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How to connect time capsule with virgin superhub

Could someone please help by explaining step by step how I can connect my time capsule to Virgin Super hub? Is it like BT where I have to out in PPOE settings?


thank you

Posted on Jun 1, 2015 1:10 PM

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9 replies

Jun 1, 2015 1:57 PM in response to alainalou82

You have two choices with connecting Time Capsule into existing networking.


1. Leave the existing network working as is.. plug the TC into the main router.. and run through the setup.


It will simply put the TC into bridge mode.. and you can setup a suitable wireless name..


There is nothing wrong with using wireless from two different routers.. and in fact since bridge removes one function in the TC.. guest wireless network.. you can continue to use the virgin hub as your guest wireless.. direct all the other wireless clients to use your TC.. or a mix depending on the needs.


Anything that backs up to the TC should connect to it directly by wireless or ethernet.


2. Replace the existing router with the TC.

This may mean physical replacement.. ie pull out the virgin super hub and use the TC.. however.. very few people will or can do this. Most often ISP simply will not provide the means for you to remove their router for your own. Sometimes you can bridge a combined modem router.. So the ISP supplied router will stay in place but effectively be bypassed.


If the existing router uses PPPOE internally or to another modem.. and you know the correct authentication username and password.. then yes, you can try the TC in that role.


Plug it into the VDSL modem or whatever it is..

When you run the airport utility, if it doesn't detect vdsl you will need to choose options and then pick PPPOE client. Generally I recommend people simply finish the setup wizard and then click edit and change the settings yourself.


So, click the TC in the airport utility.. click edit.


User uploaded file


Go to the Internet tab. Choose PPPOE.


User uploaded file


Put in your account name and password.


DO not have to worry about the rest.. it will fill in automagically.


The bad news is this is not particularly good setup in the TC.. it is unstable in many cases or simply doesn't work. Apple tend to require DHCP as default and not much else works. If you are in this situation go back to 1.


3. There are heaps of variations on the above.. Virgin super hub are fairly common so a simple search will get you a bit of history.

https://discussions.apple.com/search.jspa?q=virgin+super+hub

http://www.postseek.com/meta/eb8166f2b38dbc4c6aa94f302d829e97


The internet is not homogeneous so one solution fits all. What works in one place.. "works for me is the cry" Does not imply it will actually work for everyone.

Jun 1, 2015 2:02 PM in response to alainalou82

You don't need PPOE. You have two simple choices, of which the first is probably the better.


1. As suggested above, simply plug the TC into one of the output ports of the hub and go through the setup process.

When you initially set up your Airport to add it to your modem or modem/router the 'wizard' will automatically detect how it is connected, suggest the correct type of setup, and prompt you to create a name for the Airport, and a name and password for the wireless network you are creating or extending. Open Applications/Utilities/Airport Utility; select your Airport (or Time Capsule - effectively the same thing) and follow the instructions to create a new network or extend an existing one. Page 21 of the manualoutlines the procedure, and Bob Timmons has provided an illustrated walk-through in the Apple Support Forums. The TC will be placed in 'bridge mode', so that it passes through IP numbers issued by the hub. (If you want a fuller explanation of all this please see http://rfwilmut.net/notes/airport.html .)


You can if you wish turn off the Virgin hub's wifi in its settings (or by pressing and holding the large lit button on the front), or leave it on as an additional network as suggested above.

2. Though I don't think there's much point, you can set the hub into 'modem-only' mode. The difference here is that the TC will be handing out IP numbers to the network rather than the hub. However if you do this you can connect only the TC to the hub, nothing else.

If you go for option 1 you can still connect wired devices to the hub, or you can connect them to the TC wired or wirelessly, and all will access the internet and be able to see each other for file sharing. I run this setup with a Virgin Superhub and an older Airport Express and it works a treat. The laptops, tablet, an older iMac and several internet radios connect to the airport through wifi, a couple of printers are connected via a simple USB hub to the Airport, my main iMac is connected to the hub by ethernet, and an ethernet lead goes to a network switch in the TV area to connect a couple of PVRs and a Blu-ray player. It all works seamlessly.

Dec 12, 2015 6:13 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Roger

Forgive the intrusion but I found your post very helpful, including the link to your clear explanation of the previously mysterious "Double NAT".

You clearly advocate using the Apple router (such as TC) in bridge mode rather than switching off the router function of the Superhub, for the reasons you set out. Have you tested whether this creates any material loss of data speeds compared with, say, switching the Superhub router off, or even just using (for test purposes) the Superhub router only?

I am about to convert from the old to new Superhub2, having become very frustrated with the performance of the original Superhub. I used to use this in modem mode only combined with an Apple Extreme base station but the technical staff at Virgin were not very supportive of the combination and (beset by variable to poor speeds on my Airport network) I reluctantly surrendered to using the Superhub router exclusively - but still with very mixed results. Someone in the accounts department at Virgin has recently encouraged me to move to the Superhub2 but feel free to use the Apple Extreme as the (superior) router of choice and ignore the misgivings of the technical support team.

