External cable severed

[DaftPunk1980]

Hello, 

I've just moved into a new rented property and was delighted to find a Virgin Media wall unit on the inside of the property. My self set-up kit arrived today and (cutting a long story short) while on the phone to Virgin Media help, I stepped outside the property and found that the cables coming out of the external wall box (coaxial / copper) were severed. I can't see the 'other' ends of them and the driveway looks like it has since been bricked over. Joys. 

I feel like a right idiot for not checking outside the property before I signed up. An engineer is booked to come out in a couple of days. The property was connected to BT according to the agents, but had been de-activated before I moved in. There are Openreach sockets with what looks like ethernet ports, but no coaxial ports or cables. 

Is there any advice anyone can give me to try make the engineer's life a little easier when they come? Can the Openreach connections be used in place of Virgin connections? 

[DaftPunk1980]

I can’t seem to get it in portrait or rotate the picture. Sorry for the neck strain. 

 

 

 

 

[goslow · Accepted solution]

You can't use Openreach sockets to connect to VM, unfortunately. Looks like the cables may have been cut out and removed for the installation of the block paving below the omnibox. The area below looks newly installed.

The only thing to try would be to see if there is any sign of the cut end of the cable from the street. Have a look on the pavement for a small access plate (may be branded with VM logo or CATV or older cable TV company logo). If there is any sign of a cable coming out of the ground see if you can find a cut end to it. It looks like it will be 'shotgun' cable which is a larger diameter bit of coax cable bonded alongside a smaller diameter telephone cable.

If you find the end of it, the tech may be able to join onto that with a box as a temporary fix before getting a new cable pulled in at a later date (assuming s/he has time and materials to do that on the day). Alternative possibility might be to temporarily connect you to the next-door neighbour's feed (if they happen to have VM) and again run in your own cable later on. These might be slim possibilities. You may well just need a new cable installing and that can sometimes be a time-consuming process, based on the topics which crop up on here.

Hope your actual prospects turn out to be better than the slightly pessimistic possibilities described above!

[DaftPunk1980]

Just in case anyone else has this problem and searches the forums in the future:

I had an technician / engineer come out this afternoon. He had it sorted with a temporary cable within 30 minutes and was an absolutely lovely bloke to boot. I never got his name, but he did leave his ID number, 

What helped was

• The CATV junction in the pavement was about 2 inches from the property line
• The cut cable ends were accessible from the CATV junction
• There was a direct unobstructed route straight from the CATV junction to the external brown box on the wall of the house
• The cable route did not present a trip hazard as it ran along a fence line between the CATV junction and the external brown box

The technician / engineer said he would book another appointment in about two weeks time to run the cable under the paving, or lay it more securely on the driveway, whichever suits my landlord. 

I'm really happy with this. I know that not everyone has great experiences, and I was really lucky with my set of circumstances, but I thought I'd add a positive story to give a little perspective and contrast to some of the more difficult scenarios that other customers are facing. 

[goslow]

Good to hear that the installation turned out as hoped for and got you up and running. Keep an eye on the progress of installing the new cable. A new cable would be the best solution for the long term.