Moving Virgin Media Cable box

Cavallino

Cavallino

Cavallino

Soldato
Joined
8 Dec 2004
Posts
15,077
Location
Hampshire
So I may have to get this box moved from one side of the house to the other.

I was thinking about doing it myself. So here are my questions which I would be grateful for an answer :)

1. Am I allowed to move the box myself (i.e. is there any breach of T&Cs)?
2. If I am allowed to do it myself, should I just extend the existing cable around the house using an F barrel connector and running extended cable around the outside of the house (tacking the cable onto the outside?)
Or should I try to take the cable through the loft and down to the other side of the house (the room I want to get to is on the other side of the house from where the main Virgin cable is located outside.

Alternatively:

3. I have been quoted £99 for VM to get the engineer out. Are there local Satellite companies who could do the same thing and if so would that still breach T&Cs?

TIA :)
 
I wouldn't play with the box itself (I assume its the main junction box that has telewest/virgin/ntl printed on it) as Virgin will find an excuse to say its your fault if things go wrong.

Adding extension cables is better because that's what Virgin engineers do. I had the box in the living room and the engineer just strung a long cable along the walls, up the stairs and into one of the bedrooms.

You could try to do it yourself and its stuff you can get from various online outlets such as data cable specialists.
 
The easiest option is to run a load of coax internally. Im not sure VM would like you (or anyone else manhandling the box.
 
Weazle said:
I wouldn't play with the box itself (I assume its the main junction box that has telewest/virgin/ntl printed on it) as Virgin will find an excuse to say its your fault if things go wrong.

Adding extension cables is better because that's what Virgin engineers do. I had the box in the living room and the engineer just strung a long cable along the walls, up the stairs and into one of the bedrooms.

You could try to do it yourself and its stuff you can get from various online outlets such as data cable specialists.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Can you tell me how he extended it across? I.e. did he use the existing cabling to extend it or did he take out the old cabling and connected longer cable from the main junction box outside?
 
the box should be inside your house. u just run a long cable from the box inside to whatever room u want.

nothing to do with the outside boxs.

my main box is in the living room but my cable modem is in my bedroom, so i have a cable from the box to my bedroom
 
Last edited:
I attempted this once, we then had 50meg broadband installed so an engineer had to come out. They picked up on the fact that their cables had be moved pretty quick........engineer told me Virgin usually fine people for doing this. We didn't hear anymore from Virgin, but thought best to warn you.
 
gareth170 said:
the box should be inside your house. u just run a long cable from the box inside to whatever room u want.

nothing to do with the outside boxs.

my main box is in the living room but my cable modem is in my bedroom, so i have a cable from the box to my bedroom
Click to expand...

But how do you hide away the cable? Or is it just running along the sides of the walls?

janp - Thanks for the warning. Tbh, its looking more and more likely that I will go the Virgin Media Engineer route. But I am calling around local companies to see if I can get it cheaper.

Is my best bet to go to Satellite places for such a service?
 
I wouldn't pay Virgin to rerun the cable, their engineers seem pretty shoddy with neatness and you'll be able to find a far better route if you do it yourself.

Whereabouts in Hampshire are you? I have some sat cable and proper crimp F-types if you're up for attempting an install.
 
benftl said:
I wouldn't pay Virgin to rerun the cable, their engineers seem pretty shoddy with neatness and you'll be able to find a far better route if you do it yourself.

Whereabouts in Hampshire are you? I have some sat cable and proper crimp F-types if you're up for attempting an install.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much for your offer of sat cable and F-types. I may take you up on that actually...

Can I use the existing cable and extend off that? (i.e. using F barrel connectors?) Or are you talking about a brand new cable from the virgin box outside?

Im currently in two minds about the install atm. Problem is it has to run around the entire house and Im just not sure about the neatness of having a cable running all around the house.

Any thoughts?
 
Well usually the termination box is on the inside, so you could either barrel join from there and drill another hole back outside where you'll run the cable round the house, or join then run up to the loft and back down.

