[General Maximus]

I am a bit confused, you say you have got a standalone modem, a separate wireless router and "the main Virgin router". Can you tell us the make make and model of each device (should be on the bottom) and what is connected to what e.g. your pc is wired to whatever you call the main router.

You need to be careful about the older posts you read on forums if you search for stuff. What you refer to as traffic shaping is called stm in this context and VM don't do it anymore. Your connection is 100% unimpeded as far as you are concerned and the only time you should see it slow down is if there is a lot of congestion e.g. everyone watching youtube on a Sunday afternoon.

VM came up with superhubs (shubs) simply for this reason. They don't like it when people have problems like you have got because they don't know what routers you are using, how they are setup or what options you have tinkered with. As far as they are concerned your connection could be perfect and it is one of your routers which is playing up. The shubs are combi modem/routers with custom firmware so you basically have one device which provides you with your internet connection as well as letting everything else connect to it either wired or wirelessly. Because VM have designed all the settings and options they are in a better position to understand how it works and tell you what to do if things aren't working as they are supposed to. Now all that is great in theory but the first lot of shubs which came out were pants although they aren't too bad performance wise these days (they are on their 3rd generation) the custom firmware still leaves much to be desired and you are still better off using your own router if you know what you are doing.