Forum Discussion

swiftmoo's avatar
swiftmoo
Joining in
6 months ago

Preparing cable for virgin

How do i prepare for Virgin cable?

Situation: Our service cupboard is in the middle of the house (has all the gas/electric meters, current modem/router, Cat5, Wireline internet, mesh base station. All works great, but new cable access through house will be messy / problematic.

Challenge - bike shed in front of house + kitchen and downstairs loos (which have boxed in services so big drill through risk). We don't want cable running though porch and through hallway round 3 door frames to get to utility cupboard.

Proposed cable route: up the side of the porch, in via first floor and under bedroom and landing floor and then down into cupboard.  Which i assume is non standard.

Questions

  1. Can I pre run cable,  then installers commission or use my cable to pull their cable through?
  2. Will they put a junction box at floor 1 level (2.5m) / run a cable from a lower box up there?
  3. Are there limits on where they terminate their install (assuming cable issue is sorted) e.g. they wont install in a cupboard or near gas meters / consumer units?

Thanks

Alex

4 Replies

Sort By
  • goslow's avatar
    goslow
    Alessandro Volta
    6 months ago

    Some past topics on here have described getting a pre-installation survey done by VM. Not sure how/if that can be arranged though. Others, inc. the VM forum team, should be able to advise.

    Downside is that past topics have also advised getting a pre-installation survey done only to find a cabling sub-contractor turns up unannounced and simple crashes on with fitting an external box in a totally different location that was simply easiest/quickest for themselves, ignoring the pre-installation survey.

    VM installers won't lift floorboards to install cables. They seemingly won't go on flat roofs either nor into lofts nor generally install above first floor level. Some customers, in past topics, have helped out with the installation to access difficult areas. Your options may depend heavily on the individual person who turns up to do the job and how flexible/accommodating they are.

    Usual suggestion on here for installing cables in difficult areas is to run in some conduit yourself to begin with and leave a pull rope inside so the VM tech can easily pull through the VM cable.

    Other considerations might include what kind of VM services you are getting (which might need coax cable distributing to TV boxes as well as VM broadband hub).

    A VM person should reply to your topic within a few days.

    • swiftmoo's avatar
      swiftmoo
      Joining in
      6 months ago

      Yes -  pullable route feels viable if VM willing to use it - am not fussed about them using my actual cable am sure VMs cable is fine and its what their used to working with / warrantying.

      Mainly looking for a big fat internet pipe - tv boxes and other services not valuable to me as i have over the top services for the amount i need. I could use the WIFI if any good. Today most the important connections like work laptops are on CAT networked cable into the router or wireline which again into the router. Mainly its things like ring doorbells and cameras on the actual wifi and tablet / mobiles on Wifi.

      • John_GS's avatar
        John_GS
        Icon for Forum Team rankForum Team
        6 months ago

        Hi swiftmoo 

        Thanks for posting and welcome to the community. Have you got an existing order? 

        If not, call our sales team on 0800 183 1234 and ask for a Site Survey to be done pre your install.

        If yes, the same but to pre-installs on 0800 052 1734

        Best wishes.

  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person
    6 months ago

    From your description you will be running the VM hub in modem mode. In that case perhaps there is somewhere that the VM hub could go near where the coax will enter the house. All you have to do then is run an Ethernet cable to your utility cupboard and into your other cabling. All my networking equipment is under the stairs cupboard in the centre of the house, but my hub is also there because I already had all the floor boards up when it was installed.