Virgin Media Community

[gw95]

Hi

I’m new to Virgin Media and I’m due to have a broadband-only package installed on 4th Feb. The property where this will be installed is currently empty and has never had Virgin installed before.

On the public pavement outside I believe the little CATV manhole (that I think Virgin use) has recently been tarmacked over when the Council had the street refurbished. Other CATV manholes in the street can still be seen but the closest one to this property can now no longer be seen (I remember it being there from years ago). Will this affect installation, does anything need to be done beforehand?

My second question is - does the engineer bring the Hub with them, or does that get delivered beforehand? As the property is currently empty I’m concerned nobody will be available to accept delivery.

[goslow]

---

@gw95 wrote:

Hi

I’m new to Virgin Media and I’m due to have a broadband-only package installed on 4th Feb. The property where this will be installed is currently empty and has never had Virgin installed before.

<snip>

---

The cabling work (bringing a cable from the street cabinet to the property) is often done by sub-contractors. If the pavement cover has been covered over with tarmac, I don't imagine they will carry out any lengthy investigations to try to find it or expose it. In all likelihood the job will be marked as not having an accessible point from the pavement. If that happens, you may well find yourself dropping into a long delay while VM and its contractors work out what to do next. (Read through the many topics about that on this forum).

Do you know where the covered point in the pavement is? Can you rediscover it (maybe using Google street view) and try to mark it in some way?

VM frequently does the work in two stages. Cable installation first followed by equipment installation. The technician would bring the equipment and install it along with any internal wiring.

The sub-contractors doing the first bit of the job may turn up at any time (as theoretically the customer does not need to be in). If no one is living at the property it will be hard to steer them in the right direction as to where/how to install the cable.

You may be able to get VM to survey first but that is a hit-and-miss process as the survey information may never get relayed back to the cabling contractors (or they may simply ignore it!).

[carl_pearce]

Are you in a FTTP area?

https://api.superfastmaps.co.uk/fibrecities/3.0/

I'd honestley consider this over delays with VM, even as a happy customer!

[gw95]

Hi thanks for the reply and useful info!

I’ve got a fairly accurate idea of where the covered point in the pavement is (not down to the mm) but I can point in the general area of it. The area where it once was can be seen on old Google Street View imagery.

[gw95]

We’re sadly not in an FTTP area (not even in an FTTC area either!). A quick chat with Openreach highlighted they have no plans to extend FTTC to this area and the cabinet is currently at capacity. They did, however, say FTTP is coming “some time before December 2026”.

Looking at other non-Virgin options the max speed I’d get is around 10mb. With two people working from home I think that could fall over pretty quickly.

[gw95]

Is anybody from the Virgin Media Forum Team able to reply to this or privately message me about this please? 

[Adri_G]

Hello gw95, thanks for your posts and replies on our help forum and this thread.

We're sorry to hear of the issues faced, as your install has been arranged for early February any cabling work required should complete before that date however there are cases where 3rd parties are involved (local council, subcontractors etc) which may lead to delays.

Please, find more info on this page here in regard to these processes.
Can we also ask if this date we have booked you in for the service install is the original you've been assigned with or if we've rescheduled it?

Let us know and we're happy to advise more on this.

[gw95]

Hi @Adri_G, thanks for the reply

---

@Adri_G wrote:

Can we also ask if this date we have booked you in for the service install is the original you've been assigned with or if we've rescheduled it?

This was the original install date I’ve been assigned with. But after reading previous customer experiences on here I have a terrible feeling the engineer will turn up on 4th Feb, see no work has been done because of the tarmacked service tee (not sure if that’s the correct term), and delay the install. I’m hoping this can be avoided if the issues are raised early enough.

[John_GS]

Hi @gw95

Thanks for coming back to the thread. The pre-pull work can take place any time, up to and including 24hours before the install. If any extra work is required, you will be notified asap 🙂

Best,