50M : Superhub is nowhere near as bad as people say!

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by kwikbreaks

Presumably the rest just think it's an unreliable network. Mine works OK wired but using the WiFi for anything much past phone browsing is usually enough to kill the WiFi. Those who only use WiFi will see this as an outage and the vast majority are ill equipped to work out the cause.

My wifi works fine and I have 2 networks one being the Superhub network itself and the other being my Edimax router acting as an Access Point and my phone always seems to choose the Superhub network regardless of where I am in the house.

[Nopanic]

Originally Posted by jb66

No It's not, how can it be called super when it's dreadful, the regular hub is better than the souperhub. I agree virgin started it, they've called a pile of plastic poo a 'superhub'

I've had my vmng300 for two weeks now and it's never rebooted once, wifi has been solid and it's kept the ssid I set

You need to report that as a fault ..

The VMNG doesn't have wireless

[lowei]

we have a few people on forums complaining which makes up a very small percentage of complaints.

These few people complaining have made VM introduce new firmware, I think not.
It's got to be a lot more than a few

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by lowei

These few people complaining have made VM introduce new firmware, I think not.
It's got to be a lot more than a few

Exactamundo. The so-called Superhub is where near as bad as people say. Obviously.

[Stephen]

I am sure VM would still be introducing newer firmware regardless of a few people complaining on a forum

[jb66]

It is no where near as bad as people say.... its worse! Much worse! Words can not describe how bad it is....

[kwikbreaks]

Originally Posted by Masque

I have 2 networks one being the Superhub network itself and the other being my Edimax router acting as an Access Point

Similar to my setup then as I have a Fonera+ router providing a FON hotspot so I get free FON access myself when out and about. I put an external antenna on it with the intention of using its private SSID in the garden. In the kitchen which is less than 10m from the hub and in direct line of sight my phone frequently loses the hub signal and connects to the Fonera+ instead through the house outside wall.

Of course my story like yours is completely irrelevant as WiFi is notoriously fickle anyway. That said the Fonera+ WiFi signal never drops yet the hub one often does and I find my phone on the Fonera when sitting right next to the hub.

I don't doubt that your hub is fine - mine is too apart from the sparse feature set which on a giveaway unit is understandable and the dodgy WiFi which is less so - as the WiFi problem seems to be widespread maybe it is a common hardware fault - do you think I should call in for a replacement?

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Stephen

I am sure VM would still be introducing newer firmware regardless of a few people complaining on a forum

I think you should be more respectful to "a few people complaining on a forum". Particularly as you can switch hats and clamp down on them.

First, it's vastly more than a few and even more vastly more than the number of people reporting satsifaction with this wretched device here in this thread.

Second, as Lowei insightfully points out, those "few people" have led to VM's three formware changes. They shouldn't have been necessary anyway - at least the thing should have been released at a standard where firware upgrades were BAU (covering your point) and not us the result of user outrage. You only have to look at the VM forum thread to see that VM are reactive to the criticism and using the feedback to guide their future firmware changes.

[Ignitionnet]

My superhub was largely fine once I relieved it of wireless and LAN related duties.

It is now absolutely fine as it's running in bridge mode. The cable modem side of the firmware is pretty generic stuff so hasn't been messed up by Netgear.

I had a process I could follow that would make the Superhub lock up and keel over every time - in bridge mode this doesn't happen, yay.

---------- Post added at 09:37 ---------- Previous post was at 09:28 ----------

Originally Posted by Masque

My wifi works fine and I have 2 networks one being the Superhub network itself and the other being my Edimax router acting as an Access Point and my phone always seems to choose the Superhub network regardless of where I am in the house.

I think we get the point that your Superhub is great, posting it over and over and over and over and over and over again doesn't convince anyone who has issues with the thing that their issues aren't happening and doesn't make Netgear rushing out firmware upgrades to fix critical bugs which you and all other VM staffers on here obviously didn't suffer from any less relevant.

