Virgin Media Claim New 1.3Gbps WiFi SuperHub 2ac Router is the Fastest

Cable operator Virgin Media has today officially launched their new SuperHub 2ac (VMDG490) router, which has been leaking out to customers for quite a few months (here) and includes support for the latest 1300Mbps Gigabit WiFi (802.11ac) standard. According to Virgin’s research, the WiFi is now faster than all of the other big UK ISPs.

Broadly speaking the new device isn’t that much different from the vanilla SuperHub 2, except for the addition of 802.11ac spec Wi-Fi of course. Apparently Virgin worked with researchers at the University of Bristol’s Communication Systems & Networks Group to maximise the performance of their antenna.

Joe Lathan, Director of Broadband at Virgin Media, said:

“Data usage is growing by around 60 per cent each year as customers connect more devices to their home networks than ever before. Our Super Hub 2ac has been designed to help our customers enjoy every megabit of their Virgin Media connection, giving them the fastest wireless speeds on our unrivalled ultrafast network – even when lots of devices are being used around the home at the same time.”

Just in case anybody doubts the claims, Virgin says their WiFi performance has since been verified by independent testing via Farncombe (the speeds below are all download). The testing was conducted between October to November 2014 using the devices default mode for WiFi.

It’s worth pointing out that Sky’s router doesn’t even have basic 5GHz channel support and so unsurprisingly they don’t show up in the second table. On the other hand Virgin Media only pitted their router against those supplied by the other major broadband ISPs and not the market as a whole (better kit can be purchased third-party), but they’ve still put in a good result.

As usual Super Hub 2ac is available at no extra cost to all new customers who sign up for a Virgin Media cable broadband package and the devices spec sheet can be found below. The router itself is still based off a NetGear model.

SuperHub 2a Specification

· Cable Chipset: 8×4 Doscis 3.0 channels

· WiFi Radio: Qualcomm Atheros AR9880

· 2.4 GHz Antennas: Two Spatial streams (2×2)

· 5 GHz Antennas: Three Spatial streams (3×3)

· 4 x Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports

· USB connectivity

· Multiple SSID (up to three unique network names for each frequency band)

· Multiple security options

· Softbutton WPS

· Backwards compatible with 802.11a/b/g/n wireless standard protocol as well as ac