Virgin Cable, can I have it? Some photos inside (of the junction box / grids etc)

[Marcel]

I'd like to possibly ditch BT and BE and go to Virgin's 20 meg service.
Now, my next door neighbour rang NTL a few years ago after they moved in and were told they can't have cable.
Apparently when Nynex/Cable&Wireless were digging up the whole of the North, they did the other side of the road...but before they got to ours, they stopped (like they did with many other areas).
She was told because of this, she couldn't have it.

I have been told the same by the postcode checker.
However, I've noticed that outside my house is a Nynex grid. Suggesting they *did* dig as far as my house (I'm the first one on the row and nearest the road), but no further...which means they just need to hook me up, right?

Here is an overview of my area....

Ive marked out the various positions on the overview.
I'm at #1, my neighbour is a #2.
There are various Nynex main grids like this one

on the main street (which does have cable).
There is also one of these outside my house on the communal pathway. I'm the only one on our Walk to have one of these.

There are also numerous smaller triangle grids marked Nynex like this one

Out of about 9 properties, there are a total of about 4 or 5 of these on the pathway (including one outside my house).

So, is it worth arguing with Virgin Media that the channels are already dug, they just didn't finish it (and thus put our postcode on the database)?

Thoughts?
Anyone know what the grids are? Am I wrong?

 

[Matt]

just ring up virgin and talk to them?

 

[neil_g]

to be honest only virgin can tell you that.. however youll probably only get to speak to the call center monkeys that work on postcodes.

 

[Marcel]

just ring up virgin and talk to them?

LOL...Bless.....Your naivete is funny

to be honest only virgin can tell you that.. however youll probably only get to speak to the call center monkeys that work on postcodes.

I tried that online...got some stupid bint who could only repeat
"You are not in national service area, you can have our super broadband through phoneline"

Ive just sneakily lifted up the grid outside my front garden, and there's a nice little tunnel either side, even some blue rope ready to pull cable from the junction box, so I think I have a case for ringing them and asking for a spotter.

 

[bastic]

LOL...Bless.....Your naivete is funny

I tried that online...got some stupid bint who could only repeat
"You are not in national service area, you can have our super broadband through phoneline"

Ive just sneakily lifted up the grid outside my front garden, and there's a nice little tunnel either side, even some blue rope ready to pull cable from the junction box, so I think I have a case for ringing them and asking for a spotter.

Marcel, pm me your post code. Once I get home I will ask my mate that works for them to check it out...he may get same answer like you did but worth to try maybe ?

 

[mrgubby]

You need to phone up and insist on a survey, when we moved into our house all the pipes were in place but there had never been a cable pull through. it took a few phone calls but eventually it was physically checked & they did an install

 

[lostsoulal2]

We have a similar situation in that I can see the cable box junction which is about 15 meters away from the house, but when I enquired about 8 years ago to connect up I was told it would cost nigh on £10k to get all the relevant permits and to dig up the road to get to our side...... So the houses on one side of our road has access to cable and the other does not.

You may have a similar situation in that the Nymex Junction box No 3 is not physically connected to the other side of the road because of cost implications and that the Triangular shaped grids were put in place in anticipation of the cable crossing the road from the main junction box and may be dummies.

When I enquired, I said back then, why they could not use the BT tunnel which already brings the phone into our property. They said that BT would not allow them to share the tunnel, but I have read in the last few months that BT are now proposing to allow other service providers to use their ducts and infrastructure.

See here

It is not in place yet, but it may be by the end of the year and I will then make contact with Virgin to see if they can bring cable to our property as it would be 10 times faster and much cheaper than our current provider.

If your triangle grids are not able to be connected this may be another option in the future.

 

[Marcel]

bastic, I'll PM you now, although I fear he may get the same response if he's just checking the same database.


Like I say, I checked the grid outside my house and it looks like there is the duct already there from the junction box. They just need to cable me up then.
I've filled in the online form to check my details, will see what they come back with.

 

[Marcel]

BTW this is how far the junction box is from my house

(No that's not my orange car )

 

[trencheel303]

Now I know where you liiiive! Ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa...

