I was a virgin media customer until 2017 when I moved to Belfast from Edinburgh and couldn't get connections at my location. This year I moved back to Edinburgh and bought a house which is a significant investment. One major criteria in my house hunt was the availability Gig1 fibre. I work in Artificial intelligence sector and I regularly deal big datasets.
I moved in on the 25th of Feb 2022 and had an install scheduled on the same day. Unfortunately, the technician found out that my cable was damaged. She tried to unblock it but concluded that I would need a new cable. She said she would get in touch with her manager and try to get this done as soon as possible. She was really helpful and kept me updated for the next couple of weeks.
Since then I have had 5 reschedules, and every time they say that they need to do more work outdoors. The call centre has been of no use to me and have never given me any useful information other than reading from a script.
A couple of weeks back on the 29th of March I met a couple of contractors from https://www.kier.co.uk/ . They were working on the green pavement markings. I introduced myself and asked whether they were trying to re-pull the fibre. They confirmed it and I requested them to do their best.
After 30 minutes they informed me that this was their second visit. They were told that the blockage had been cleared, but it clearly was not. They said it is another contractor that needs to clear the blockage and put the ropes in for them to repull the cable. Unfortunately they had no idea who the other contractor were. They said since it is the pavement and should not cause traffic disruption, it should be easy to get council permission to dig it up if needed.
I have been trying in vain since then to get the virgin media call centre to give a status update. Apparently the next re-pull attempt date is the 16th of April. Funnily enough I have not seen anyone do any work to clear the blockage, and the green marks on the pavement seem to be there as they were.
My worry is that this will fail again and I will get the automated reschedule messages again. Seems like there are 4 parties involved - virgin media, contractor 1 (dig up/ clear blockage) , Kier (re-pull), and the Edinburgh city council (if they need to dig up I guess). And none of them or their systems communicate properly. Seems like an information black hole. I have seen other posts with similar problems with 12 month delays. I am scared that I will be sucked into this kind of not-joined up and badly managed process.
The house has been an significant investment, on top of that I have spent >£600 on Starlink equipment (who have not shipped anything after weeks) and a >£1500 on 5G router and cell-fi go x signal boosting system. But my internet remains flaky as always.
I am at a complete loss. I can't just sell my house. My job is suffering due to not having high bandwidth internet. I am getting nowhere while speaking to virgin media to reach a solution.
I even said I am happy to pay for the contractor to do the outside work if that would speed up the process. I just need a solution and I needed it yesterday.
If there is a moderator or someone who has better view of the situation - can you please help me out?