I know what you mean about neatness, no one likes seeing cables but without seeing the property it's hard to make a decision on which route would be best. Personally I think I'd go for the 'run to loft and down' idea, makes things easier should you add more boxes or even if you decide to move your existing box elsewhere in the future.
 
benftl said:
Well usually the termination box is on the inside, so you could either barrel join from there and drill another hole back outside where you'll run the cable round the house, or join then run up to the loft and back down.

I know what you mean about neatness, no one likes seeing cables but without seeing the property it's hard to make a decision on which route would be best. Personally I think I'd go for the 'run to loft and down' idea, makes things easier should you add more boxes or even if you decide to move your existing box elsewhere in the future.
Click to expand...

Your understanding is EXACTLY correct. And I am also of the mind of running through to the loft. Infact there is already a cable that runs into the room, I suppose I could feed into the same hold or perhaps make that hole slightly bigger and then run across the loft...

Just a few questions.

1. Can I just let the coax run across the loft? Doesnt have to be secured down or anything inside (just probably tucked away somewhere).

2. Will my connection speed degrade at all with more cable length? (talking about probably less than 10m or so of cable length?

3. After feeding through the loft, would you drill back outside again, and then feed off to the location where the room is (on the outside)?

I could literally drill from the loft down into the ceiling of the room below into a built in cupboard area... but that would probably involve having to run the coax all around the room itself...to the area where the PC/router and Virgin internal box should be located.

Dont suppose you'd be interested in a bit of sidework :D Hehehe.
 
gareth170 said:
:confused:

the box is inside your house
Click to expand...

I meant from wherever the cable off the street is being fed from? Ive not seen it physically, is it some sort of box or just cable that comes out of the ground or something?

magicroundabout said:
why are you moving it? is it just for broadband?

if so then use Homeplugs
Click to expand...

It is just for broadband yes. And from the homeplugs thread...

Cavallino said:
Ok I decided that since I have a 50mbit connection and not wanting to run the risk of slower speeds, I opted for the Belkin Gigabit HD Homeplug affairs.

I wish I hadnt. But to be fair Im not sure if this is a specific model problem, or whether I would experience similar performance with other brands/speeds.

So I have one of these 1Gbps plugs next to my 50Mbit cable modem, the other in the other room next to my PC connected to a router, i.e. using these to propagate my next connection...

And the best speed I get off the net is a extremly poor 10Mbit.
1000Mbit... only yielding 10Mbit. Very dissapointed and thusly, sent back under DSR.
Click to expand...

:)
 
magicroundabout said:
yeah just noticed you'd started that one.

Are the homplugs not wotking at all? Can you not get new ones?

Much cheaper and a lot less hassle if you ask me
Click to expand...

The ones I got are the Gigabit ones from belkin. And if theyre just yielding me 10mbit then Im guessing 200mbit ones are going to be the same or even slower surely?
 
could just be the actual units aren't working as they should. best bet is to try some cheaper ones. if they don't work send them back under dsr.

mine were £35 second hand and work flawlessly. i know we've different houses but i'd still assume they'd work just as well.
 
You could just lay it across the loft but it would be easy enough to tack it down with regular coax clips. Your speed won't degrade with length, cable broadband is almost like a 'it either works or it doesn't' service unlike ADSL where length is very important to your sync rate.

I'd probably try and keep all cables internal if possible, if the internal wall is hollow/plasterboard you could even try and be clever with dropping cable down the void - that way you don't have to worry about cables being on show.

As above, what boxes are you moving, both tv and broadband?

Oh, and I've just seen your other thread. I have been playing with wireless N recently and am not overly impressed with it. The laptop connects at 300mbps but the max throughput I receive sitting next to the router is 8MB/sec and this rapidly declines when I walk around the house with laptop in hand. 5GHz and N don't like distance!
 
Last edited:
Cavallino said:
I meant from wherever the cable off the street is being fed from? Ive not seen it physically, is it some sort of box or just cable that comes out of the ground or something?
Click to expand...
there is a box on the end of the street but u can't touch that, the cable which is phone + date cable go under ground up to your 2 boxs
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom