Virgin Media Community

[coelacanth]

Alas, I am really tearing my hair out at this point. It's desperate times when you have to turn to the forum: I've contacted Virgin about the setting up of our new broadband and television goodness knows how many times, spent hours and hours on hold and then on the phone. There seems to be little to no communication between departments. I was, for instance, told several times (the friendly woman was so terribly insistent on this fact) that I was going to be phoned back with an answer at last "within a maximum of four hours" yesterday. Of course no call came. Anyway, the issue is very similar to one posted here: https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/QuickStart-set-up-and/Frustrated-new-customer-cannot-get-any-an...

Installation guys came five weeks ago and said they couldn't do the installation there and then after all because they didn't realise there was no cable they could run into the house. They'd have to wait for a different (pre-installation) team to come and dig up the pavement and put a cable in to run to the house, after which time they could come back and finish the job. Apparently the nearest point was somewhere over on the next road (I'm unclear on this point because our next door neighbours have Virgin broadband and television, so how the nearest point can be over on the next road I leave for someone better versed in these matters to explain). I do consider the chaps at Virgin ought to have been able to tell us this before we'd agreed with our old broadband provider to end that contract, but there we are.

We were told that as the preparatory stage in the digging-up-the-pavement business, they would apply for planning permission, which might take up to three weeks, forcing the installation date to be pushed back by at least a month to give the lads enough time from then to complete their digging. We were soothingly reassured that this was no biggie, merely a minor hitch and we'd be all hooked up in a month's time. So I called our previous provider and pleaded with them to extend our old contract for an extra month. Fine.

Except nobody has shown up at all. I've heard nothing, there's no sign of digging, I've had no updates and now installation date number two looms large in two days' time. As I say, I've been in touch with Virgin with increasing alarm and decreasing patience, but nobody on the phones can tell me what on earth is going on because 'their notes don't say anything'. They reassure me that the relevant team will call me back and nobody calls. I don't even know if they have applied for the planning permission for which they said they would apply, because nobody seems to be able to tell me even that much. Our previous provider is now going to cut off our WiFi imminently (I can't seem to get hold of them either without dedicating an entire working day to the task: they're all as bad as each other). I require kindly assistance please!

[goslow]

There's certainly a lot more topics like this than just the one listed above (the 4.5 week delay mentioned in the link above is super-fast compared to most topics on here, some of which have gone on for months and months). In fact, the number of delayed cable installation topics on here is certainly well into double, if not triple, figures by now.

You are unlikely to get any reliable answers from VM about your installation as no one seems to step in to control and manage these cases when the installation process goes off the rails. Events unfold in a random and totally uncoordinated sequence of unknown duration.

In the meantime, some things you should consider would to be see if you can 'un-cancel' your existing provider and get onto some kind of rolling monthly continuation in the (very likely) event you are kept waiting a lot longer for your installation to happen.

Contact your local council and find out if a request for a permit has even been made (past topics have used this as an excuse for delayed and an OPs own investigations have later discovered no request for a permit had ever been made).

See if any work is showing here for your street

https://one.network/

it is not a brilliantly reliable resource but you could check it anyway esp. if your next scheduled date is only two days away.

Also consider that any schedules VM might give you about your installation are probably not based in reality but simply on the latest bit of automatically-generated information which has popped up on their display screen. There have been past topics where VM tech's have turned up on multiple occasions to install equipment when a cable from the street had yet to be installed.

Your installation might begin in two days time or nothing may happen for months and months. You'll only be certain your installation is actually going to happen when you can see workers digging up the street outside your home.

[coelacanth]

Golly that's depressing to read, but thank you so much. Quite bizarre that it's so hopelessly dysfunctional. I couldn't find anything on one.network so next step is to contact the council. What fun. Virgin has brought such joy into my life.

[Andrew-G]

Your neighbour having VM means its feasible to serve you, but each property (when permanently installed) has its own cable, you're not just being tapped into the cables already running past your property.  The cable pull will be from the nearest street cabinet, so if that's a street or two away then it may be a long distance to pull.   With a long distance pull, particularly in relatively densely built up areas, it is not uncommon for the pre-pull team to find that the ducts are blocked.  When somebody cancels VM, they don't remove the cables, so over time the ducts can get filled and blocked by existing cables, or they can be damaged by other streetworks or subsidence.

Hopefully this won't apply, but if it does then there's more permits needed and more digging required by the construction team (potentially a different outfit to the pre-pull guys), and the delays can go on for months with no communication of what's happening.  The record reported here was somebody strung along for over 11 months, and at that time I believe the order was cancelled.  Sometimes the costs of clearing a blockage exceeds the installation budget, and VM themselves cancel an order they've previously agreed to.

All of which is a long way of saying that you may want to think carefully about what you'll do about internet and phone services during this unknowable delay.  All could be sorted next week, it might not be sorted until April, worst case they might string things along for a couple of months and then announce they can't connect you.  Welcome to Virgin Media. 

[coelacanth]

The bravado it takes to string someone along for 11 months is impressive. Taking my cue from your suggestion, I've come up with the temporary solution of a data sim in a router on a rolling monthly contract because my old providers weren't playing ball. So that's a few more hours lost to attempting to sort this problem. I feel nothing but welcomed. Ugh.