New Installation Query/Problem

[JabbaKane]

I have a new Broadband installation for this Friday. We've already had a pre-installation guy round to lay a cable through the front garden.

The wife has accidentally driven a spade through the cable and severed it!

I phoned the call centre to find out what to do next and was told it would be fine because two teams would arrive on Friday: one to fit the outside cable and the other would do the interior.

I questioned this (several times) because we've already had the outside cable fitted so why would you be sending someone out to do this again but was assured there were 3 stages: pre-installation and two teams on Friday (one for outside, one inside)...

Frankly I have little confidence that this will happen due to the awful experience of phoning them in the first place. So I thought I'd ask here whether the outside cable is likely to be replaced on Friday...?

[goslow]

Simple answer is that you can do nothing more than wait and see what happens. Take any info. from VM's telephone agents with a very large pinch of salt, especially when it comes to cable installations and repairs.

[Adduxi]

Hopefully if the cable is a "clean cut" and you can get access to it, the engineer may be able to put in a joint.

Otherwise it's a repull of cable.

[QE2]

There also needs to be a degree of slack in the cable. Ideally what can happen, is that the cut ends are stripped back and a coax plug fitted to each. Then a female to female adapter is used to join the two ends, and the whole lot is enclosed in a ‘gel pack’ to seal it from the elements. If done properly then this is absolutely fine, but as mentioned it does rely on their being enough slack to pull the joint together.

[sayekm]

If the wife put a spade through the cable today then it could happen again in future. Should really place some armoured cable conduit and the virgin guys pass the cable through.

[JabbaKane]

The front garden is not very big and I was hoping to get the replacement cable put around the edges, rather than straight through the garden...

My main query was whether it sounded like a "normal" process to have the external work done in advance and then more external (and the internal) work done on the installation day, as the call centre claimed. 

If not, what will likely happen is the guy will turn up and not be able to get my broadband set up that day. My existing service will be turned off that day too and I will likely wait another 2 weeks till Virgin fix the cable issue, leaving me no broadband service. 🤬

[Adduxi]

If you are at the Property, you can ask the engineer to put the cable where you want it. The problem is they don't always show up when expected ......  As for armoured conduit, I don't think that will happen.  My cable repull is about 25mm under the sods in the garden without any conduit, but at least it's all grass, no digging  🙂

[Adri_G]

Hi, JabbaKane.
Thanks for joining our help forums and for your first posts here, glad to have you on board! 🙂

We're sorry to see you're not confident in our processes and the upset this has caused, it's not the experience we want for you as a new customer.

We'd be eager to assist further with checking the account and providing some advice based on this if you want, let us know if this would be of help to you.

You can find more info on our construction works and processes here.
You may as well chat to our team there using the button on the right hand side of the page, should you wish to discuss your concerns.

Lastly, we can confirm in general when an install and external cabling work is pending we're unable to raise more requests on the account while those are still open (such as more engineer appointments).
Also our engineers would have the necessary tools and equipment to assist with the damaged cable in your garden upon the visit, so the advice you had from our team is correct.

Please, let us know if you need more help with the above and we'll be here to support you.