Virgin Media Hub 3
Slow and lacking in features, the Hub 3 covers the basics but a third-party router will serve you much better
SCORE PRICE Free with new internet packages from virginmedia.com
The oddly shaped Hub 3 is included with all Virgin Media broadband packages, including the company’s insanely fast 362Mbits/ sec fibre-to-the-premises services. Unfortunately, the hardware isn’t anywhere near fast enough to convey that sort of speed to wireless clients.
Indeed, in our tests it proved a poor performer all round. Short-range download speeds of 10MB/sec gave us most of the benefit of our 100Mbits/ sec internet connection, but still, we’re talking last-place performance – which naturally only slowed down further as we moved around the house. Virgin customers have also complained about random spikes in latency and flaky DNS performance, though a recent firmware update seems to have improved matters.
What’s more, the Hub 3 is one of this month’s least versatile routers. Cast an eye down our feature table and you’ll see a whole string of unticked boxes: there’s no support for dynamic DNS, no VPN, no smartphone app, no Alexa integration and nothing in the way of router-based parental controls. You’ll also notice that there’s no USB or other connectors, so file and printer sharing are off the table.
All of this leaves you with little reason ever to interact with the web portal. That’s probably just as well, because it’s very laggy: logging in and viewing a list of connected clients takes a tiresome 30 seconds.
The Hub 3 has a few saving graces, though. It does at least offer a guest network, so visitors and friends can’t run amok on your private Wi-Fi. You can also switch the whole thing into modem mode, which effectively disables its router functions. You can then carry on using the Hub to negotiate your connection to Virgin Media, and connect a third-party router to run your home network.
It goes without saying that, if you’re a Virgin Media customer, we strongly recommend that you take advantage of this option. The Hub 3 does its job, in a very basic sort of way, but even a mid-price third-party alternative will give you a much richer range of features, far better performance – and a pleasanter overall experience.