Virgin Media 'wiring'

[GMM]

We've been offline for a bit because of (yet another) failure of the BT infrastructure, so I've been thinking about switching it all to VM. Probably no significant cost saving, but an outside chance of a more reliable service since the network is significantly newer than BT's.

At present, we have a master socket in the living room and an extension on the first floor landing, where the wireless router and the DECT basestation live. This works well enough to give fair wifi coverage around the house (which is bigger than normal), so I'd like to keep this configuration.

The question is, how to VM 'wire' the house? Although their web pages re-assure customers that they will do a good job, I can't help being a little sceptical about this and it would probably make sense to do some enabling work before their installer gets anywhere near the place.

Firstly, we have a low wall between us and the pavement, and a tarmac drive. I assume they'll go through or over the wall then trench across the drive to get to the house. equally, I assume they'll make good any trench, but could be wrong. Does that sound likely?

I assume they come in via a central point, analogous to our master socket, but is it reasonable to have a router in a different position to this and if so, how does this connect? (I'm thinking it won't be through a phone extension like we have now.)

I'm not sure whether we'd go all the way and have their TV (some pro's and con's here) but presumably this would branch from their master via coax or something.

I'm aware this sounds pretty poorly informed but my googling doesn't seem to bring up much useful info, surprisingly, so I would be grateful for any informed views.

[Bill]

In message , GMM writes

I "support" someone who has moved to VM. In his case I seem to remember it taking at least 3 visits. It wasn't on a per-job basis, it was a time limit per installation, so they got part way through and "made their excuses and left" for their next appointment. I don't think the system allows for anything other than a standard small garden to be in the way.

After he got it going, it has worked well enough, and the support has been pretty good.

[tony sayer]

In article , Bill scribeth thus

I've recommend a couple of people to then and in each case they did make a decent job of it, in fact one went to quite a bit of bother to see that a cable was routed where the user wanted it.

However what they do find good is the 100 Meg speeds which are a LOT faster then what they got with BT ADSL...

[Jabba]

GMM wrote

You're kidding yourself if you believe VM are any better than BT. It's nothing to be offline for days at a time and be lied to by their call centre.

This is one site that follows VM problems

I'm sure there are others.

[Robin]

Location may matter. I reckon we've averaged about 4 hours offline a year[1] since we first had cable internet from Cable London.

[1] it's more wet finger than database; and I'm excluding the time when a power cut took out 90 per ceent of the houses around here plus their street cabinets leaving us one of the few islands of light - but no internet.

[GMM]

I wouldn't imagine for a moment that both organisations are not as bad as each other. Experience here, however, shows that the ageing BT infrastructure causes an almost constant string of problems, which also take days to resolve. I would just be playing the odds that the VM infrastructure is substantially newer and so *may* give fewer reliability issues, combined with better performance if/when it does work as advertised. Ironically, the BT exchange is less than 200m away and we're in the middle of the city, but we have lost broadband and/or phone service for a few days every 2 - 3 months, on average, over the 3 years we have lived here. Since pretty much every other ISP relies on the BT network, VM seems the only alternative to try.

[Bill]

In message , Jabba writes

On the other hand I have been with VM, previously NTL, for longer than I can remember, 15 years +/- a year or so. I've noticed maybe 2 short, less than a day, outages in this time and apart from a rather frustrating incident where my connection kept dropping every 10 minutes or so and the call centre was positively useless I have no complaints against them.

[meow2222]

VM have the best speed & network reliability, but the company behind it varies randomly from fine to appalling. Virgin is rebadged ntl, telewest et al, look up nthell.

NT

[Lobster]

On 10 Sep 2014, Bill grunted:

I'd have added "+1" to that, except my own experience doesn't include the 'frustrating incident'.

I've heard it said that the standard of VM's service is heavily dependent on the origin of their infrastructure; NTL's was supposed to be very reliable but those set up by other outfits who ended up under Branson were a different matter.

Might be worthwhile the OP researching that angle a bit?

[Brian Gaff]

Well Virgin do not use the phone line for broadband, its the tv cable normally, but you do not have to have their cable tv. The cable they use is very thick, so really it is maybe best to have the modem/router they supply near where the cable comes in from outside. this is usually through a wall with sealant around it. The phone bit can be the same wiring as bt of course, and as its not dslany more no filters. As for the garden. Normally they will try not to cross driveways and take it the long way around any wall or fence etc. The cable here is a dual phone and TV cable and terminated in a grey box outside the room where the hole is drilled through the wall for the broadband. The phone cable is taken in usually through a the same way bt did it by the look of it.

The way I have arranged it is to switch their router into modem mode, then run a network cable to wherever my own router is. You would need to buy this of course as its not the same as a bt one. That way the cable is quite thin.

I find Virgin very reliable, thigh people tell me that bt Infinity is as well and faster on the uplink than Virgin. Not that this is a huge issue unless you want to send a lot of stuff somewhere.

Brian

[polygonum]

In common with others, the cable was laid (in green outer tube) about 1 to 2 inches deep across lawn and through flowerbed (no attempt to bury among the plants).

Later I have re-routed and properly buried it much deeper.

We did at one point have the cable from the cabinet replaced - though can't remember the exact details. They did manage to simply push it down the green outer.

