Virgin Media is a major supplier of broadband to the consumer and business markets in the UK. In fact, at the time of this writing, Virgin Media ranked second only to British Telecom (BT), the largest player.
As an Internet service provider (ISP), Virgin Media facilitates the allocation of dynamic Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to routers in its network. These routers are often super hubs supplied by Virgin Media themselves. Super Hub is a combination modem with built-in wired and wireless routers.
Dynamic IP addresses are assigned in global networks (WAN) by DHCP servers. At the router level, these WAN IP addresses can be translated to many local network (LAN) IP addresses by a router in a process called Network Address Translation (NAT). These LAN LANs are generated on demand for network devices, such as computers, when they connect to the router by wire or wirelessly.
Dynamic IP usually comes with a seven-day rental period. Theoretically, when the lease on IP expires, the new router should be assigned to the router. But in reality, the router “updates”, it distributes the IP halfway through its leasing and receives the same IP address.
If you want to change the dynamic WAN IP address assigned to your router, you will need to disconnect the router for at least fifteen minutes and then again, and this will usually be enough. However, with Virgin Media Super Hub, this usually does not do the trick I found for myself.
Internet providers prefer to issue dynamic IP addresses as opposed to static IP addresses only because dynamic IP addresses are minimal administrative costs, which is important for reducing costs. Since current IPv4 addresses are becoming increasingly scarce due to the ongoing explosion in new network locations included in the network, dynamic IP addresses allow you to "recycle" IP addresses. This is the process in which IP addresses are released to the “pool” of IP addresses when routers are offline, which allows these released IP addresses to be resolved and used by those that arrive on the Internet.
Sometimes, even if the router goes offline or the lease expires on the router's IP address, the same IP address from the "pool" of IP addresses may be assigned to the router. In such circumstances, a dynamic IP address behaves more like a static IP address and is considered “sticky”.
In other cases, it is also possible for the “duff” IP address, that is, an IP address that is “damaged” is somehow assigned to you, as happened to me recently. Various attempts to reboot Super Hub, I continued to receive the same dynamic address from the "pool". This situation was completely unsatisfactory for me, because the IP address did not allow me to access my own external sites! The decision I read about was about changing the Media Access Control (MAC) address of the Ethernet host card, which in my case was for Super Hub.
Unfortunately, Super Hub does not have the ability to “clone” MAC addresses because it does not provide an interface in which the MAC address of a computer on your network can be set, as a result of which the current IP address will be changed. The only way to present another MAC address to the DHCP servers is to connect an external network Internet interface card (NIC) to the Super Hub. In other words, turn on Super Hub only in the modem and connect an external router to it. Fortunately, Super Hub, supplied by me, VMDG480 from Netgear, allowed Super Hub to switch to modem only mode.
Fortunately, I also had a backup router — an excellent Vigor 2820 Series ADSL 2/2 + security firewall with the latest firmware version, version 3.3.5.2_232201. Although a great modem / router in itself, the type of router is not important for the problem we are trying to solve here.
I have completed these quick and simple steps below so that everything works.
1. In the Super Hub user interface, turn on modem mode.
2. Attach an Ethernet cable from the specified port on the Super Hub to WAN 2 port on the router.
3. On the router's control panel, make sure that the physical mode is set to “Ethernet”.
4. On the WAN 2 interface, the IP address, subnet mask, and gateway IP address should be automatically obtained from the modem.
5. Leave the default MAC address.
6. For future problems with the IP address of Duff, I have the opportunity to clone the MAC address, which should forcefully replace the WAN IP.
And it sorted out the sticky IP interface problem with Virgin Media. Fortunately, the new IP address was “clean” and allowed me sites that were inaccessible to the previous damaged IP address.
Good luck!
