Forum Discussion

suttonscloud's avatar
suttonscloud
On our wavelength
7 months ago

XGS-PON Go Live Date

Hi All, 

First post here, hopefully I'm in the right place!

Nexfibre have been in my area installing the latest XGS-PON infrastructure, had a few chats with the engineers who confirmed its Virgin Media's new infrastructure, and that they are using Openreach PIA to run their cables to minimize disruption.

One of the engineers told me that once i see the black boxes installed at the top of the telephone poles, they have been commissioned and the install is complete. (My house is fed via ducts in the ground but he said this is just a sign we have done our works, as mine will be in the ground) - He did say we only have a few days left in the village which was last week.

As of now, my postcode does not return anything for Virgin, i get the 'keep me posted' screen. Phoned up and on a 'separate system' they can see the build shows as 'planned' but couldn't tell me anything else.

I guess my question is, does anyone know the activation time for XGS-PON from when the works were complete to actually being able to receive a service to their address?

Broadband is miserable, people are miserable, and I think a lot of people are looking forward to moving away from Openreach's 'fibre' 20mbps connection! 😄

Cheers

  • Hi @Suttonacloud

          I’m in an XGS-PON area, slightly different than you, they dug up the causeway, buried the cables & grey cabinets all over the place, started the infrastructure at the end of May’23 finished in July, then Virgin Media vans appeared connecting the cabinets, went Live & started to taking orders on 1/10/23,

    no point in ringing customer services, they don’t know anything, just tell you what you want to hear, they have no communication with the workmen at all

    my install for 20/9/23 but that was delayed, said more external work required a hardwire, no one knew what it was, anyway they set another date 8/11/23, VM engineers came a few days before the main install, the put a brown box on the side of the house connected the puck to the box, the 8th came install complete, you get Hub 5x, just 1 cable drilled through the wall to a white box attached to the inside wall, cable is connected to the hub, I’m on their 1gig plan, never had 1gig but it’s still really fast 860mbps they say it’s because my iPad & iPhone are connected to the hub via WiFi, prior to Virgin had Sky Broadband top speed 51mbps

    also have their Stream box, just £35 one off charge, it puts programs you’ve selected from the tv guide on a Watchlist, it’s lists all the series, it’s very fast, would definitely recommend

    So 4 months from start of the infrastructure being installed to Go-Live

    Hope it helps

    • suttonscloud's avatar
      suttonscloud
      On our wavelength

      Thanks for the insight @Stephen93.

      Weirdly, there is not a single grey box that has popped up in my village. I know they are using Openreach's ducting and poles for their install, but i did initially think where are all these cables even going to. I cant imagine Virgin are also using BT's cabinets for their fibre, but i may be wrong just seems like a risky gamble when already using the ducts and poles.

      The engineers said nothing about extra works of installing a cab, he said once you see the boxes at the top of the poles then they have been commissioned. - looking on bidb.uk there is no more works planned in my village.

      They all must connect somewhere! - I will have to ask the question should i ever see another Nexfibre engineer working. 

      • Stephen93's avatar
        Stephen93
        Up to speed

        Yes no poles here it’s all underground, also once your connected if you’re WiFi doesn’t stretch to other rooms you can get Virgin’s WiFi pods, they are brilliant I have 3, you get them free if your on their 1 gig plan but you have to ask for them separately, you can only get the pods by ringing them, which is a nightmare, takes ages to get through to someone, reason is anyone with their Hub 5x has a special team that deal with queries, but CS have never heard of them, after some persistence you manage to get some who knows,  they won’t send them if your speed is 30 mbps or above in these rooms where there is no WiFi,

        if you are on a lesser speed plan you have to pay £8 a month

        I've had no issues with the broadband, the only issue is if you have to ring them, CS read from scripts & haven’t a clue

    • georox123's avatar
      georox123
      On our wavelength

      Nexfibre dug up the pavements in my small estate during Feb 2024. They had finished by the 2nd Mar. The street cabinets were cabled at the end of May. I asked two different workmen on two different occasions as to when it would be ready to order. Neither spoke English, but one enough to tell me "one month". It's now nearly 5 months in total. It's still showing as "Keep me posted" and I still can't order.

      I've been periodically emailing the build team since March to see what they can tell me. All I've managed to find out, when I last emailed 2 weeks ago, is that the build is showing as "complete". For some reason they don't have information on when it is ready to order.

      Very odd way to organise and run a company. It can't have been cheap to dig up all the roads around me. I'm amazed they don't want a return on their investment? I know they owe me no explanation, but some sort of information would be appreciated. I would be happy if it was just a "Q3 24" or "Sep 24", for example. Seeing as BT have decided that my road is "uneconomically viable" for FTTP, Virgin are my only hope for getting off a rubbish FTTC connection.

      • carguy143's avatar
        carguy143
        Dialled in

        Nexfibre installed at the front of my house in March 2024 and were done with the whole estate by mid April. I just signed up today after receiving an email yesterday to advise they're now ready for orders. 

        It's due to be installed on the 16th. 

  • Tudor's avatar
    Tudor
    Very Insightful Person

    VM never disclose go live dates, they just make announcements when it’s live. The VM staff on the board in any case do not have access to this type of information. 

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta

    suttonscloud wrote:

    Hi All, 

    First post here, hopefully I'm in the right place!

    Nexfibre have been in my area installing the latest XGS-PON infrastructure, had a few chats with the engineers who confirmed its Virgin Media's new infrastructure, and that they are using Openreach PIA to run their cables to minimize disruption.