At the house we have an external wall box which feeds one internal point in the downstairs and a second upstairs. Downstairs feeds television and upstairs feeds the cable modem (and our router). Done at original install time without any problem at all. Both wall boxes are identical and have two F-type connectors so we could use either for television and broadband. And they are bigger than you might expect.

We also asked for (and got) two or three longer lengths of cable ready terminate with F-plugs so we could move things around later if we wished. Again, no problem.

All the above was years ago so anything might have changed.

[Peter Andrews]

The first question is: Are you in a VM cable TV area? If you are then their broadband is delivered over the TV distribution and arrives at your house on a coax, telephone still arrives on a twisted pair from their street cabinet. My incoming cable pops out of the pavement through the garden wall and into a bit of flexible green conduit that was thrown acros the top of the flowerbeds and terminated on the outside wall of the lounge. That said and I've had broadband since around

1998/9 (which has increased considerably in size, basic speed is currently 50M) and it's only been down perhaps half a dozen times and only once more than two days when the modem failed.

They will happily disconnect the BT phone line and connect theirs to the master socket. Phone service in the event of a power failure can be a bit patchy as they rely on batteries in the street cabinets which are unreliable (even if no one has stolen them). But if your power is reliable then it really isn't a problem.

Their best deal is a package of phone, TV and broadband: albeit I have a phone line and TV box that I don't use, if I get rid of these my cost goes up!!

Peter

[Chris J Dixon]

More confusion marketing!

What are the actual relative costs?

Chris

[Chris Bartram]

I'm with VM, ex Telewest/Blueyounder, and TBH, it's fine, service-wise.

[Andy Burns]

I think something must have changed with VM's offering, two chaps I work with in different offices, who you'd describe as heavy data and streaming users, one a footie fan the other not, and previously almost evangelical about VM have both decided to dump them and return to BT, something seems to have annoyed them both, combination of new pricing and not wanting the customer to drop parts of the bundle I think.

[Richard]

Just wondering if neighbours are suffering the same problems.

[Weatherlawyer]

I have basic broadban with them. I wish I had dropped a hole through the be droom floor so I can have the choice of siting the router but settled for t he top of the nearest cupboard to the inlet.

An SDS only user armed with what I presume would have been cable clips all around the rooms would have been the alternative. I supplied the drill bit to bring the cable through the cupboard. And even then there was only just enough cable supplied to have the modem sit on top of the hole.

I had to look for a long enough length of cable to reach the modem from the computer. If what has been stated here is true for the garden/access from the street, you need to put a conduit in ready for when the fitter comes an d, if you have an SDS, an inlet to the part of the house you will want to s ite your computer.

It IS true about the silicon. They cover it with a shroud but it may easily get knocked about if you don't make sure it is in a relatively safe place. You might try Zen or any other decent company if you are unhappy with the rumours of outages. Virgin will ban certain sites for assumed copyright vi olations.

I don't know if Zen will leave you to decide what you want to watch but I h ave heard really good things about them. I can't imagine anyone going back to BT or Talk Talk unless it is for reasons of security and pricing. It wou ld be like going back to motorcycling from running a car. No not a real mot orbike, one of those little step-throughs. And not just a car either; a lar ge engined people carrier... with red stripes along the sides.

[Weatherlawyer]

If you have broadband you can arrange to use a variety of skype type aterna tives to a phoneline but having the phone with the BB is just as cheap or c heaper plus of course your call costs -skype is free as are the Linux and o ther versions.

You can find online movies for free if free to air isn't good enough though why a human being would want to watch TV is beyond me. If I was interested enough in sports I would prefer to watch it in a pub if the alternative is paying Rupert Murdoch or whoever for their monopoly.

(How the hell the BBC/National Govt let that happen is beyond me. And I wou ld withdraw my approval of any sport/team that went along with it. But that is a matter of politics and religion.)

You can get Netflix if that will light your fire. Never tried it after real ising they don't do Linux. (To hear them explain it, it is all the fault of all the free developers at Linux not supporting them. That put me off. Wel l it would wouldn't it. Some Asian from who knows where telling me a load o f shit...)

Virgin are not Comcast, not AOL and not Time Warner. The US has a problem w ith what is sees as society and their governments are much worse than ours in every respect.

[michael adams]

Nope. They're currently owned by Liberty Global whose HQ is in NYC USA.

Branson's main remaining interest is in skimming off his licence fee for the use of his brand name. As even nowadays, as for the past 40 years, the punters still don't realise that a grinning bearded buffoon (as if), dressed in jeans and a jumper and self proclaimed peoples' friend, is happily ripping them off just as much, if not more so, than the "bad guys" in suits

michael adams

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[michael adams]

Maybe they finally got round to reading the small print.

and that's only the back page. Theres more at the bottom of every page inside.

I live in a cabled area and get monthly begging letters from VM imploring me to join. These take all forms. Big white A4 envelopes, small brown envelopes, all attempting to disguise what they really are. Despite the fact that Branson now only has a peripheral interest in VM, all the evidence I've ever seen shows him to be a snake, a tax dodging penny-pinching snake at that. Such that I wouldn't touch anythinhg he'd ever been connected with, with a bargepole.

michael adams

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