Virgin Media Community

[Steven079]

Hi there. 

So I just took delivery of the new tv360 box that was sold to me last week as an upgrade and a way to lock in the cost of my service for 18 months, to avoid the massive incoming price increase.

I moved to virgin 12 months ago after 10 years with sky, and just took the £25 a month broadband offer, as we stream pretty much everything on demand through a fire stick anyway, so the extra for the live TV was better off in my pocket (or on the gas meter).

So when the engineer came to install my broadband, I had him set up the router close to the socket, so I don't have wires running around skirting boards, door frames, etc, and there was no need to have it near the TV, as the Wi-Fi is more than fast enough for streaming Netflix and iplayer with my fire stick. 

Fast forward to last week and the nice lady on the phone called to inform me that my bill was about to jump to £32 a month, but she could offer to double my line speed, send me an o2 10gb sim and throw in a tv360 box with mixit TV package, for £34, with no fees, if I sign up for another 18 months. Bargain!

Only problem is that I have no co ax cable near my TV and the router is on the other side of the room. I explained this to the sales person and she said that all is well, as everything comes through the router, so no need for aerials and the likes near to the TV and as long as I have an hdmi lead, I'd be good to go. 

To me, this sounded strange, but I assumed that it was some kind of streaming box with a live TV function, so imagine my surprise when I opened up the packaging to see that it contains a broadband/TV splitter cable and an ethernet cable. 

Neither of these cables are anywhere near long enough to reach the TV from the router, and to be honest, I don't want to have wires pinned all around the room anyway. 

On top of that, I just read an email from virgin that says my bill wasn't going to increase until my offer period ran out in September anyway. 

So I guess my questions are, a) am I now stuck with a useless TV box unless I can install the correct cables near the TV? And b) has my previous contract and its £25 a month offer period gone now that I have agreed a new one, or can I return the equipment and sim, and just stay as I was? 

Thanks for reading my ramblings. 

[japitts]

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@Steven079 wrote:

Only problem is that I have no co ax cable near my TV and the router is on the other side of the room. I explained this to the sales person and she said that all is well, as everything comes through the router, so no need for aerials and the likes near to the TV and as long as I have an hdmi lead, I'd be good to go.

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You have been misadvised. V6 & TV360 boxes get their live TV channels via the co-ax cable, and use the internet for OnDemand & streaming.

I'm not clear from your post whether you were previously a VM-TV customer with TiVo/V6? Or if you have newly-taken VM-TV?

[Steven079]

Thanks for the reply. 

No, previously had tv with sky and the wires for that were run behind the skirting years ago when we replaced them. When we moved over to virgin last year, I binned off live TV altogether (and haven't missed it at all, which was a surprise), and just went for the broadband. 

Only reason that I agreed to take the tv360 was  it was basically free, since I can give my daughter the o2 sim and cancel her ee sim which is about to go up by 15%.

I suppose it might still be worth it to keep the tv360 box in the cupboard and just not use the TV service 🤷🏻‍♂️

[japitts]

VM will need to supply the additional kit but I don't believe there's any requirement on you to use it.

This is the TV forum so I won't go off-topic with mobile issues (there's a separate section of the forum for that), but make sure of testing O2 performance that it suits your daughter,

[Robert_P]

Hi Steven079

It's been a few days since your post, have you been able to speak to the team in regards to this since your last post? If this is something you need assistance with please let us know and we'll be happy to help.

Rob

[Steven079]

Hi, thanks for the reply. 

No, I've not been able to speak to anyone about it yet as I haven't had the time free to call. 

Any help you can offer is appreciated as I'm not sure what to do about it. I've received an email from virgin returns dept saying they have noticed that I haven't activated my service yet, and informing me that I can send the equipment back using the returns label, but I'm hesitant to do so as I don't want my bill to jump up. 

As stated in an earlier post, the new contract works out cheaper than my old one when the o2 sim is taken into account, even without the TV service, but I can't currently activate anything because of the distance between the hub and my TV. 

Not great that the salesperson kind of missold me on the wiring situation. Do you do a wireless one? 

[John_GS]

Hi @Steven079 

Thanks for coming back to the thread. I will PM you now to assist further,

Best wishes.