...ha

 

[Softshoe]

Marcel

Virgin have recently replaced their 20mb offering with a 30mb service, including a combined modem/router. As existing customers upgrading we got hit with a £30 fee but the connection is noticeably faster and the engineer who installed the box had trouble so the fee was well worth it to avoid Virgin's technical support.

 

[joxby]

Marcel

Virgin have recently replaced their 20mb offering with a 30mb service, including a combined modem/router. As existing customers upgrading we got hit with a £30 fee but the connection is noticeably faster and the engineer who installed the box had trouble so the fee was well worth it to avoid Virgin's technical support.

This existing customer told em to boil their heads, I don't get 20 so I ain't paying fees for the 30 I won't get.
10 was good 9.98 at all times but 20 rarely beats 14, which brings me on to Marcels difficulties, maybe there are capacity problems restricting more connections.
Not that they've seemed to pay any mind as to whether they can supply what they advertise up to now..:shrug:

 

[neil_g]

When I enquired, I said back then, why they could not use the BT tunnel which already brings the phone into our property. They said that BT would not allow them to share the tunnel, but I have read in the last few months that BT are now proposing to allow other service providers to use their ducts and infrastructure.

we're having exactly that issue at the moment. at work we already have what was called LES100 BT 100mb fibre to link between sites. we're getting a nice new fibre internet backbone in from virgin and theyre going to have to dig up half the carpark, its a pain in the behind.

 

[dave_xyz]

This existing customer told em to boil their heads, I don't get 20 so I ain't paying fees for the 30 I won't get.
10 was good 9.98 at all times but 20 rarely beats 14, which brings me on to Marcels difficulties, maybe there are capacity problems restricting more connections.
Not that they've seemed to pay any mind as to whether they can supply what they advertise up to now..:shrug:

Do you still have one of the old ntl:home 100 / 150 modems? When I upgraded from 10 to 20 Mb/s a few years ago I never saw more than 13-14 Mb/s until I had also swapped out the old modem - solid 20Mb/s since then. The older modems simply don't support the faster speeds

Dave

 

[deadkenny]

Back in NTL days it took moving heaven and earth to convince them I could get cable, and that's when there was a box on the side of the house with their name on it! Computer said no, so they would rudely deny and cut me off.

However if the cable isn't physically up to your path, then it's going to take a lot more to convince them as it costs a lot of money. If it needs to go to your property, and especially across someone else's or over public land, then there's permits and all kinds involved.

Personally I can't stand them, and despite having the option I'd rather be with slower ADSL than suffer the utter crap I had off them. Worst customer service in the world ever, and even then they could never deliver a reliable service. The Virgin name is just a front to make the brand sound attractive, but that's what they bought, the name. The company remains the same (right back to awful CableTel days). But that's just me.

Oh, and check BT Infinity in your area. It's basically the same as Virgin's cable infrastructure as it's fibre to cabinet (most cable is hybrid fibre / coax, which is fibre to cabinet, not to the home as their adverts allude to by boasting about it being fibre). Other ISPs will get the option of the service also, but BT Wholesale are charging a premium at present to other ISPs.

 

[dinners]

I'm quite jealous reading this.

Having done work on the 'Fibrecity project' designed to give residents of Bournemouth and Dundee 100Mbps I'm still stuck at about 7 Meg.

That said - we've not even got gas yet !

 

[hashcake]

Other ISPs will get the option of the service also, but BT Wholesale are charging a premium at present to other ISPs.

Tim, any urls to other ISP's who are gearing up to offer a similar service via fibre optics?
I'm with Be as well but I'm stuck with 6mbps (previous place was 13mbps and the first place was 19mbps).
BT phone me at least once a month to convince me to go for their infinity service despite telling them umpteen times I am in a contract with Be until November.
I've been a Be customer for since they've being do their 24mbps service and because I am heavy downloader and the service has been excellent, I am reluctant to change to any other ISP.
However, if I could hook up with Be using fibre optics from the exchange to the cabinet, I'd be very interested as BT have estimated that I could get 18mbps but they won't get a penny apart from for the phone line because of their throttling P2P services.