Again I am sure by now we all appreciate having had it repeated to us over and over again that apart from the guy who is doing service calls on this device all the office based people have Superhubs that work perfectly, and are unaware of any issues.

We are aware that there are no major issues and that the rushed R26 firmware for example was purely done to keep a tiny minority happy as your Superhubs were working flawlessly and you couldn't see anyone else reporting issues.

Repeating yourself as infinitum makes you no better than the people who say that everything VM do sucks because their service sucks.

I have no idea when VM staff took it upon themselves to largely quit being helpful and start being wilfully argumentative with customers. Maybe I'm feeling nostalgic for when ntl (were no Telewest guys on here) staff bent over backwards to try and fix issues for customers, and tried to treat people with respect unless they were really going OTT. Maybe there's some corporate theme going here given which of the parent companies the more argumentative people come from.

This last page of this thread.

1 VM staffer saying the three thousandth time that their Superhub is fantastic.
1 VM staffer making the latest in a string of pithy comments having no actual value to add to the thread.
1 VM staffer making a throwaway comment about firmware updates.
1 VM staffer reporting he had attended 3 service calls for poor Superhub performance that day.

4 posts, excluding mine, from customers.

[Stephen]

Who is being rude to customers? Any staff post here personally and can offer support and help where needed. It is in no way official.

Also it doesn't help that some people constantly put down the superhub and all we are doing is counteracting that with some facts that not everyone finds it terrible.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by kwikbreaks

I don't doubt that your hub is fine - mine is too apart from the sparse feature set which on a giveaway unit is understandable and the dodgy WiFi which is less so - as the WiFi problem seems to be widespread maybe it is a common hardware fault - do you think I should call in for a replacement?

If you are having issues then call in and you will either be sent a replacement or a technician to replace it.

[Sephiroth]

Igni puts it so well.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Who is being rude to customers? Any staff post here personally and can offer support and help where needed. It is in no way official.

Also it doesn't help that some people constantly put down the superhub and all we are doing is counteracting that with some facts that not everyone finds it terrible.

It wasn't official before yet staff didn't feel the need to spend pages and pages of a thread on a customer based forum telling customers that they are wrong. The usual response to ranting was to shrug the shoulders and carry on or offer some help when the punter calmed down.

Constantly repeating the 'facts' as you see them doesn't make the 'facts' as other people see them any less relevant, and your constant repetition isn't going to change anyone's point of view.

I am entirely justified in putting the thing down as, in my experience, it sucked. In yours it doesn't, fine, but telling other people they are wrong just because yours is ok is no better than them saying they are all abysmal because theirs performs poorly.

Whatever you may think, and evidently the Superhub is fantastic for you, there are issues with a significant enough proportion of the devices to generate service calls and force emergency firmware updates tested for a matter of hours before being released.

The truth is, as always, somewhere in between the two, frankly excessively for a cable modem gateway, polarised sides of the discussion.

[Peter_]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

I have no idea when VM staff took it upon themselves to largely quit being helpful and start being wilfully argumentative with customers. Maybe I'm feeling nostalgic for when ntl (were no Telewest guys on here) staff bent over backwards to try and fix issues for customers, and tried to treat people with respect unless they were really going OTT. Maybe there's some corporate theme going here given which of the parent companies the more argumentative people come from.

We are still helpful as our posts show just people feel that we should not say that our equipment works.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Stephen

Who is being rude to customers? Any staff post here personally and can offer support and help where needed. It is in no way official.
[SEPH]: Your tone of remarks was very clear to any reader. Lowei made the respectable point that these "few" complaining customers have driven the firmware changes that have proved the device to be lame, buggy and unworthy of VM's otherwise good name.


Also it doesn't help that some people constantly put down the superhub and all we are doing is counteracting that with some facts that not everyone finds it terrible.
[SEPH]: Who is the "we" here? A moderator? A moderator acting as private individual? A VM employee who has interests different from the customers? Igni makes some strong points in this regard