hungry. A slow processor can result in an unstable test with wildly varying results. You can check this if you watch your processor usage during a speed test. If it goes up to 95% usage your speed test result might be affected.

Others here may think I am barking up the wrong tree and may have other suggestions.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Yeah, sorry I was getting away.

Speed to Virgin Media Hub 4 was 1072mbps
Speed to computer was 599mbps

Upload is 52mbps

I'll have a check over everything. Cheers

Re: Gig1 service
 

Yes, you have roughly a 340Mb shortfall there. Check some of my suggestions. Given that the R7000 had a WAN - LAN throughput of 931Mb . The R7800 managed 941Mb. Surely the R8000 has similar or better. I think we can discount your router as being the problem over wired connection. Good luck checking out the other options.

If you have an intervening switch between your router and PC, can you take that out of the system, just to see what difference it makes? Are the ends of your Ethernet cables properly secure? One of my long Ethernet cables, one that runs to the attic, developed a fault so was only providing about 500Mb to upstairs devices. Sometimes it only showed as a 100Mb connection on the router network data page. My mate, a network expert and installer, tested and fixed it for me by replacing the end connectors.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Throughput for consumer routers does vary with firmware and is also heavily dependant on what features you have on, if you want 1gb you probably need to turn off QoS, IDS/IPS, DPI, etc.

If you want something to do well over 1Gbps, you need something like the Ubiquiti UDM-Pro which can do 3.5Gbps (has SFP+ 10G WAN and LAN) with all the bells and whistles turned on, or 8Gbps with just DPI turned on.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Just remember that the hub4 only has gigabit ethernet, so at least for today there's no way of using another router at > ~950MBps.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Yeah, I realise that, the Hub4.0 is an idiotic decision by VM, every other SH has been used across various speed tiers during it's service life, the Hub4.0 can't even keep up with the provisioning of the launch service, let alone whatever we see in future.

Eventually VM will need to wake up and replace it with something with either multigig copper ports or an SFP+ cage.

There are better DOCSIS modem options about, if only VM allowed 3rd party modems.

Re: Gig1 service
 

I think it's a classic example of VM being cheap. Plus it's only an issue if you don't use modem mode. Most of VM's customers just use the hub in hub mode.

Of course, I'd argue that the kinds of people taking the gig1 service are the kinds of people more likely to use their own router as well.

In my cynical mind, DOCSIS3.1 is less about providing faster speeds to the prosumer and more about Virgin being able to squeeze more out of their network. It's expensive to roll out, but once done and everyone's on it, they'll have a lot more bandwidth to play with. Most of VM's customers are on the lower tiers, they don't care so much about fast speeds, just ample rool in the pipes.

Virgin will eventually be pushing the Hub4 out to every single person, the cost over millions of customers probably offsets the cost of having to introduce a hub5 down the line for those afformentioned "prosumers".

Re: Gig1 service
 

Even if I used the Hub4 in Hub mode, I still wouldn't use more than 1Gbps as most of my usage would be from a single device at a time, be it Steam on my main PC or whatever is downloading on my unraid server. I guess for some, there will be multiple devices connected over separate ethernet ports without a switch inbetween each using a load of bandwidth but I'd bet that's pretty uncommon at home.

I do agree they are being cheap, but they didn't have to do an NbaseT port, an SFP+ cage would have been very cheap to have and would allow people the option of NbaseT or MMF/SMF/DAC etc.

I'm not actually sure any of the OEMs make a modem with 10GbE yet though to be honest, so it might not be VM's fault. Perhaps VM Business will come out with something better, or maybe it will be a wait for SH5.0 thing.

Honestly, the sooner Cityfibre finish digging up my town the better!

Re: Gig1 service
 

At the time LG sourced the Hub 4 hardware from Arris, there will have been limited options available for DOCSIS 3.1 kit. The same Hub is installed in all LG D3.1 deployments, it's not unique hardware to Virgin Media even if the black version is.

Arris have only recently introduced Wi-Fi 6 and 2.5Gig Ethernet hardware to their gateways as far as I know.

Re: Gig1 service
 

I don't think it's a case of 1-2 devices chugging lots of bandwidth, I think it's more a case of lots of devices all chugging a chunk of bandwidth and that adds up. Kids have ipads and stream netflix, scale that up to a family and there's definitely scope for a couple of hundred Mbit being used at a time, meaning whoever's doing the heavy downloading is probably not going to hit gigabit at peak anyway.

I remember looking on the Arris site when gig1 was launched and I couldn't even see any 2.5Gig kit. No doubt LG sourced this equipment well in advance, with certification, etc. on top.

It's still frustrating from my perspective, but I definitely get why they picked the device they did. I don't even really have much 2.5G+ equipment in my home so as much as I'm complaining, I'm not ready yet either.

Re: Gig1 service
 

Personally I'd rather 10g sfp+ than 2.5g NbaseT but the consumer market sees to be heading in the direction of rj45 twisted pair for over 1g, 2.5g rj45 ports are more expensive than 10g sfp+ with DAC cables or cheap fibre sfps and cables.

I have 10g on my router (udm-pro) and a "core" 10g sfp+ mikrotik switch which links to the udm via a DAC cable and my server and main desktop by single mode fibre. The rest of my network is 1g unifi kit. 10g fibre sfp+ modules can be had for about £6 each, whereas 2.5/5/10 rj45 sfp+ modules are more like £85.

I only have 350m right now but find the 10g link useful as it means I can run drives in the desktop as iSCSI targets and it's as fast as local drives.

I appreciate my desires here are not those of the average VM customer!!!