How to get Virgin Media to request to use Openreach Ducting?

[spanners_leeds]

I've been trying to get Virgin Media for many years, this is just the latest.

Placed an order for 1Gb Broadband and was pleasantly surprised that VM rang to say they had signed off a budget to come and do some external work to try and get cable to my house.

Was even more pleased that a full team turned up in my road today to get me and one other house cabled. 

However, they soon realised that my house wasn't straightforward and they couldn't locate any cable to tap into nearby.

The closest they got was a VM cable they found that was next to an Openreach pit, now there is a further Openreach pit right outside my driveway further up the road. Naturally, the team onsite today wasn't prepared to drill into the Openreach pit and use their ducting but they did agree it was the best way of getting a cable to my property. It's probably about a 50m run to get between the ducts and the onsite manager said it wouldn't be difficult to tap into the Openreach pit at all.

So, the question is "Who do I need to talk to to ask for VM to seek permission to use the Openreach Duct", this really would be the most economical, efficient and environmentally sound way of getting me cable. Just don't know how to get to the right team in VM to ask.

Thanks in advance.

[jpeg1]

Getting into the depths of Virginmedia's internal maze from outside is very difficult. You may get a staff member here to send an internal email but there's no no guarantee it will be read by the right staff.

Edit to add: this is going to take some time to resolve. Have you checked when Openreach will be bringing full fibre to your postcode? That might be a simpler answer. 

You mentioned an onsite manager. This person must know who to refer this up to for a decision to approach Openreach, and will have all the relevant site data. Can't you ask him/her to progress it? 

[Roger_Gooner · Accepted solution]

Only the ISPs deal with Openreach as they have the contracts, so the punter cannot call Openreach.

As for VM using Openreach's ducts and poles: this is done in a small minority of cases in VM's fibre areas (so no coax).

[spanners_leeds]

Onsite manager was the contractor manager so not an expert on VM policy. I did ask him to note it all down but he did do a bit of a runner at the end.

For some reason my area (Ashtead) isn’t in plan for FTTP otherwise I would happily take that.

Thanks for the reply.

.

[nodrogd]

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@spanners_leeds wrote:

Onsite manager was the contractor manager so not an expert on VM policy. I did ask him to note it all down but he did do a bit of a runner at the end.

For some reason my area (Ashtead) isn’t in plan for FTTP otherwise I would happily take that.

Thanks for the reply.

.

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98% of VMs local distribution is RG6/RG11 copper coaxial cable. This will block the smaller diameter Openreach ducts, so are not suitable. There also has to be a local agreement in place for duct sharing.