Broadband services in Haywards Heath - West Sussex (RH16)

[Oneonefour]

Hey all.

Virgin laid down the fibre optics on my road in March of this year, and we got some info through the door about it at a later date. I signed up to be notified and in August I got an email from Virgin saying, "Virgin Media is nearly ready! In a few weeks time, you'll be able to get your hands on lightning fast broadband and amazing TV."

12 weeks later, there's still no availability. The website simply says we are coming to your area, sign up to be notified when it's ready.

Does anyone know how much longer I'll be waiting?

[Oneonefour]

Hm, interesting. Thanks for the info. Seems that would only apply to streets they haven't already dug up and laid cables on though right? My road for example was dug up and the cables laid 15 months ago in March last year. I was told by the workers and then later in more detail by a Virgin liaison officer that the main hurdle was getting the town linked up to the existing network in Crawley and that there were a lot of issues laying the cables and using existing ducts that had either collapsed or become blocked resulting in a lot more work than anticipated. It would make sense to use existing infrastructure where possible but I was under the impression the whole point of Virgin's network was that they owned it so they had full control over it. Unless they simply want to use existing OpenReach ducts and whatnot to feed their cabling through?

You would think the priority would be to get the town linked up to the network though and get the roads already prepared online. Every month that passes without that happening is lost potential revenue. Maybe they are already working on that as fast as possible but it seems to be taking a ridiculously long time.

[STAstro]

I do know that there was emergency fibre works around the area of the railway bridge near Harlands a few weeks back as the road was closed for a few days, I suspect this may have had something to do with it.

And yes that is the intention to use Openreach Ducts to put Virgin cable into

[Zach_R]

Hi @Oneonefour,

Thank you for your post. I'm afraid that currently there's no update beyond the one that my colleague last gave to you unfortunately. I do apologise.

If you enter and submit your details via our address checker tool, you'll be notified once we have more information for you.

Thanks,
 

[Oneonefour]

Check your postcodes people! RH16 is going live!

[sudonxt]

The anticipation began to boil up. *checks postcode checker*, bugger not available yet. 😩

[STAstro]

Same here, but then I would not have expected anything less, it seems like almost 12 months on and still no sign of them laying any further cables in Haywards Heath

[Oneonefour]

Damn. Stay tuned though. I guess the area is being linked up one road at a time. It's showing as available for my road now!

[STAstro]

Yeah but you are probably in one of the areas that they laid the cables in up until October last year, when at that point all the crews vanished into thin air, even the portaloos near bentswood were taken away.  So I won't hold my breath in getting fibre any time soon around Northlands Wood area 😞

[Oneonefour]

Ahh, so I'm guessing they haven't even laid cables for you yet then?

Not sure when they even started to lay cables in Haywards but my road was cabled in March 2022. Hopefully they get back on the expansion although as has been demonstrated, we probably shouldn't hold our breath on it.

Do you have the contact details for the community liaison officer? Maybe they can shed some light for you?

[STAstro]

We've been trying to get info out of the Liason Officer for a while now, radio silence!