Bad experience with cable installation

[akis_tzortzis]

I moved house recently and over 2 weeks approximately 4-5 Virgin installers visited and left without carrying out any work. They all said that due to the large distances involved (about 100m) I needed a RG11 (or was it RG12) cable which they did not carry in their vans as they only carried RG6.

Eventually the last installer who visited installed an RG6 even though I mentioned to him that ALL previous installers had said NOT to use the RG6 as it would result to significant signal degradation.

After installation I checked the status of the router and I am getting 2.5db to 6db on all channels (at 7:30am) and yesterday afternoon I was getting from -2db to 6db.

I have the 250mbit package aand for the time being am not thinking of upgrading (already too expensive).

I am wondering what I might be missing out on now that I have the thinner cable installed? Will there be a discernible difference during peak times or bad weather etc?

[Cardiffman282 · Accepted solution]

You are probably missing out on automatic compensation for the delayed installation. Link is below. 

[pete_at_home]

The levels should not change by 4db over that time period, although -2 to 6db at the Modem or STB is still well within specs.   The original 2-6dB is better.     Are the levels higher at low frequencies or the other way round ? 

The change in your levels is strange.  Either VM have been doing some amplifier re-alignment in your area (unlikely), or the connectors are loose.

There's nothing wrong with using RG6 over 100m, provided the connectors are properly fitted, and they use the right tap level in the street cabinet.   

[mda99das]

Did they fit a booster?

There are a couple of things, in the cab there are different signal strengths and these are colour coded, if you live very close to the cab, you dont need a strong signal, so there is that issue, the other issue is that if you have a signal amplifier, you want to check what levels these are at. Ideally you want them near zero either plus or minus.

You can get RF attenuators, and these come in various levels eg 2dB, 4dB etc, and its literally trial and error until you find one that works. I have a 6dB fitted to mine, and touch wood, my connection is rock solid.  

[Megan_L]

Hi Akis_Tzortzis,

Thanks for your post and welcome back to our Community Forums 😊 

Sorry you're having some issues with your connection after a rocky installation, we can get this checked out for you. 

First though, could you please do a wired Speed Test from a laptop or PC so we can see what your speeds are like please? 

Could you also set up a BQM Graph over the next 24 hours so we can visually see what your connection is doing please? 

These two tests will help us in our investigation to find out what's causing your connection issues.

Thanks,

Meg