Marcel sorry for hijacking your thread but I would seriously think twice about leaving Be unless you need faster speed or if you've had a crap service (which would be a first as I've yet to hear anyone having a major issue).
Plusnet came along offering 2mb ADSL with no capped service then changed their tune and Zen did the same.
Be have stuck true to their world for a lot longer than the others and as far as I am aware, there are still no plans to enforce a capped service.

 

[flossie]

Blueyonder were great.

Then became Telewest, and went downhill.

Then merged with NTL and became Virgin Media, and have been awful ever since.

You now have the worst of both - the gaustly service of NTL and the premium prices of BY!


Sadly we're stuck with them until Fibre-to-the-Cabinet eventually happens, as some genius in the 1970's at BT decided to rewire our estate (distance to exchange 1km) by running cables 3km in the opposite direction, over a river, back down the side of the dual carriageway, back over the river again, then eventually reaching the exchange 7km later. Meaning we are one of the two areas in greater london that can't get ADSL at all... and the VM line is so knackered it falls over if they try to make it faster than 10 meg and can't do TV at the same time at all - so at least we only pay for the cheap service now!

 

[clicktor]

I couldn't recommend the Virgin 20mb service. I've been with ntl since 2002 and everything was great until I moved to the 20mb service. At peak times it went down to 1mb/s often and it took weeks of complaints and engineer checks until I got the ar*e and went direct to the complaints office and Berketts secretaries (this is a route others have had success on) and then someone finally helped atleast admit there was a problem with contention and peak times. I talked to them and we decided the only suitable way forward was to move me onto the 50mb service as it's a different UBR (part of the network) with less contention and speeds are always solid at 50mb. To be honest although I got a discount on it, it's annoying having to pay for 50mb to get acceptable service. I am enjoying the lack of STM 24/7 though. So nice not to have to worry about downloading after 9pm and watching your daytime caps. If I want something quick in the day I just get it and never have to worry.
I currently pay £63 a month for my entire virgin package including phone and TV, which is more than I would like, but frankly, I'd not want to downgrade anything as we use it all a lot.

Marcel, I would contact one of the guys on cableforum.co.uk for help. They will be able to assist for sure.

 

[Marcel]

However if the cable isn't physically up to your path, then it's going to take a lot more to convince them as it costs a lot of money. If it needs to go to your property, and especially across someone else's or over public land, then there's permits and all kinds involved.

No worries, hijack away

Thanks for the replies.

There's no digging required though (well there shouldnt be).
The access from the junciton box to outside my property is dug and the duct is already there (I suppose it needs to be rodded to check).
It's just a case of cabling it from the junction box.....which they do at every install anyway don't they?

The reason I want to switch is partly service and partly cost.
Virgin is cheaper than the BT / Be combo (BT = Unlimited, Be = 13.50 a month)
Also, service with BE is getting worse IMO. It's a great ISP and I wont hear a word said to the contrary....but browsing speeds are getting shocking.
I like things instant. I click...I want it there. I dont want to wait 4 seconds for a page to finish loading.
Pure download speeds are OK...I'm getting 600k/sec DL from my 6-7 meg connection.

I'd prefer more as a bonus although that's not important.

 

[neil_g]

to be honest the main thing that puts me off BT infinity is their throttling policy. at least virgin have no throttling on the XL and above (unless youre in to file sharing).

personally im waiting on sky stepping into the fibre market going on their usual "unlimited" policy hopefully theyll carry this on to fibure.

 

[deadkenny]

Tim, any urls to other ISP's who are gearing up to offer a similar service via fibre optics?

PlusNet are definitely doing it though I think it's still on a trial basis at the moment.

