Safety Concerns Raised Over Virgin Media UK’s Legacy WiFi Boosters

Customers of UK broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2), specifically those who may own one of their legacy WiFi Booster devices – also called Powerline Boosters, should remain vigilant after a number of users reported that their units had failed after sparking and smoking. A tiny number of users even alleged that the units caught fire.

First things first. Electronic devices do sometimes fail, and when that happens it’s usually more of a graceful failure, which means that the kit will simply stop working and that’s the end of it. In that sense, it’s not uncommon for a very small proportion of supplied hardware to suffer a failure during operation, which is a risk that tends to rise as devices age through time and usage.

Sometimes such failures can be a bit more noticeable, such as if you see sparks or smoke, while in extreme cases there’s also the risk of fire to consider. Take, for example, the 2015 case when EE had to recall masses of free portable Smartphone battery chargers (“Power Bars“) after some exploded (here). But most electronic devices are designed in such a way that they’ll fail without causing a fire. 

The latest example of a device that seems to be raising concerns over safety has come from Virgin Media’s legacy Wi-Fi Boosters (aka – Powerline Boosters), as well as the odd one of their more modern Plume pods and similar kit. But so far as we can tell, the most common issues are being experienced by their legacy boosters (pictured).

Examples of this are certainly not hard to come by and most have been reported via Virgin Media’s own Community Forum: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here (Credits to Cardiffman282 for helping us find these). Most of the complaints have occurred over the past 12 months, while a few pre-date that period.

Sample Customer Complaint by Marz123

“I have been using the old white Wi-Fi booster for the past few years and have not had an issue until two days ago. The booster suddenly sparked then made a loud bang and caught on fire. The customer service was closed for that day so we waited until tomorrow to contact virgin.

Upon contacting customer support they said were redirected to WhatsApp where we waited the full day to not even be contacted. I am extremely displeased with the way this was handled especially seeing as this could have resulted in a house fire had I not been home.”

Sample Customer Complaint by reeree81

“I returned from holiday and switched on all of my electrics. When I switched one of the booster packs back on, it literally popped and started to release smoke, thankfully no fire and my plug socket still works with other appliances.”

Sample Customer Complaint by Tim_allen

“My booster plug has just blown in its electrical socket. It sparked and smoked.”

Sample Customer Complaint by Megan_1910

“We’ve had this booster for about a year with no issues – got home tonight having been away and when I switched it on it started to spark a lot and then started to smoke and now no longer works.”

Sample Customer Complaint by cherrievarley

“My Wifi Booster, old style, went on fire today. Very dangerous and lucky i was in the room to quickly pull out of the plug.”

Naturally, we raised these concerns with Virgin Media, which advised that they take these reports incredibly seriously and, in each of the instances shared, they claim to have immediately requested that customers return them so that the provider could undertake comprehensive testing.

The operator said that, in every test undertaken on their boosters or pods – including on those devices returned by customers that have allegedly caught alight, sparked, popped, smoked, blown etc. – they’d “identified no faults which pose a fire risk and every device we’ve received or inspected has failed safely as designed, or worked as expected.”

Analysis of the failed Powerline boosters is said to have revealed either “no or very minimal visible damage to the outside of the units” – with the faults appearing to have been caused by a failing component. “In our testing, all other components and areas inside the units appear in good or excellent condition,” added the operator.

Virgin Media has also sent units to the manufacturer and to an independent third-party for further testing. In all cases, these tests are said to have “found that units were functioning safely and coped as designed, including when put under significant load testing – up to 1kV (four times higher than domestic wiring)“.

In short, the provider said they’d had “no substantiated reports of fire starting as a result of a booster failing” and inspections of those devices where customers claimed they caught fire “found this is not the case and there is no evidence of fire damage to the devices“.

A Virgin Media spokesperson told ISPreview:

“We always take reports like this very seriously and have carried out comprehensive testing and investigations, including with independent third-parties, all of which have found no evidence of a fire safety risk with our WiFi boosters or pods.

We have hundreds of thousands of customers safely using our WiFi boosters and pods and on the very rare occasion that individual units have failed, they have done so safely as designed.”

The last point about Virgin having “hundreds of thousands of customers safely using our WiFi boosters and pods” is a key one. As we said in the introduction, a small proportion of electronic devices will often fail and, with so many users, it’s not surprising that a very tiny number of that figure may fail in a way that is a bit more.. noticable (sparks, bits of smoke, popping sound etc.).

Such issues can happen with routers and WiFi adapters on other providers too, although without more data on the failure rate, it’s very difficult to know if Virgin’s legacy WiFi Boosters are more prone to such failures than those of competing brands / manufacturers / ISPs. But certainly, on the anecdotal level, we did find it much easier to uncover related complaints about Virgin’s adapters than similar kit at other ISPs.