With acknowledgements to newapollo.
VM have recently started pre-activating their equipment, and the box should call "home" and be activated within 30 minutes, however sometimes this fails and the advice is to sign into Service status at the top of this page and run a test against the Hub / TV box you are installing. By doing this we’ll be able to reboot the box or put you in touch with the right team.
The old method (which still works) is to reboot the Hub / TV box, and if the channels are still greyed out then you need to phone to get your box activated. 0800 953 9500.
You will need the box serial number, and your account and area number.
You could also try contacting New accounts and Set Up for them to complete the setup and activation. That would be options 1,1,1 and 4 if dialling 150 from a Virgin landline , or options 1,1,2 and 4 if dialling 0345 4541111 from any other phone
The best time to call is 8am when lines first open and are least busy.
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BT Smart Hub 2 with 70Mbs Download,18Mbs Upload, 9.17ms Latency & 0.35ms Jitter.