However PlusNet are owned by BT. That hasn't stopped them passing on the premium price though. £12 per month on top of whatever you already pay. And that's regardless of whether the result gives you no extra speed. Though most should see a good improvement if the cabinet is not too far away but you are a fair distance from the exchange.

http://community.plus.net/blog/2011/01/26/plusnet-fibre-trials-update/

I think BT Infinity itself is the cheapest offering for FTTC via the BT network at the moment.

There is some fibre to premises stuff going on, both with Virgin and BT, but only in a few select areas. Shame as that's likely to be 100mb.


As for throttling, it isn't necessarily the evil it would seem. Yes it's not unlimited as they claim, but I find these days my Internet use is not harmed. At least not with PlusNet. They do throttle a fair bit, though are open about it. The rules they use seem to allow stuff that really requires speed to work fast. Though the main thing I want fast speed for is HD video streaming. That seems to run at or near line speed for me, any time of the day. Not sure if the wholesale FTTC is throttled. Shouldn't be. It should be down to the ISP.

 

[farmer_uk1]

This existing customer told em to boil their heads, I don't get 20 so I ain't paying fees for the 30 I won't get.
10 was good 9.98 at all times but 20 rarely beats 14, which brings me on to Marcels difficulties, maybe there are capacity problems restricting more connections.
Not that they've seemed to pay any mind as to whether they can supply what they advertise up to now..:shrug:

You would most likly find that 30Mb would work fine as it works in a different way to 20Mb.

20Mb was the old DOCSIS 2 protocol.
30Mb is the new DOCSIS 3 protocol.

Basically, the 30Mb (and above) lines are multiple connections bonded together, rather then a single connection.
So for example, my 30Mb line is made up of 4 connections bonded together at effectivly 7.5Mb each (not strictly true, but for this example it will do)

DOCSIS 3 is capable of I believe 8 lines being bonded together on the downstream and 4 on the upstream.

The frequency at which DOCSIS 3 runs in this country means that in theory each line is capable of about 40Mb/s (downstream) thus this protocol upgrade should cover us until we reach some silly speeds now, although realistically they probably won't run each line much past 30Mb/s I would have thought.

 

[CT]

All this Virgin hatin' going on! I've been with them since the Blueyonder days, through the Telewest era and now with Virgin I can't say I've ever had bad service from them - outages are very rare, and I get the speeds I'm paying for.

 

[hashcake]

Also, service with BE is getting worse IMO. It's a great ISP and I wont hear a word said to the contrary....but browsing speeds are getting shocking.

I know they had DNS server issues (again) recently but that seems to have cleared up.
As a test try using http://www.dyndns.com, maunally configure their DNS servers on one PC (I presume like most households you have more than one these days).
If there is a vast difference in webpage loading speeds, give Be a nudge and see if they admit to any ongoing issues.
They've always been open and very honest with me over such issues.
The ITV website has always been notorioulsy slow to load for lme but whether ITV have revamped their site / coding or it's down to Be, I have no idea but it now loads very quickly.

 

[Matt]

apparently cable to the box is coming to my area in october, which is great, cos i only just crack 1.2mb....

 

[onomatopoeia]

to be honest the main thing that puts me off BT infinity is their throttling policy. at least virgin have no throttling on the XL and above (unless youre in to file sharing).

You don't have to use BT Internet to get FTTC, it is available wholesale like other ADSL services. BT wholesale are obliged by OFCOM to treat all ISPs the same and not give priority to BT Internet.

BT wholesale do not throttle, block, proxy or any other nonsense, that's done by the ISPs. Avoid rubbish ISPs that do any of those things (and I include throttling bit torrent in my definition of a "rubbish ISP").

I'm waiting to see what most of the ISPs do when they run out of IPv4 addresses.

 

[neil_g]

You don't have to use BT Internet to get FTTC, it is available wholesale like other ADSL services. BT wholesale are obliged by OFCOM to treat all ISPs the same and not give priority to BT Internet.

BT wholesale do not throttle, block, proxy or any other nonsense, that's done by the ISPs. Avoid rubbish ISPs that do any of those things (and I include throttling bit torrent in my definition of a "rubbish ISP").

