New customer.Will they use the old lines?

[SotonSteve]

Ive moved back home to care for my elderly father and we have decided to get Virgin installed and opted for the Gig1 package.. No TV and no phoneline.   We are scheduled in for 18th March and i have a few questions.

The house had the old NTL cable installed back in the mid 90s and still has one of the boxes on the wall outside.. I believe the wire from the ground into the box is still connected, the wire out of the box and round the back of the house intro the rooms has been long cut.. I was wondering if they use the  old wire or replace it and the white box? I have had a look round and cant seem to work out where the cable comes from that runs into the box.. I had a message about someone coming to do some external work but after reading some horror stories on here im a bit worried that the engineer will turn up and everything will be delayed because of this. Hopefully thats not the case as we are looking forward to making the switch. 

[Tudor]

The technician will replace the old wires from the omnibox (the one mounted outside). Make sure you request a maned install. As the property had a connection before you will probably be offered a quickstart package, but you need a technician’s install.

[SotonSteve]

hey thankyou for the reply.. They have already booked a technician to come and install on March 18th 😁 i was just worried about the old brownish lines from the ground into the omnibox being no good because they are so well buried and hidden after all these years  i cant even see what part of the garden/ground they come from and been looking outside for where they would pull the cable if needed 😂 ..   i guess i will just have to wait and see how it all goes, hopefully nice and smooth.😁

[Andrew-G]

@SotonSteve hopefully nice and smooth

Indeed, hopefully.  There have been some customers with protracted problems where old or faulty cables need re-pulling, in some cases for many months.  There's little you can do to reduce the risk of that, what you can do is make sure that you don't cancel any existing service on the assumption that everything will be up and running on 18 March.  It usually makes sense to allow for a two week to one month overlap when swapping between Openreach and VM connections (whichever way you move), because the additional cost is usually a lot lower value than the inconvenience of having no internet connection.

[SotonSteve]

thanks for the reply.. the way the dates fall we will have about 3 weeks left on the sky service so that should see us through any problems.. we are out of contract and just doing monthly so extending will be no issue if we have too. 😁

[Roger_Gooner]

Coaxial cables last for decades. As advised the VM tech will replace the cut cable and test that the signal is good. If it isn't and if necessary the cable from the cabinet to the house will be replaced (although it takes time to schedule a 2-man team do this).

[SotonSteve]

thank you for the reply... this is what i was hoping as the brown wires i can see coming from the grass still seems to look ok considering they been there nearly 30years 🤣 i guess when the external works team come they will be testing to make sure they still work and then going from there so i shall wait and see what happens 🤞

[SotonSteve]

so an update... today a couple of friendly guys turned up to do a cable pull ready for my installation on 28th March (not 18th like id accidentally typed previous) after about half an hour i went out to see how they were getting on and they said there was a blockage down the road and they would need a digging team and it should take about three to five working days..  so i guess the previous cable we had many years ago no longer works.   Fingers crossed the team turn up in three days, fix the blockage and every things good for next Monday.🤞🤣

[nodrogd]

Don't cease the service with your old provider until the new service is up & running. This is now bringing in another set of contractors & council permits will be required. There could be a delay of serveral weeks if there are complications with these.

[SotonSteve]

thanks for the reply.. luckily we are out of contract with sky and just going along on a month to month so a little delay will be fine... Its a fairly quiet road so hopefully permissions are granted pretty quick.