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Virgin installed on my estate but missed out my street

debcaygill
Joining in
In Autumn 2022 we were notified by Virgin Media that we were going to have Super fast Fibre installed on our estate.  As we are at the end of the exchange this was very welcome news as for a number of years the residents on the estate have battled to find a broadband supplier that could offer some form of useable internet.  Shortly after, BT came around and I spoke to one of the guys who said they were investigating whether Fibre could be installed on the estate.  He said that some of the estate had useable ducting but other properties would require further work and it would depend on whether it would work out good value for money.  
 
Virgin have since been and dug up the paths around some of the estate, installing new ducting and cabinets around the estate.  Our cul de sac was untouched - when I enquired I was told that we could still have fibre, they would be using the existing ducting.  Myself and 2 neighbours contacted Virgin after the works had finished to arrange an install.  Dates were given and then 24 hours before the install we were contacted to say that we have an unserviceable property. We have been told that our 3 properties can’t actually have it because the ducting is "unusable".  They now have to go back to the planning department to see if this is cost effective - I’m thinking not for just 3 properties.  The house across the road is now enjoying Super Fast Fibre broadband while I am struggling with a constant dropped connection.  I feel we are suffering because of a lack of a proper survey of the estate in the beginning.  Had someone picked up the hatch in front of my home they would have seen the ducting needed to be renewed and this would have then been included in the original survey of the estate, as the BT engineer informed me.  
 
I would like to know what can be done about the ducting for my property so we can also enjoy the benefits of Fibre.  
9 REPLIES 9

Koda
Up to speed

I Can't comment on Virgin Media and the street works that would be required. But remember that you have the right to a 'decent' connection in the UK. That means at least 10Mb down and 1Mb up. You say you're at the end of the exchange - In Openreach terms that would only be a problem if ADSL was your ONLY option and there was no fibre service, even to the street cabinet.

The other option to check out would be 4G and 5G Home broadband services instead which will hopefully be able to get you faster speeds than the USO if Virgin nor anyone else can provide something suitable down a fixed line connection to your address.

Hopefully fibre broadband becomes available to your home soon. But these things do unfortunately take time. If Virgin's installers have confirmed that the street infrastructure is unusable at present, you're stuck for the time being and nothing more can be done until new plans and proposals are requested, approved, and rolled out. 

We had 5G but it was so bad, dropped more than the broadband.  It was with Three, they agreed to cancel the contract without charge as they agreed the service was so poor.

nodrogd
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

Sounds like you weren’t part of the original build due to the expense of adding the road. Usually this is due to it either being private (ie. Unadopted), block paved or with no pavement (meaning everything has to go under the road). VM are unlikely to have surveyed the BT ducting, they just have an agreement in the local area for access. If the original BT build was a bit of a bodge up then they won’t interconnect it, and they don’t have too. As a cable provider with their own network they are exempt from any kind of universal service obligation.

VM 350BB 2xV6 & Landline. Freeview/Freesat HD, ASDA/Tesco PAYG Mobile. Cable customer since 1993

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Roger_Gooner
Alessandro Volta

Have you been able to find out from Openreach whether they plan to make fibre available to your property? There's a website you can check this out.

--
Hub 5, TP-Link TL-SG108S 8-port gigabit switch, 360
My Broadband Ping - Roger's VM hub 5 broadband connection

“Sounds like you weren’t part of the original build due to the expense of adding the road”. - Not sure what you mean by this. It’s not a new estate, the estate was built in 1980s, they’ve just installed fibre on the estate. 

Ive register but not heard, says it’s on the plan by 2025!

nodrogd
Very Insightful Person
Very Insightful Person

@debcaygill wrote:

“Sounds like you weren’t part of the original build due to the expense of adding the road”. - Not sure what you mean by this. It’s not a new estate, the estate was built in 1980s, they’ve just installed fibre on the estate. 


It means VM obviously done a survey, found that adding your road was not feasible or viable, so left it out of the VM build plan. 

VM 350BB 2xV6 & Landline. Freeview/Freesat HD, ASDA/Tesco PAYG Mobile. Cable customer since 1993

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According to the Avonline people who did the work on the street. Their plans showed the ducting in our street was to be used and no additional work would be required. So the rest of the estate was dug up and new ducting put in but our bit was left in touched. We received a leaflet from Virgin advising we could get fibre so booked our install. The day before the install we got w call to say they’d been to check and in fact our ducting was not suitable and therefore our property is unserviceable. They say they have had to now put in a new plan to complete the rest of the estate. My worry is that it wouldn’t seem worth their while now for such few properties. If they’d done the correct survey initially they should have seen that our ducting wasn't suitable. 

 

Ive found that trying to get any answer from anyone with the slightest clue whats going on at Virgin is just impossible.

In your case youve been led to believe you can get it (by the posting of leaflets) - though no doubt the person that posted the leaflets had no contact with the person that knew what was serviceable and what wasnt, who in turn had no contact with the person sorting out the physical install, it just seems to be a complete mess in figuring out who can get what, and even where they have installed cable.

In my case I spoke with the Virgin engineers installing cable in the existing ducting that runs down our street.  They advised they had done the road I live on, I saw them with my own eyes installing fiblre cable down the road.  I then got an email saying its coming in the next few months, then I got an email saying its being switched on in my area in the next few days.  Now the service checker has gone from "good news coming soon" to "no plans to "unavailable at this address".

A PM chat with somebody here has resulted in the response that they can find no record of any plans to enable our area...  Yet Ive seen the cable being installed and had emails saying its being switched on.  Its like they have litterally forgotten they put that cable in!  Complete and utter shambles.

I feel for you, and hopefully you will get it sorted soon.

If its any consolation, although its expensive Im currently making do with starlink for a semi decent speed of download (150+MBs).  upload isnt great and latency is not gamer friendly, but if its for a decent bandiwth to service a whole load of streaming in the house, it gets the job done.