I'm waiting to see what most of the ISPs do when they run out of IPv4 addresses.

im not sure whether youre agreeing with me or trying to tell me something?

yup wholesale dont but BT on their own connections do.

unfortunately sky (who im tied to at the moment) dont have appear to have any published plans to release FTTC services at the moment

ipv6 implementation should be fun..

 

[onomatopoeia]

I was making a distinction between BT internet (ISP) and the wholesale part of BT as regards throttling. Saying just "BT" would potentially give the impression that all ISPs using BT wholesale connectivity will have throttled connections - mine doesn't, and they offer FTTC where available.

 

[neil_g]

I was making a distinction between BT internet (ISP) and the wholesale part of BT as regards throttling. Saying just "BT" would potentially give the impression that all ISPs using BT wholesale connectivity will have throttled connections - mine doesn't, and they offer FTTC where available.

ah i see, yes i mean by BT infinity to be BTs own fibre, not wholesale

 

[Sadlybrokeboy]

Marcel,

We had a similar problem - we're on top of a hill - they'd cabled up to a certain point of the road but not up the 'ill. We're at the wrong end of 8km hop to a exchange 3km away so have very poor adsl speeds.

So after a bit of pestering by myself and a couple of other neighbors and getting hold of someone who was local and knew what they were talking inside of telewest as it was then - 16 years after the road was built they finally finished the job.

I think you should persist and also see if can get other neighbors to express an interest too!

Good luck!

Matt

 

[gman]

We used to live in a flat on Byres Road in Glasgow and many of them couldn't have Virgin because it wasn't in the area - probably because it's a fairly busy road and most of the flats are listed.

Anyway, I was told that if enough people ask for it then they'll do the necessary to get things up and running. So, do your neighbours want it and if so then can get this across to Virgin?

 

[Richard King]

Well

I started with BT a year ago. It took a couple of months to connect me despite the previous owners being connected. I am on homehub #4, and counting. When they replace it it takes 2-3 working days to arrive
A typical example is the day where I got up at the crack of dawn to do some work... and again found that we had no Broadband. I spent the next 4 hours doing "blindlingly stupid stuff" the technician on the phone didnt know what I meant when I said.. "I can PING all the machines on my network, I can ping the router, i cant get past the router" !!! I then was asked to change my wireless settings !$@! for what is a BB issue, and of course that dint work. I was then told they would escalate it to tech support who would call me within 48hours

The tech on the phone didnt even grasp that I had logged into the router and could see that I was connected to ADSL, but not connected to the network

2 hours later, the thing reconnected itself

I used to moan about my 20M Virgin line, but the measly 1-2M DL speed I get here in the country is shocking.

I would say if you can get a Virgin line, have it.. but doo watch out for package creep. Every so often they call you and offer you fre this and that, and its only for a few months. I cant remember how many times I had to cal lthem back and tell them that we dint want the XL TV package.. they sneakily kept upgrading it, and then billing us later

 

[flossie]

I used to moan about my 20M Virgin line, but the measly 1-2M DL speed I get here in the country is shocking.

1-2meg is shocking? You should try my parents house - 10 minutes from the centre of Bristol (just over the clifton suspension bridge), their only option - a 36k modem (which is lucky if it gets more than 28k). Can't even get 3G - all the masts are focused in the wrong direction, barely get a mobile signal indoors on any network. Its like nothing happened to telecoms since the mid-90's...:thumbsdown::bang:

 

[arad85]

You should try my parents house - 10 minutes from the centre of Bristol (just over the clifton suspension bridge)

Well.. if you will live in the posh bit

 

[onomatopoeia]

1-2meg is shocking? You should try my parents house - 10 minutes from the centre of Bristol (just over the clifton suspension bridge), their only option - a 36k modem (which is lucky if it gets more than 28k). Can't even get 3G - all the masts are focused in the wrong direction, barely get a mobile signal indoors on any network. Its like nothing happened to telecoms since the mid-90's...:thumbsdown::bang:

Over by Burwalls / near the main entrance to Ashton court? The should be the Bristol West exchange near Clifton down shopping centre, or Pill if further along the A369 (Abbots Leigh). Both of those are ADSL enabled and not so far away, so wonder what's going on there then.

unless the phone lines go into the centre of town to cross the Avon rather go over the suspension bridge.

