Does the one wall plate handle TV and internet?

[davefoy]

We've just built a new house, we're waiting on our final install from Virgin.

At the time we designed the house and planned the electrics we were misinformed by who we bought the plot from that the only broadband supplier was Virgin, so we only wired our house for Virgin.

It later turned out Openreach (BT etc) also supply the area. So because of that we have no standard Cat 5/6 running round the house to RJ45 data points in any of the rooms (to my regret).

We never wanted Virgin for the TV anyway, just fibre broadband, although we have since decided to have the TV service as well.

We were told by our house builder that with Virgin the same wall plate / socket handles both TV and wired broadband, and that we'd just need to wire Virgin coax cabling round the house to a single socket at each point in the house we wanted TV or broadband (or both). Our local Virgin new build development guy also told us that the same cable handles both TV and broadband. 

So that's what we did - Virgin coax cable is hanging out of the wall in a point in most rooms where we'd want either TV (like the living room) and/or be able to wire into the internet (like my office/study).

However, a couple of conversations with friends and a search on the internet has me worried that actually, all these open sockets in the house with Virgin wires hanging out of them, ready to be connected soon, are only going to be good for connecting the Virgin TV box to. If we wanted to connect devices to wired internet we'd also need a standard ethernet socket as well, wired through the house to the Virgin router.

Is that true? Or will our single Virgin sockets really handle both TV and internet (i.e. we'll be able to plug both TV and ethernet cables from devices into them)?

I hope that makes sense, trying to explain what I mean clearly. 

Thanks for your help.

[davefoy]

Thanks @Tudor. This is fantastic info.

The mesh units I currently use (Netgear Orbi) allow me to connect the satellites via ethernet to a switch (diagram 3 on this page) so I'll definitely do that.

I can just connect each satellite unit to an ethernet socket each in a couple of rooms, and those sockets will (eventually, hopefully) all lead to my switch, so I should be good.

Out of interest, which router and access points do you use?

Thanks again for your help here. So grateful.

[Tudor]

I use a Ubiquiti Dream Machine Pro router, Ubiquiti AP AC Pros for WiFi and I have Ubiquiti cameras which are controlled by the Dream Machine Pro. Ok, and also 1 16 Port PoE switch and 2 x 8 Port PoE switches. Nearly £2000 of equipment! Unlike most business class equipment there are no maintenance fees and a very good support board.

[davefoy]

Thank you everyone for your helpful advice. So much clearer now.

Dearly wish we hadn't been misinformed so badly, but we'll install the ethernet sockets one way or the other, just a real shame we didn't do that during the actual build. 

I have one more question, if anyone can help?

Because our builders assumed that Virgin coax needed to be run to any points we needed to connect to wired internet, they've run VM coax to 6 different points in the house. Photo below of one example in a room.

Once VM engineers fit a face plate on each one, these will be good to connect a TV box and/or hub - is that correct?

So, each of those coax cables are fed through the house down to a central point in the hallway downstairs (the builders were assuming it was the same as you would with Cat 6 cable). Photo below of where they all come out.

 

Question: where will all these cables connect to? I'm guessing they've handled this completely the wrong way too? 

Thanks again for your help.

[Adduxi]

Normally, VM use splitters to feed the cable(s) from a single cable.  Any cables not being used can be left not connected.  If VM connect a cable and there is nothing on the other end, it must be terminated with a 75 Ohm termination cap. 

So. assuming you are not using all the cables at once (?) , only attach the working ones to a splitter, if that makes sense.?  

A technician will need to check the power levels at the ends of each working co-ax cable to make sure it is in spec.  Otherwise the signal will not be good.  Unfortunately the reliance on co-ax cables for VM equipment is a bit of a mare, as it's hard to work with and not easy to conceal.  

[davefoy]

Thanks @Adduxi.

Now I know that those coax cable sockets in my first photo will only be used for TV, we'll only have 2 of those active (though I'd like to leave the other sockets in the other rooms anyway, if a future occupant wanted to have TVs in bedrooms, etc). 

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@Adduxi wrote:

Normally, VM use splitters to feed the cable(s) from a single cable. 

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I'm having trouble visualising this, sorry... What's the single cable? Is it a separate cable coming from outside that the installers will feed in? And I'm not sure what you mean by splitters feeding the cables?

If the current set up (6 cables all coming out of the wall in the hallway) isn't how they'd normally do it, how would they normally feed coax to the sockets in rooms that require it?

Sorry for being a bit dim! Could you explain to me like I'm 5 years old. 😁

Thanks for your help.

[Adduxi]

VM use a single cable to the outside brown omnibox.  From there, they can either use a splitter externally, or feed the cable inside and split internally.  It's up to the technician to figure out the best for the customer.  Sometimes you can end up with a lot of co-ax nailed all around your house exterior to get from A to B.

A typical splitter is like this below.

[davefoy]

Ah thank you! That makes sense, yes. So in a way, having the coax fed through the walls the way we have has at least avoided running coax round the house exterior to get to the TV points?

....I'm desperately looking for positives here 🙂

[Adduxi]

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@davefoy wrote:

Ah thank you! That makes sense, yes. So in a way, having the coax fed through the walls the way we have has at least avoided running coax round the house exterior to get to the TV points?

....I'm desperately looking for positives here 🙂

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Yes, every cloud has a silver lining ......