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Virgin Media claims new Super Hub 2 five times faster than Sky Hub

Virgin Media is claiming that its new Super Hub, also known as the Super Hub 2, is five times faster than rivals Sky’s wireless Hub router. 

Independent tests carried out by Farncombe Technology in association with the University of Bristol put the new Virgin Media hub at the top of the table when it was tested against the BT’s new Home Hub 4, the latest TalkTalk wireless router and the Sky Hub.

The latest Virgin Media tests showed that over the 2.4GHz channel the new Super Hub was on average 30 per cent faster than the Home Hub 4, 82 per cent faster than the TalkTalk Hub and a staggering 498 per cent faster than the Sky Hub.

Virgin Media claims new Super Hub 2 five times faster than Sky Hub
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the new Virgin Media Super Hub.

Read Recombu Digital’s guides to Setting up a Wireless Home Network and What is a Router?The new Super Hub is a dual band router, transmitting and receiving data over the 2.4GHz and 5GHz radio frequencies in the home. As the 2.4GHz channel can suffer from interference, it’s become fashionable for routers to come with an extra 5GHz channel built in. This should make streaming data around the home a less congested experience.

Joe Lathan, director of broadband at Virgin Media says: “Our new Super Hub is designed to deliver a best-in-breed WiFi experience and it’s great to see the results of the testing by Farncombe and the University of Bristol reflect this. Our hub is clearly head and shoulders above the rest when it comes to speed, delivering the fastest wireless connections throughout the home compared to kit from our competitors.”

The survey goes on to detail performance of the Super Hub and the three other routers in a variety of real-life locations in a test dummy house set up by Farncombe’s in Bristol. In all locations and all situations, Virgin’s new router came out top. 

Virgin Media claims new Super Hub 2 five times faster than Sky Hub
A floor plan of Farncombe’s test house in Bristol

This will be welcome news for Virgin Media customers, some of whom were less than happy with the performance of the old Super Hub. It’d have been interesting if this survey had compared the old Super Hub alongside the new one. 

Customers on the 30Mbps packages will continue to be sent the older Hub. Those on the faster 60Mbps and 100Mbps packages will be able to upgrade to the new Super Hub for a one-off £49.95 fee for an engineer visit. 

While the new Virgin Media Super Hub is touting some impressive headline speeds here, note that BT is planning to unleash its Home Hub 5 later this year. This is a dual-band AC router that can theoretically provide speeds of up to 1Gbps around the home and is thought to cost £35.

The Sky Hub is about a year old and we’d speculate that a new Sky router will be announced soon. TalkTalk’s most current router was released last year, so we’d expect an updated product to be announced shortly too. 

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