underground cable repair cost

[chrisdan1]

How much will virgin charge me to reconnect/repair an underground broadband/telephone cable in my garden that i accidentally damaged (cut with spade) while digging to install my new fence?

[Roger_Gooner]

As you know VM struggles to provide consistency of service, so cables are sometimes left bare and also not buried.

[chrisdan1]

I expected a charge, I am amazed  that of the 100s of thousands of vm customers no one has answered to say "it happened to me the charge was..." 

I would just like to know how much people are getting charged... the £99 standard charge doesn't sound right as I don't think this is exactly a standard issue unless someone at VM could join in with this and tell me straight.

[Roger_Gooner]

I think you'll find that VM isn't like BT which, as the Americans say, will nickel and dime you for every fault.

[-tony-]

£99 is for a non fault call out - an example of which would be you wanting an internal box moving or similar - the key point is that there is no fault

damage to a cable is classed as a fault and repairs are free - if you ring and get offshore they may try to charge you - they are wrong - hang up and try again for an agent with more knowledge or wait here for someone to book a tech

the tech may repair it with a waterproof joint box or he may book a re-pull

[Andrew-G]

And if there were fault, it would lie with VM for not using armoured cable, and not burying marker tape above it.  I can't speak for the original poster's cable, but I know mine is buried under only eight inches of soil, so even marker tape would be pointless, and if anybody was doing spade work in our front garden, and didn't know of the cable, that would be the end of that.

VM (and predecessors) know that the installations are vulnerable to this sort of accident, but they've also worked out that its far quicker and cheaper to lay an unprotected cable at a shallow depth, and the cost of occasional repairs is far lower than doing every install with armoured cable buried four feet or more deep.

So yes, it's their issue to fix at their cost.

[Paul_DN]

Hi Chrisdan1,

Thank you for reaching out to us in our community, in regards to such an issue we would send a tech out as advised to repair this, the technician would see if the cable was placed adequately and protected with an armoured cable, it is then down to the technician to add a charge if he believes it had been done correctly.

I have very seldom come across an account where the charge has been added.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards

Paul. 

[chrisdan1]

Thanks for that Paul, so are you employed by VM  not just a member of the public, I want to be sure this is reliable information?

Also can you confirm that my 200meg cable is a standard wire and not much more costly optical cable?

[jbrennand]

The VM "logo" in front of his name confirms Paul (or anyone else) as a VM employee.

[jem101]

And the cable coming in carrying the internet feed is copper coax.

[chenks]

---

@jem101 wrote:

And the cable coming in carrying the internet feed is copper coax.

---

unless they have fibre to the premises.