Hi all,
TL;DR (too long, didn't read) at the bottom. Apologies for the long one.
I have been in a 5 year battle with trying to get better internet at my location...
So details first: The run from my house to the nearest virgin fibre point (the square things in the pavements) is roughly 160m. Yes I am aware that's a relatively long run. I live inside a recreational park so I am a little far from the main road.
However, this run consists of 60-80% grass and the rest is loose gravel - no concrete involved, no road closures involved. Virgin reps have told me that even just under half of the run will exceed their budget and I will basically never be eligible for their services. But my entire village of over 100 houses have virgin 500mbps Oomph packages, while I'm still stuck on a 12mbps copper cable.
I have asked about options like providing a pre-installed ducting pipe which means all virgin will have to do is pull a cable through and they can start charging me £50/£60 a month for. Or even I cover the rest of the costs from where their budget exceeds, but for some strange and stupid reason, I was told Virgin will either do the job themselves, or not at all, they will not allow customers to pay for the construction works etc.
Recently, I finally got some glimpse of hope by managing to talk to my "local area manager" who is basically in charge of deciding which houses get the go ahead with new services being installed - but he is basically saying the same thing of "it's exceeding our budget". It's literally grass and loose gravel. What's worse is they're judging this using google maps - I have asked countless times for someone to come and do a site survey, but it's either a no-show, or I get a text from someone who has merely attempted to look remotely using satellite images.
But it gets worse. The existing OpenReach ducting I have here, Virgin wont touch, nor will OpenReach/BT upgrade my copper line to fibre because my area is too heavily dominated by virgin, so they don't deem it cost-effective to service my area. So I am basically being held hostage by Virgin, who wont offer me a service.
I don't know how big their budget is per-property, but there is no way digging a small trench to lay some ducting can cost a fortune when there is no roadworks involved, no concrete work involved etc. It's all grass and loose gravel.
What can I do to push for Virgin to install at my property? I will be on the most expensive package immediately so it will be cost-effective for them. And any future people living in this house will be using Virgin as that *would* be the only provider to provide more than 10mbps, so they're solidifying years of money coming back into the business.
TL;DR: Virgin will not service my area at all, have been trying for over 5 years. No one bothers to actually come out and do a site survey, and instead just remotely decides "nope, not happening". BT/OpenReach wont upgrade my area as Virgin dominates my village, so I'm being, what feels like, held hostage by Virgin who won't even offer me their services.
