£3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
Hi all,
i'm new to the forum and looking for some advice. A few months ago I looked at upgrading my Broadband and settled on Virgin Media who have a box about 300m from my front door. However i'm set back on a private road by 150m. They told me if I dug up the lane and installed ducting for cabling to the end on the private road they would connect me up. I signed up and they supplied me with 600m cable roll and I dug up the road laid the ducting and placed 300m of cable in the duct ready for them to connect to the Box. Today they came out to connect it, having done so the engineer informed me that 300m is too far to reach from a box and that the signal it not strong enough at the House end for service. (max is about 200m). Hence i'm now out £3000 (cost of digging up and tarmacing lane).which I never would have laid out if connection wouldn't be possible. Do I have any recourse with Virgin Media who did the site survey for reimbursement? Any had this happen before? Thanks BB |
Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
Have you got paperwork detailing what needed to be done from Virgin Media?
Citizens Advice / Solicitor would be the way to go but may end up costing quite a bit. |
Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
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https://www.cedr.com/consumer/cisas/ |
Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
Signal boosters ? Optical cable ?
Surely there must be ways to send a signal 300 M. |
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You will definitely have recourse either way because the fact that VM supplied you with equipment AND scheduled an engineer means that they intended to connect your premises. The fact that they failed to show due diligence and perform a proper site survey is not your problem. They can either make it right by installing a street cab at the end of your drive with the necessary bits in to boost the signal or they can refund your costs. Unfortunately they will try and drag the issue out as long as poss and you will throw fits every time you try and ring up and speak to somebody who knows what is going on. The best thing you can do is contact the team you did before to arrange installation and try and get an answer from them in writing stating that they cannot connect you and once you get that I would go down the solicitor route and let them handle it. VM can connect you if they want to, they just choose not to because of the added expense on their part and that is their fault because they should have known what was involved to start off with.
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The VM surveyor should have known about the 200m rule. So anything you've got in writing will help your case enormously.
The problem is that the nearest green cabinet (assuming it to be coax not fibre) isn't powered other than by a 60V supply (I think) powered from a launch cabinet not too much further away. That's what's driving the signal down the coax. Now that they're using 700+ MHz in the downstream, that quickly gets attenuated over distance. VM have a duty to compensate you or go the extra mile to make it work. Making it work would be complicated as they won't find it easy to bring mains power to your nearest cabinet so that they can provide an additional launch facility which would then require another 60V cabinet by your house. Something like that. Nor would it be easy to give you a fibre link to the nearest active node (also not very far away). It would be easy to pull right to your house but the connection into their network would not be straightforward. I'm ready to stand corrected by the VM bods who are members of CF. |
Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
Thanks for the advice so far.
Unfortunately I don't have much of a paper trail. I have some emails but nothing really laid out as was largely discussed on the phone. They did make me sign up for a service before they supplied me with the necessary cable. I then installed it as they told me to. I suppose I could argue that they shouldn't have provided the cable and asked me to install it unless it would work? There will also be a record somewhere of the pre site visits. I've put in an initial complaint and will see where that leads. If necessary I will escalate it first to CISAS then legally. BB |
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Possible misunderstanding over the 2 distances involved?
The 300m to the front door and the 150m from the road. Looking at advice to builders of new developments, it specifies a maximum of 150m from L4 Cabinet to the premises whether by fibre or coaxial, and then a maximum of 30m cable from there. Link to pdf(page 27) |
Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
I’m by no means an expert on the HFC network, but I recall the rule of thumb being RG6 Max drop up to 120m, RG11 Max drop up to 160m. (Rule of thumb could possibly be extended)
So there is no way anyone, with even a little knowledge, would or should agree to a 300m drop. Did anyone actually come out and look at the job before they sent you ? Or was it all done over the phone? It’s a pretty big mistake to make! |
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Would it be possible to put your own cabinet on the drive and then run power and fibre from the house. Virgin should be able to put the modem in the cab.
Good excuse to add some lighting/cctv too via the ducting |
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Additionally, VM won't get involved with any customer equipment that isn't inside the premises, let alone allow the customer to expose an LV electricity supply to VM's network! |
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e.g https://www.gatesandfencesuk.co.uk/e...-motor-box.jpg |
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I think Foo Fighter just means the customer plonks a box at the edge of the property that has power which VM can put a superhub in, then the customer can be responsible for getting the data back to the house.