    One of the engineers told me that once i see the black boxes installed at the top of the telephone poles, they have been commissioned and the install is complete. (My house is fed via ducts in the ground but he said this is just a sign we have done our works, as mine will be in the ground) - He did say we only have a few days left in the village which was last week.

    As of now, my postcode does not return anything for Virgin, i get the 'keep me posted' screen. Phoned up and on a 'separate system' they can see the build shows as 'planned' but couldn't tell me anything else.

    I guess my question is, does anyone know the activation time for XGS-PON from when the works were complete to actually being able to receive a service to their address?

    Broadband is miserable, people are miserable, and I think a lot of people are looking forward to moving away from Openreach's 'fibre' 20mbps connection! 😄

    Cheers


    A black box on a pole is a CBT which splits the incoming fibre into individual fibre drops to customer premises (some are aerial drops). That fibre to the CBT probably comes from an aggregation cabinet which could be miles away.

  • unsure what package your going, but don't go directly for the 2gig if your after that, I managed to get 1gig for £33, upload addon for £6, so £39 for 1000/1000 then upgraded to 2gig for £6! also don't buy the stream box, never used ours, the build in tv apps are better for us imo.
    I've had 2 contracts on xgspon, and both were given with the stream box for free, didn't even ask for it.

  • Roger_Gooner's avatar
    Roger_Gooner
    Alessandro Volta

    All the evidence so far is that once a Nexfibre area is ready then VM offers its services. Hardly a month goes by without it being publicised that this is happening.

    • suttonscloud's avatar
      suttonscloud
      On our wavelength

      so decided to ring up Virgin Media and see if there’s any update, spoke with VM Residential and explained the situation outlined above to them, and the lady on the phone goes “sorry we can’t give you a service”, i asked if there’s anywhere else she can check as the previous advisor I spoke to could see on another system the build was in progress, and was hit again with an instant “no” - that’s all they have…

      so in a last resort I phoned VM Business to see if they’d be able to see anything additional, he said sure it should be something we can see, made me setup a customer account and he setup a 1Gb package for me. After 40 minutes on the phone come back and said there’s no service in your area… - after making me wait that long on the phone!

      he also got stumped when I asked him about the ‘upload boost’ and he kept saying I was mistaken for the O2 SIM card package where you get extra speed if you take out a SIM card package, when I know there’s people on XGS-PON with success on getting the £7 add on for upload speed symmetric. 

      at a bit of a lost cause now unfortunately. Went round the village and spotted 2x grey cabinets with some writing on the top which I assume is VirginMedias cabinets for the XGSPON.

      • Tom_W1's avatar
        Tom_W1
        Forum Team

        Hi suttonscloud and georox123 thanks for your replies here in the Forum.

        We do appreciate your frustrations but as you've been advised, we can never give any concrete information as to when the dates will be for being live for the services.

        We'd advise keeping an eye on our website though and registering your interest here.

        Many thanks

    • suttonscloud's avatar
      suttonscloud
      On our wavelength

      Thanks for the reply @newapollo

      I already know nexfibre have been in the area and done their works as I spoke to the engineers. And when they did the minor roadworks the signage was nexfibre. 

      Interestingly though, I don’t seem to be on the Nexfibre rollout plan, although they’ve cabled my village, strange.

      i did contact them via that form but they never got back to me, been around a month now! 

      cheers 

  • suttonscloud's avatar
    suttonscloud
    On our wavelength

    All installed!

    Engineer came round today at around 1PM and installed everything for us! - It was his first 2Gig install, he gave me the usual 'every device has a 1gb port and you wont pull the 2gb speed' but i was one of the few customers who already has a 10gb network in place, so it wasn't a problem!

    He was done within the hour and everything was connected up!

    Hopefully modem mode gets fixed for the 5X so i can properly intergrate it with my existing network, but it will do for now! 

    Speedtest 15/08/24

    • Paul_DN's avatar
      Paul_DN
      Forum Team

      Hi Suttonscloud,

      Thank you for reaching out to us in our community and welcome, glad to hear the install went well, there is nothing set in the future for modem mode for our Hub 5X, if you do face issues with signal getting around the home 7 days after installation you can have our WiFi Max pods, the 5X is designed as part of a trial not to be in modem mode.

      Regards

      Paul.

  • I'm in a similar position to the OP - I live in a street where NexFibre was recently rolled out earlier this month, roadworks were completed, Toby box installed outside my home, and grey Virgin cabinets have been setup in the street. I don't know if fibre has been blown yet.

    Would it be possible for someone from Virgin to sent me a PM, as we'd like to know how close we are to being able to being able to order a Virgin FTTP package. 

    • Ashleigh_C's avatar
      Ashleigh_C
      Forum Team

      Hi there cbdeakin 

      Thank you for your post and welcome back to the community forums, it's great to have you here. 

      To clarify, does Virgin show as available in your area when you search your post code online here

       

      • cbdeakin's avatar
        cbdeakin
        Tuning in

        Hi,

        It says 'currently unavailable' for our address.

        Would it be possible for someone from Virgin to give us a call to discuss the live date for our street?

    • Tudor's avatar
      Tudor
      Very Insightful Person

      "Would it be possible for someone from Virgin to sent me a PM, as we'd like to know how close we are to being able to being able to order a Virgin FTTP package. "
      VM staff on the board have no access to go live dates and never have had. Your only option is the link supplied: https://virg.in/checker

    • suttonscloud's avatar
      suttonscloud
      On our wavelength

      How did everything go, did you manage to get the install complete?

  • Everything's been installed into the pavement chambers and fibre ducts as far as I'm aware. There's no telegraph poles in my street. 

    I don't know yet if the fibre has been blown through the ducts yet, though.