(I used to live in Portishead and work in Westbury-on-Trym so know the area quiet well. No 3G signal where I live now either, in Alveston).

 

[Richard King]

1-2meg is shocking? You should try my parents house - 10 minutes from the centre of Bristol (just over the clifton suspension bridge), their only option - a 36k modem (which is lucky if it gets more than 28k). Can't even get 3G - all the masts are focused in the wrong direction, barely get a mobile signal indoors on any network. Its like nothing happened to telecoms since the mid-90's...:thumbsdown::bang:

The only other choice here is a "uncontended" 2 meg line from BT which costs so much, in comparison, I could rent an office in Lincoln, and have a cheaper line put in and still have money in my pocket at the end of the year

I could switch to Sky or whatever, but the core issue is the physical line as supplied by BT. So while some offer "super whatever" I cant see any of the other providers crowbaring more out of the local exchange/cabling

 

[onomatopoeia]

Well

I started with BT a year ago. It took a couple of months to connect me despite the previous owners being connected. I am on homehub #4, and counting. When they replace it it takes 2-3 working days to arrive
A typical example is the day where I got up at the crack of dawn to do some work... and again found that we had no Broadband. I spent the next 4 hours doing "blindlingly stupid stuff" the technician on the phone didnt know what I meant when I said.. "I can PING all the machines on my network, I can ping the router, i cant get past the router" !!! I then was asked to change my wireless settings !$@! for what is a BB issue, and of course that dint work. I was then told they would escalate it to tech support who would call me within 48hours

The tech on the phone didnt even grasp that I had logged into the router and could see that I was connected to ADSL, but not connected to the network

2 hours later, the thing reconnected itself

The moral of this story is to use an ISP that has decent support where they do not read from a script and understand networks.

http://aa.nu


edit - an uncontended line will either be SDSL (not widely available so unlikely to be available to you if your ADSL is struggling) or a permenant circuit (aka "Leased Line"). Leased lines are exactly that, a cable installed specifically to provide you with an internet connection, not using DSL type technology but designed to provide the throughput specified, so fibre is used at higher speeds. Depending on where the nearest point of presence is, you could be in for them laying miles of cable, hence the installation prices, and the come with a proper service level agreement about minimum downtime and no maximum amount of download etc, hence the ongoing cost.

 

[Richard King]

The moral of this story is to use an ISP that has decent support where they do not read from a script and understand networks.

http://aa.nu


edit - an uncontended line will either be SDSL (not widely available so unlikely to be available to you if your ADSL is struggling) or a permenant circuit (aka "Leased Line"). Leased lines are exactly that, a cable installed specifically to provide you with an internet connection, not using DSL type technology but designed to provide the throughput specified, so fibre is used at higher speeds. Depending on where the nearest point of presence is, you could be in for them laying miles of cable, hence the installation prices, and the come with a proper service level agreement about minimum downtime and no maximum amount of download etc, hence the ongoing cost.

I know. The issue is is that the cost is prohibitivley expensive, and you are still dealing with BT. The link you gave... http://clueless.aa.net.uk/etherquote.cgi - was about the same price as BT. Tap in LN6 9LP, and you will see that I mean

 

[onomatopoeia]

I know. The issue is is that the cost is prohibitivley expensive, and you are still dealing with BT. The link you gave... http://clueless.aa.net.uk/etherquote.cgi - was about the same price as BT. Tap in LN6 9LP, and you will see that I mean

The price is always going to be expensive for a permenant circuit, no getting away from that, but if talking ADSL then the quality of support you get from the ISP varies massively, hence me suggesting A&A rather than BT Internet as an ADSL provider, given the experiences you detailed with BT Internet support for your ADSL connection.

We use Eclipse for ADSL at work and have found their support staff to be pretty clued up as well and not posessed of scripts that they read from.