Fibre run or a microwave or airfibre link would work. Latter one wouldnt need any additional kit in the box either, straight cat6 out of the hub and up a pole! |
Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
Hi Bluebaron, do you want to PM me your address details and I will check out your options for connectivity here. I can confirm though that 300m is more than double the distance we would entertain for any kind of drop cable feeding a customer.
Cheers |
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Done thanks Weesteev. |
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Have replied to you now BB, we can drop an update in this thread once we have had a catch up :)
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Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
Can I suggest you edit the picture to remove the road name, as it identifies your location to anyone viewing the post?
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Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
UPDATE:
I took this to the adjudicator who today ruled in my favour. I have received a judgement for all my out of pocket expenses plus £200 for inconvenience. Quote, “ I find that the company does not adequately address or respond to the issues raised by the customer in his complaint. I am also mindful of the customer’s submission in respect of the difficulty he experienced in trying to contact the company about his complaint. Upon careful review of the submissions made by both parties, I find that that the standard of customer service that had been provided to the customer had fallen below a reasonable standard. I find that this amounts to a failure in duty of care owed to the customer by the company”. |
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Good result!
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Well done, indeed. So that's in excess of £3,000.
Are you able to post VM's submissions? Hardly confidential in a public court. Might be highly revealing. |
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Fantastic. Shame you had to go through all the red tape.
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Yep lucky for me I’m time rich.
VM didn’t even offer a defence so no submissions. |
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Great news. 90% of complaints about VM taken to CISAS result in a positive outcome for the customer, which is revealing in itself.
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https://www.cedr.com/consumer/cisas/reports/ * Settled: by mutual agreement of the parties. Upheld: fully or partly in favour of the customer |
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Probably...
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I wonder if they will just pay up or if it will need chasing. If they mess about send the bailiffs in just like that person had to with ATOS
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I have spent a long time reading the forums and thought I would register.
If you can place a small cab near the end of the road and run a cat6 cable you would be able to provide power and data down the cat6. At the house you would need a POE injector https://www.4gon.co.uk/ubiquiti-poe4...wg-p-6457.html In the duct 2x 150m apart https://mikrotik.com/product/gper or 3 if needed In the cab https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-PoE10R-TL-POE10R-PoE-Splitter/dp/B001PS4NWW/ref=sr_1_10?dchild=1&keywords=ctive+PoE+Splitter+P ower+Over+Ethernet+48V+to+12V+2A+for+IEEE802.3at&q id=1616086823&s=computers&sr=1-10 |
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Coaxial cable has a 150 - 200m limit without needing amplification (better than Ethernet btw). Thus the Cat6 cable idea is unworkable. |
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A few people in here dont seem to understand the cabinet you'd supply at the end of your drive or whatever is your own services box, nothing to do with virgin they'd just be terminating their services in it. |
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With the added bonus you can CCTV and driveway lighting along the way. |
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1. Consumer to build a mains powered cabinet at the end of his drive. 2. Distance to the premises active device not to exceed 100, (90m best). 3. VM to dig a channel to the consumer's boundary. 4. VM to provide a coaxial tap cable to the customer's cabinet. 5. Coax not to exceed 150m (whole thing's off if that's not possible). 6. Consumer to fit VM provided modem into cabinet & attach coax cable. 7. Consumer to run output Ethernet into premises. 8. Consumer to attach Ethernet cable to own router and then Da-dah. If VM agree to that I'll donate money to charity. Support would be a nightmare. Have I go that wrong? |
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End of the day there are loads of ways it could be done if VM would be prepared to install a modem in a box 150m from the house (OP says 300m to house 150 to end of drive so 150m run to main cab would be possible) . No one in there right mind would do that though so dunno why the argument
Gotta say if the OP has 150m drive then it has gotta be some property and if as rich as a 150m drive may point to maybe consider Starlink as a future option hehehehe |
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Attached is a photo of a job we did for a customer with 550 meters of fibre.
