Virgin Media - disabled priority repair

Must have been crap networks, then.

The taps used for CATV have a very high reverse rejection to stop such reflections getting bacl into the network and causing the sort of problems you've seen

The omly danger with badly splicing the drop cable is if the new cable section has poor screening. This can allow interfering signals directly into the reverse path (5 - 65MHz when I left but possibly higher now) which is used to send data back to the headend router.

Please tell me more!

Levels on a CATV network have to be closely controlled. Going back to analogue days, increasing levels raised distortion products and lowering them increased the signal to noise ratio.

Levels may not be so critical now that there are no analogue signals but they will still need to be closely controlled. Some networks have Automatic Level Controls on the main trunk which use pilot carriers as the refernce but there is no way of remotely altering levels, which is just as well, as a well set-up network could be wrecked in minutes in the wrong hands.

Then I can only apologise for passing on the porkies I've been told over the years (predating Virginmedia and including by Tier 2 support).

Don't forget that, if your levels are low then, barring an individual fault on your own drop cable, many more than you will be affected by the problem and someone will be sent out to deal with it very quickly.

All the work will be carried out in the street (and not necessarily at the cabinet that directly feeds you.)

Depending on the equipment used - remember that these networks, in the main, were all built by individual cable operatorsw with their own preferences for kit - a faulty amplifier might have plug-in modules that can be swapped in a couple of seconds, thus clearing the fault.

Elswhere it might be necessary to disconnect all the cabling and change the entire amplifier assembly which would take considerably longer.