I appreciate (just) that there are various factors that can have a bearing on Wifi performance, and I should investigate these further, but would be very interested to hear whether you have found any loss of performance arising from your preferred choice of bridging?

Dec 12, 2015 8:00 AM in response to brianmw58

I think option 1 - the Airport in bridge mode - is probably the best but I can't give you much in the way of statistics. I've never tried using the wifi in the VM Superhub and indeed it's always been turned off. The Airport is preferable for me, partly for the ability to connect printers, and partly for the dual bands. My internet radios and a Roku 1 are connected to the 2.6GHz band, and the laptop and tablet to the 5gGHz band. At one time the iMac was connected by wifi, and I found the 5GHz network to be markedly faster. The extra speed doesn't matter with the internet radios, where robustness is more important. The wifi isn't of course anything like as fast as the direct ethernet connection to the hub, but quite respectable - I just clocked the tablet at 76Mb/s; the iMac is connected directly to the Superhub and when the wind is in the right direction I've clocked 156Mb/s - slightly more than the nominal 152Mb/s. Of course it's rather slower on Saturday evenings.


Also the advantage of letting the Superhub issue IP numbers is that you can use its LAN outputs, which otherwise you woudn't be able to if it was in modem-only mode. If I used that I'd need another network switch.


The present setup is slightly different from my post six months ago. The superhub feeds the Airport, the main iMac, and a cable round to the television area where it feed a Sky+ box, an Apple TV, an Amazon Fire box and an Oppo Blu-ray player. The Airport WiFi feeds an older iMac, the Android tablet, and four internet radios. All this works perfectly well, with HD streaming of films working fine on the various video devices, and I can transfer large audio files quickly from the old to the new iMac over Wifi.

Dec 12, 2015 3:07 PM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Many thanks again. At the risk of betraying further my ignorance, am I right in concluding that switching the Superhub wifi off whilst the Airport router (say TC) is in bridge mode as you describe is quite different from using the Superhub in modem only mode? I hadn't appreciated this distinction before, whereby the Superhub (with the Wifi switched off) is nevertheless still capable of issuing IP numbers and hence supporting cabled devices via its LAN outputs, whilst Airport provides wireless connectivity (and a USB connection to my non-ethernet enabled printer). I will try this out tomorrow with my current Generation 4/5 Base Station (or somewhat more recent Time Capsule) creating the Airport Network and compare performance with and without the Virgin Superhub wifi operating. (I have a difficult to access old generation Airport Express connected to my amplifier which is configured to the Virgin wifi, so there may be some temporary merit in running both networks together since I struggle to switch networks remotely without resorting to a factory reset).

Dec 12, 2015 3:20 PM in response to brianmw58

Though I've not tried it, I would assume that placing the superhub into modem-only mode would have to turn the wifi off since the LAN output would pass though only the IP issued by Virgin, the public IP, and that's not going to be much use on wifi since any number of devices might connect to it. Obviously if it's in this mode it can only feed to one device, either directly to a computer (as in the days when we all had only one computer) or to a router.


If the hub is not in modem-only mode, then it hands out the local IP numbers in the 192. range, so that devices which are plugged into the three LAN ports or which connect to the wifi receive their numbers from the router. If you turn the wifi off then only the three LAN ports will work, which they will do just the same. If you are connecting an Airport to one of the LAN ports then if the hub is handing out IP numbers then you don't want the Airport doing the same thing.


In theory you could have both devices using wifi - provided the networks had different names a device could just choose which to connect to. If both have the same name I suppose any device might just connect to the stronger of the two: but either way having two wifi networks might well lead to interference and degrade the performance generally. I suspect that the Airport is the better device for wifi, so given that and the availability of the hub's LAN ports my option 1 is likely to be the best option in most cases.

Jan 14, 2016 5:47 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

I run my new Superhub 2 in Modem only mode - I did the same for my previous Superhub. This does switch off the WiFi and also changes the IP Address of the Superhub to 192.168.100.1. You have to connect the Time Capsule to the bottom Ethernet Port on the Superhub 2 - the other three SuperHub ports are disabled in Modem mode. I run my Time Capsule in a Router Mode (Network Tab of AirPort Utility) of DHCP and NAT and also have IPv6 set to Link-local Only (Internet Options). This works perfectly for me having the wireless all provided by the Airport in the Time Capsule and taking wired ethernet through a gigabit switch from one of the Time Capsule ports.

Jan 14, 2016 6:57 AM in response to Nigel-f

That's a perfectly viable alternative. My own preference is to let the Superhub issue the IP numbers, with the Airport in Bridge Mode, simply so that I can use the three LAN outputs on the Superhub - the wifi is turned off. I recently received the Superhub 2 and now have the 200Mb/s connection (not that it speeds up Apple Discussions, though).

How to connect time capsule with virgin superhub

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