Virgin Media Community

[ramman]

Hi All,

After moving to a house within a Virgin media area I decided to give it a try.

After ordering the broadband and phone package my installation date was set for the 12th of December. A few minutes after the engineer arrived he said that there was no line to the house, the cable would need to get pulled, and there's nothing he could do other than and set a new installation date, which he did for the 3rd and 4th of January.

This is a huge let down since it means I'll essentially have to go the rest of December relying on expensive mobile data. It's really misleading for the website to not only tell people the service is available, but to allow orders to be placed and engineers to be sent without any clue as to whether lines are actually in place. I tried requesting earlier dates without any luck apparently due to it being a two-man job (and presumably with Christmas looming).

Anyway I'm wondering what to expect if the installation goes ahead without more delay.

Before leaving, the engineer marked a small "T" at the corner of my front garden where it meets the sidewalk. The front garden is fairly small and there's no fence. I'm under the impression the two-man team will dig to run the cable underneath it and straight to my house. I'm not really sure what they do after that, do they need to install a "brown box" on the wall which the cable will lead into? Following that, will they drill a hole to get the cable into the house?

Given the front garden is right next to the sidewalk, and that I'd be ok with the router being in the first room the cable would contact, I'm assuming it should be a fairly easy install (straight line from the sidewalk to the house). I'm also under the impression they'll put everything right with regards to the digging when they're done. I'm wondering what others have experienced with regard to this? Am I thinking correctly about what they'll do?

Thanks

[-tony- · Accepted solution]

you pretty much have it but not quite in the order you lay it out

start with the cable pull the 2 man team will pull a cable from the cabinet through the underground duct to the cable tee - thats when i start to think there may be problems reading what you have put - the tech put a green mark on the pavement suggests there is no tee to the underground duct - if not one will have to be put in place by digging up the pavement - that mat need permission - i emphasise MAY - if it does and no body has applied then you are looking at 6 weeks from when the pull team come and can do nothing

on the other hand the green mark could be showing where the tee is - covered maybe but there - if so then fine

the cable will come out of the tee and run across your garden - one of the teams will bury it or rake a bit of gravel over it - dont expect landscape gardening

the tech will attach the brown box - connect the external cable and drill through the wall to attach to the internal box

thats it simple but could get complicated

[dnpark38 · Accepted solution]

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@-tony- wrote:

...the cable will come out of the tee and run across your garden - one of the teams will bury it or rake a bit of gravel over it - don't expect landscape gardening..

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Mine and neighbours they do not bury, they run on top of garden a green plastic flexible tube with the cables in it.   Usually on boundary of property against the fence which you do not have.

[ramman]

Thanks for the information tony.

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@-tony- wrote:..the tech put a green mark on the pavement suggests there is no tee to the underground duct - if not one will have to be put in place by digging up the pavement - that mat need permission - i emphasise MAY - if it does and no body has applied then you are looking at 6 weeks...

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The last thing I want is to wait until the 3rd of January only for the engineers to come and say they actually need another 6 weeks to get permission. Not sure if it makes a difference but I've noticed other people are connected to Virgin in my area (via wifi network names), so maybe that implies there is already a tee? I've also asked Virgin via phone if any permission is needed and they have repeatedly told me no permission is needed and that it shouldn't be a problem, for whatever that's worth.

@-tony- wrote:..the tech will attach the brown box - connect the external cable and drill through the wall to attach to the internal box...

Does the 2 man team install the internal box as well as the external one? (just wondering since I have the 3rd and the 4th if whoever finishes the install on the 4th will do the internal one).

[ramman]

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@dnpark38 wrote:

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Mine and neighbours they do not bury, they run on top of garden a green plastic flexible tube with the cables in it.   Usually on boundary of property against the fence which you do not have.

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Thanks dnpark38, just running it across probably wouldn't work well for me without a boundary to secure it against, although I do have a hedge on the other side which might work. I assume there's some obligation to make it secure and safe (e.g. no danger of being easily tripped over or accidentally cut etc)?

[-tony-]

look along your front boundary - you are looking for a small rectangular or triangular cover in/on the pavement - if you can find that thats the entry point

[nodrogd · Accepted solution]

Cable pull teams have a specific job, to pull cables. They don't do the rest of the install. There are far less pull teams than there are install contractors, so they have to move onto their next job.

Hopefully there will be some coordiantion & the two jobs will happen in quick succession.

In general service tees are not shared, so whether neighbours have the service or not does not mean anything as far as your connection is concerned.

[ramman]

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@-tony- wrote:

look along your front boundary - you are looking for a small rectangular or triangular cover in/on the pavement - if you can find that thats the entry point

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So what I have is

- Square grid in the road

- A small circular cover in the sidewalk (suspect this is the water meter but can't open it)

- 2 large circular covers (1 in the front garden, another down the side)

- A few more small square grids

All of which seem irrelevant. Another call to Virgin and they again say that no permission required.

I also noticed on my account that they added another install date for today

My order is only supposed to be for broadband and phone so I'm not sure why for the 3rd it has TV listed. I tried asking about that over the phone (seems like a mistake), but they just confirmed that I only ordered broadband and phone and left it at that (seems like they didn't know it was there), maybe it's just a placeholder?

No sign of engineers yet but fingers crossed they can get the ball rolling today.

[ramman]

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@nodrogd wrote:

Cable pull teams have a specific job, to pull cables. They don't do the rest of the install. There are far less pull teams than there are install contractors, so they have to move onto their next job.

Hopefully there will be some coordiantion & the two jobs will happen in quick succession.

In general service tees are not shared, so whether neighbours have the service or not does not mean anything as far as your connection is concerned.

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Thanks for the information. Since I can't spot the entry point tony describes it's looking like they'll need to install the service tee unless I'm missing something.

[ramman]

@ramman wrote:

...they added another install date for today...

No sign of engineers yet but fingers crossed they can get the ball rolling today.

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So no one showed and after another call I was told not to pay attention to the line pull dates, that it's contracted out to a third party, and that it can happen anytime before the install date. Whilst I don't really care when the line gets pulled as long as i'm actually installed on the 4th at the latest, it seems pretty unprofessional and disorganized to show these inaccurate dates.