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Removal of Virgina Media Cable & Box

L_Wang88
Joining in

Hello

I am not a virgin media customer but I believe that one of the previous owners of my property was.  I'm doing landscaping work in my front garden and there is a black cable that comes out for the ground under and across my front garden which connects into a brown Virgin Media cable box on the side of my house. 

I need to have this cable and possibly other cables that run along the side of the house to be removed.  The cable running across the front garden currently prevents me from getting my builder to re-pave the front garden.  Any assistance that can be provided would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

LW

14 REPLIES 14

L_Wang88
Joining in

Hello

I am not a virgin media customer but I believe that one of the previous owners of my property was.  I'm doing landscaping work in my front garden and there is a black cable that comes out for the ground under and across my front garden which connects into a brown Virgin Media cable box on the side of my house. 

I need to have this cable and possibly other cables that run along the side of the house to be removed.  The cable running across the front garden currently prevents me from getting my builder to re-pave the front garden.  Any assistance that can be provided would be much appreciated.

Many thanks

LW

goslow
Alessandro Volta

You may/may not get any help from VM on this. Posting up photos of the cables and what you want doing with them usually helps the VM forum team in how to deal with your enquiry.

Hi L_Wang88

Thanks for your post 

The cabling is classed as utility and we would not advise this to be removed 

If it was and not capped or sealed it can have a detrimental affect on the network for other customers in the area

Gareth_L

 

Hi Gareth_L

Thanks for your reply, which unfortunately is not immediately helpful to me.

I attach pictures of the cable which you can see comes up from the ground across my front garden to a box on the side of my house.

Is it possible for the cable to capped at the ground level?  I don't want to cause any connection issues for my neighbors, it's just the the cables running across the garden to the box prevents my from doing any landscaping works.

Many thanks

L_Wang88

Thanks for your reponse which is not immediately helpful to me.  I attach pictures of the IMG_5735.jpgIMG_5736.jpgIMG_5737.jpgIMG_5738.jpg

@L_Wang88 firstly the legal position here is really quite clear, you are absolutely entitled to take a cable cutter to the wire at the boundary of your property and remove the entire lot. Now technically this is all the property of VM so what you should do is write to them and explain that you have done this and that they have a reasonable time - lets' say one month, to come and collect their property otherwise you will dispose of it. Now you won't actually get a response but you have fulfilled all of your legal responsibilities - after a month just put the whole lot in a skip!

The 'utility' argument comes up from time to time, it's actually rubbish! It now seems to have become a bit of an urban myth ie that cable broadband provision is on a par with gas or electricity or water, I suspect it's down to a misunderstanding of the regulations and laws relating to service provision. 

Now if you were to simply cut the cable, could it effect your neighbours? Theoretically yes it could, however the technology involved here is actually more robust than it is sometimes given credit to - in fact legally, you are not a VM customer, you have no duty of care over their network and if their network is so fragile that it can't cope with you cutting a cable - then it really isn't your problem!

Now there is one possible drawback to this, might you ever want to be a VM customer in the future? Cutting the cable here means that they would need to repull a cable from the street cabinet to your property which they may well decide is not economic and hence mark your property as 'unserviceable'. Although this might not be an issue for you, it may well affect the resale value of the property if the new owners are unable to get VM because of your actions.

@L_Wang88 Just get your builders to take it all out - VM have no legal rights to leave cabling in place if you're not a customer, doubly so if it's the sort of shoddy install your photos indicate.  Regarding the possibility of interference to neighbours, that's a red herring - when a customer leaves VM, their cable should be unplugged at the street cabinet, so if VM have followed their own standard procedures, then cutting the cable will not cause any problems.  If they haven't followed their own procedures, then that's not your problem, and they'll have to go and do that.  

Anonymous
Not applicable

What's the name of the company again? 

@Andrew-G Thanks for your comments and I'll certainly bear it in mind depending on what resolution is proposed by Virgin.  Ideally I would like their engineer to come out and cap the cable off!

@jem101 Thanks for the insight.  As I have mentioned to another person on this thread.  My ideal solution is for a VM engineer to come out and cap off the cable at the street level.