When Install?

[robputt]

Yo my Virgin Media homies, hope you are all doing well...

I have come here to vent about the massive lulz fest which is my new Virgin Media installation... Basically we had Virgin at our old address, we contacted the move team to get moved to our new place but unfortunately Virgin couldn't supply the new property. However I indicated an install may be possible at the new property as the neighbour 2 doors down had Virgin coax over his back fence. The move team forwarded my comments onto a local Virgin Field Sales Consultant (Stacey) who said she'd check it out, they also cancelled my old package as we were out of contract.

Stacey sent out an engineer to check out the property and they concluded that they could use the Virgin ducting running down the road behind my property and fling a cable over my back fence in a similar fashion to my neighbour and Stacey submitted an order on my behalf on 22nd March.

Installation was scheduled for 7th April a few days before I emailed Stacey to ask if I could do the internal cable runs myself as I didn't really fancy coax being stapled around my skirting and Virgin whacking a dirty hole in the front of my house. Within hours a Virgin engineer dropped around a reel of their VM sanctioned RG59 cable and I got to work drilling through my cavity at the side of the house in a nice discrete location and performing a cable run in the stud walls to the living room. Everything seemed set for the installation day.

Unfortunately the day before installation I received a text indicating it had to be delayed as work needed to be performed outside the property. I suspected this as there was no CATV cover behind my property to connect to. Another installation date was set for 21st April. Avonline networks turned up about a week later to deal with the pre-pull but noticed their permit was for the wrong street so couldn't complete the work, they marked up the pavement with green spray paint and left site. The next day I received another appointment for 11th May, again about a week before Avonline networks turned up and this time started digging up the pavement. A plastic CATV cover was installed and pre-pull completed ahead of the install. However a few days before 11th May my install was again delayed until 26th May.

I emailed Stacey for an update as the VM call centre was largely useless at providing information about what was going on. After some investigation Stacey concluded that the tee point in the duct had been installed incorrectly and that re-work was required. She also confirmed that Avonline had been given a permit to complete the works on 24th May and the engineer should complete installation on 26th May. 

Of course, on 24th May nobody turned up to complete the work and I received a text the following day cancelling my appointment for installation and providing a new date of 8th June.

My misses has stated it needs installing prior to the start of this year's Love Island else my balls are on the line. I probably would have cancelled the order by now if I had a viable alternative but all other options are either cost prohibitive or terribly slow internet.

My options other than Virgin are;

• BT OpenReach ADSL2+ (16mbits down, 1mbit up predicted speeds, no VDSL in this street / cabinet)
• BT OpenReach FFTP (£3,700 installation quote for BT Fibre On Demand Installation)
• Vodafone 5G, CGNAT + variable service / high latency
• Leased Line (free install via government grant but £200 a month for 100. mbit symmetric, too expensive and overkill for home use)

So, this leaves me waiting for Virgin to finally deliver or using Sky for TV and accepting ADSL2+ speeds for internet. 😫

Today I raised a compliant via the complaints form as this is getting a bit ridiculous now. Any tips on how to encourage Virgin to finally get this delivered? The £5.04 a day compensation from the original promised install date + £25 for each missed appointment is nice, but really we just need TV and internet connectivity...

[-tony-]

you have more than most in this position i.e. Stacey who seems to be on your side - follow that as working all other courses will make you old before your time

[Anonymous]

That plaintive BQM looks darker and lonelier than Pyongyang on a Sunday night in February.

As Tony says be as nice as you can to Stacey. Otherwise either a 5g modem or, if you are friends with your VM neighbours and can see their WiFi network consider coming to a deal with them in the interim with them giving you access to their guest wifi network (perhaps in return for a slice of your VM compo) and you using a decent WiFi repeater with ethernet ports. 

[Ayisha_B]

Hi @roboutt, 

Welcome to our Community Forums and thanks for your post.

I'm so sorry to hear of the ongoing issues with your install. Not a great start!

I'd like to take a closer look into this so will pop you a PM to confirm some details and we'll take it from there.

Please keep an eye out for the purple envelope icon in the top right hand corner of your page for my message.

Many thanks

[robputt]

Yo,

Someone / something got our order moving at last. Yesterday Avonline attended to do the pre pull and today Virgin terminated inside and setup modem. All seems to be working well. Enjoy the return of my BQM graph in my signature 👍.

Thanks for the community support whilst getting this sorted.