Can I go wireless with Virgin Broadband WITHOUT buying their £50 router?

[BettyButterknife]

Just called them to ask how to go about setting up wireless at home. They offered me either an upgrade (which will cost me an extra £19 every month - no thanks) or just buying a wireless router from them which will cost me £50.

I know there are other routers on the market - a cursory look on the PC World website shows them as low as £25 - but would they work with the Virgin set up?

Can anyone help? Am such a technophile

oh i would ring them and say you'd like to be put through to the customer retention people

then tell them that you really wanted wireless, but £50 is too much and so is £19 a month.
so therefore unless they can do anything about that oyu'd like to cancel everything you have with them

i am sure they'll sort you out with something pretty sharpish!

I got offered a free router when I joined up with Orange...just change your provider

we have a router from pc world with our virgin broadband so it should!

Is this a virgin cable modem? If so what plugs does it have on it? Just usb (riza2004.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/usbport2.jpg)? Or does it have ethernet too (support.morehouse.edu/whatis-network/ethernet-jack-on-computer.jpg)?

If it's got an ethernet connection you could get a wireless router and connect it to the modem with a network cable. Then you should be able to go wireless.

If your modem only has a USB socket then things will be trickier, not impossible but certainly a touch trickier.

If you already take a few services from them and have been a customer for a little while, get yourself put through to 'disconnections' or whatever it's called. I managed to get a V+ box for £30, increased TV package and free router all for £2 more pcm than I was paying.

Ooh, that's worth knowing - thanks, I'll give their retentions department a call.

BadgersPaws it's the second one - ethernet. Can I get any old wireless router then?

Yup you can go looking for a Wireless Router, which isn't quite the same thing as a Wireless Modem Router.

Make sure that what you get is able to connect via ethernet to a cable modem.

For example something like this should do the trick:
www.amazon.co.uk/TP-Link-TL-WR541G-802-11g-54Mbps-Wireless/dp/B000FO6QZ4

However it might be worth getting it from a shop and explaining your requirements and making sure that you can take it back if it's the wrong thing.

Brilliant, thanks Badgers. I'll check it out.

madamy can I be cheeky and ask how much you pay and specifically what services you get?

We pay roughly £45 for line rental, Unlimited telephone (?Talk XL), TV XL (ie everything bar Sky movies, sky sport etc) and broadband - not sure which speed tho!

Also got the V+ HD box which they say costs £79, they originally offered it to me for £49 but I got it for £29 after haggling and an N wireless router.