Virgin Media Community

[ereeve0690]

Hi all,

We have just moved house and Virgin Media installed a big, brown box on the front of the house before we even moved in - can’t imagine the previous owners were impressed. 

Anyway, they’ve located it right next to my front door and it is incredibly ugly and large (sticks out a way too). The engineer visited today to connect us and said he wasn’t able to move it as they use the BT line (and this is right next to BT’s line on our house). 

We’ve reluctantly gone ahead with the install but are going down the avenue of having our contract cancelled, by our choice. 

Question is, will Virgin come and remove this box and all the wires from the front of my house? Obviously we don’t want them there once we’ve cancelled the service. The engineer said yes but having doubts about this. 

Thanks. 

[japitts]

When a resident cancels their VM services, then as a rule the cables & connections are left in-situ unless they present a demonstrable H&S risk. After all, why should VM expend time & money on wilfully disconnecting equipment that could then create a barrier to current or future residents rejoining?

If you can post up some pictures of the issue as you see it, that may help.

[Roger_Gooner]

There should be a minimum of 350mm between the external termination boxes of VM and Openreach.

[spell]

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@japitts wrote:

When a resident cancels their VM services, then as a rule the cables & connections are left in-situ unless they present a demonstrable H&S risk. After all, why should VM expend time & money on wilfully disconnecting equipment that could then create a barrier to current or future residents rejoining?

If you can post up some pictures of the issue as you see it, that may help.

Fair enough - unless it's on private property of course where they should be recovering their equipment - the possible requirements of any future owner are totally irrelevant

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[ereeve0690]

 

These were my thoughts exactly… it’s private property so surely we don’t have to keep the equipment? It’s right by my front door so would like to get rid of it as soon as we’re disconnected ideally 🫣

[goslow]

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@ereeve0690 wrote:

 

These were my thoughts exactly… it’s private property so surely we don’t have to keep the equipment? It’s right by my front door so would like to get rid of it as soon as we’re disconnected ideally 🫣

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With that arrangement of the BT cable duct it is very likely that you will end up with a wall box of some description in that location whoever you go with for broadband services.

Within the last year I had a BT fibre connection installed and their required outside box was L: 166 W:144 H:33 mm and grey in colour. Not exactly huge but not small either compared to regular outside BT connection boxes of the past. Example image towards the bottom of this page below of what BT installs outside for fibre

https://community.talktalk.co.uk/t5/Future-Fibre/Random-Request-photos-of-install/td-p/2881366

Have you actually used the VM services or are you giving up on the idea of VM based on the size of the box?

If you are still within your 14 day cooling off period after the VM service has been activated, you could maybe try out the VM connection for a short time and see how it performs and whether you like it or not. If you like the service, you could maybe try and find a way to accommodate the presence of the box by camouflaging it in some way (plants, planter, re-spray etc.)!

VM seems to do other colours of box as per images near to the bottom of this page

https://www.chatteris.biz/blog/virgin-cable-coming-chatteris/

or is the size of the box the main 'obstacle' (so to speak!)

[nodrogd · Accepted solution]

It’s that large because it’s a fibre ONU. This converts everything to copper coax.

Fibre ONU

[ereeve0690]

Hi there,

Oh that is interesting… I didn’t realise BT’s would also be that large as well…it’s obviously a requirement for the fibre cables. Thanks for the comparison…looks like if we want fibre then this is our only option.

It would be absolutely fine elsewhere on the house… just seems they’ve had to install it (due to the BT line) in the most obvious + intrusive place on the house which is made worse by the dark brown colour in contrast to the house - never going to please everyone I guess! 

Yes, we’ve had Virgin Media services for the last 6 years at our previous house but the box was hidden and was also a lot smaller than this box, which is why this issue never crossed my mind when saying we’d stick with it. 

[Tudor]

There is nothing stopping you painting it white to make it less obvious.