New Fibre pre install prep work

[Chris_Hodge5]

Good evening all,

Long time BT customer here, still in the dark ages with 38Mbps connection.

Virgin media recently laid and installed cables and exchange boxes close by to my home, Ive ordered Fibre TV and Sim.

I am a little concerned about the pre install, my back garden is onto the street, I have a very long style garden with a converted garage room and double driveway, monoblocs too. it leads onto my kitchen/dining room. Certainly do not want fibre cable coming in that way...

The front of my home has a very small garden if you could call it that.. just over a metre of dirt leads onto a public path where VM also digged up and lay cables, this would be preferable to have the VM cable and box fitted to the front of my home which leads onto my downstair toilet, hallway and living room.

Where my current BT copper socket is installed is at the bottom of my stairs in my hallway which is connected to a small utility room which then leads onto the downstair bathroom then outside to the front of the house, I would prefer the Fibre cable to come through the back of both the toilet/utility room into the small cupboard under my stairs and then fed along right next to the BT copper socket.

I believe this is the best and easiest way of installation.

Now, folks. What is the best way to communicate this to VM preinstall engineers/VM install engineers?

My install date is 3rd February and I have already chatted back to the pre install team about my home, they say everything greats and good to go but when will they come and what they going to do when I'm not at my property?

one more question, I have BT online home phone, when I ordered Virgin there was no option to add a landline with virgin? how do I add a landline and swap over my number?

I hope someone can be of help as the switch is going to be stressful having to organise and cancel BT Broadband / TV /  Phone / 2x mobile sims / Netflix etc

Many thanks in advance

[jpeg1 · Accepted solution]

Lots of questions there, that will need a lot of answers.

The first suggestion I'd make is for you to read through the reports of installation experience that you'll find in this forum. They will advise you of the pitfalls that you may encounter.

The contractors that Virginmedia employ will generally use the quickest, easiest route for running the cable to your house. This is not necessarily the method you would prefer, if you are not there at the time. They will not usually lift block paving. 

I'm sure others will come along and offer more advice. 

[Beth_G]

Hi Chris_Hodge5

Thank you for your post, welcome to the Community Forums!

If you do have any concerns at all about your installation, the Pre Installation Team will be more than happy to address these for you. They can request pictures of your garden so we can see what we'd be working with or arrange for a spotter to come and take a look to see if there could potentially be any issues.

In regards to your question about the landline, you do have the ability to bring your existing landline number over to us through a number port. Once we'd set up your landline, you may be given a temporary landline number until your number has been brought over. We just need the landline service to remain active with your current provider (in this case BT) until the port completes to ensure a successful transfer.

We don't however provide landline handsets, so you would need to continue to use the handset you already have (that is if you were looking to get a new handset in the first place).

To request the port, you'd just need to mention this during sign up or when speaking with our team after you have signed up.

Let us know if you have any further questions!

[Chris_Hodge5]

Thank you for taking the time to answer my query, well you were the pre install engineers have drilled into my home and placed the box under my living room window although this is the easiest route for entry it is definitely not what I asked for. My BT hub is in the hallway so there's no way they are running a cable all around walls and under real wood flooring to my BT hubs position. I have a NAS drive and ethernet switch there also so I won't be bringing all my connected devices through to my living room to connect to virgins hub.

I have raised a complaint and booked in another engineer to move the box over to other side of the front of my home as I want the cable to be run through 2 rooms out of sight and into my cupboard under my stairs, from there the new virgin connection will be made to virgin hub to replace BT hub.

I will be doing the prep work for new cable to make the job easier for the engineer that is arriving to connect it all up in my home.

Hopefully whoever it is will appreciate that he will just need to give me the correct length of cable to run where I want it and then install the connection box on internal wall.

I'm pretty clued up with IT connections once he has the coaxial box connected I will set everything up unless he wants to do it himself it'll be no problem.

Virgin need to bear in mind we are buying their services for our homes so we want it done properly. Not the easiest way for their engineers who'll never need to step foot in our homes again.

Let's see how it goes, any resistance and virgin will simply be deleted off my bills and I'll stay with BT.

Thanks again,

Chris

[jpeg1]

Hello again. Sorry to hear about the installation. 

A couple of points.

VM won't give you cable to run yourself, they will insist on a technician doing it. And (if it's a coax cable) the extra length may mean readjustment of signal levels.

If you want to cancel you must do so within 14 days of the first live connection. If you cancel payment after this date you will find that VM's accounts department (the only efficient part of the company) will become a great nuisance. 

[jpeg1]

@Chris_Hodge5  Here's a suggestion to consider.

Let them put their Hub box directly inside where the outside box has been fitted.  Then run a Cat6e ethernet cable to your own supplied router, sited next to your other equipment or wherever you want.  The VM box is simply set to modem mode, and your own router does the heavy lifting.

If you were to stick with the VM box on the longer coax run, you would very likely find like many others, that the VM router is inadequate for your use, particularly if you want WiFi coverage throughout the house.  Your own router will perform better in every respect than the VM supplied one, and could cost less than £100.

Just a thought...

[Chris_Hodge5]

Hi, 

Thanks for the info, I've asked which hub I would be getting, they've said the hub 5x. Not sure how good this is with Wi-Fi but I've just went and purchased TP link deco xe75 pro 3 pack. This should cover my home superbly.

I'll let you know how it all goes.

Cheers,

Chris