Does anyone know the power requirement of the virgin modem? ours is in the loft. For costing 1x Box (305 meters) cat6 £80.00 (make sure is NOT CCA) we use Excel brand here. 1x POE injector £19.20 https://linitx.com/product/ubiquiti-...e-50-60w/14097 2x Ethernet Repeater £19.20 (max 310 meters) https://linitx.com/product/mikrotik-...-source)/16092 2x case for above £7.20 https://linitx.com/product/mikrotik-...p67-case/16167 1x 48v to 12v adaptor https://www.amazon.co.uk/TP-LINK-TL-...puters&sr=1-10 you will need a box to put the router in. https://www.screwfix.com/p/hylec-ip6...-x-350mm/7766g This would give you 45V at the cab which should be more than enough for the adaptor. Please note this is only theroy and would need a test before you continue, if it was me I would ask virgin to run 150 meters and then you run 150 meters the other way. put the router in modem mode and then provide your own router in the house |
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Pukka, I'm curious what your line of business is ... what sort of customers do you normally serve with custom installs like that? I'm not sure I've ever come across a residential BT or VM customer putting that sort of kit into their garden to connect to a network.
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We have done wireless point to multipoint links providing broadband to customers. this is normally a FTTC connection to a host site and then broadcast it on from their. |
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I think the hardest virgin job, the cab was on the customers back garden fence, but no duct on the front of the house (it ws a barn conversion) once a spotter came out he said yes and it went through the system. that took about 2 months. |
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The OP hasn't reported what the Openreach situation is in his area. |
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We tend to only install Mayflex's kit too. Its not uncommon to see these installs on high end residental propeties or rural business and building sites etc. |
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OK then. You're theory bets on the distance from the existing VM cabinet to the edge of the OP's drive to be 150m or less.
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If he can get a virgin connection to his boundry, getting it to his house is easy.
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Well I spoke to soon!
So even though the adjudicator ruled in my favour, due to an admin issue on my end( I forgot to upload a receipt), they have only awarded around. 1/2 the costs. I’ve spoken to VM and explained the situation but they are now saying if you want to full amount you will have to reject the adjudicator decision and proceed to court. I explained that this will will probably mean they will end up with additional costs and will be pretty much wasting the courts time as they will probably find reach the same conclusion but they said they didn’t care! |
Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
Go via small claims. Has a small submission fee but if you have enough evidence it should be a fairly straightforward case that VM probably wont even fight.
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Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
Claim filed this morning!
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Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
You did right. I had many problems with this dreadful company at the end of last year; legal action is the only language that they appear to understand.
IMO their MO is to be as awkward, time consuming and difficult as possible with their paying customers. Their lack of business sense & arrogance is jaw dropping and even Ofcom have told them to 'up their game'. In their current state I don't believe that they are fit to hold a licence to operate, but if they lost it it would risk a lot of jobs. The best we can hope for is for it to be sold. |
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Is it not the MO of pretty much every company to avoid paying back or out anything that could be avoided including taxes refunds and so on? Greed is the ugly side of capitalism |
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I reckon the job of most Company/Business owners is to make money hand over fist, whether that's to repay investors, upgrade infrastructure and equipment, or simply just to buy a nice yacht in Monaco. 99% of managers will tell you their job is to make money, not make people happy ;) |
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I'm in by
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Personally if it had be me l would have not gone down that route.. l would said that you supply and fit it. I will pay you once and only once it is working. . :dig::dig: |
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Update:
CCJ awarded today, (all costs plus court costs). VM have 30 days to make payment or I move to enforcement, which I guess means I call "can't pay we take it away" and they raid the offices! lol |
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Well as mentioned above they totally ignored the CCJ and my follow up letters so I took it to the high court and sent the Bailiffs round to their offices in reading.
They have recovered the amount from them now so just have to wait a legal 14 days before they can send me the money. |
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Hope it ends up on TV
Just imagine. If you don't pay we'll take it away executes warrant on Virgin Media offices. Would love it I know it will hardly hurt their pockets but it would have cost them quite a bit more making it harder for you. Shameful really |
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Re: £3000 spent and Virgin can't connect me
Watchdog
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They should be ashamed of themselves. I imagine they have a code of conduct and ethics as a responsible business and employer and if an investigation or review was done into this incident I wonder what the report would say..........
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Should have sent them to a headend. Lots of juicy kit there for resale at knockdown prices at auction.
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As to your point, the this was all about how to get fibre to the customer's premises from a VM coax cabinet, which VM won't/can't do for reasons I've explained in the thread. I've not misunderstood anything. |
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