Mission: To get faster internet in our new home

Tee Hee Johnson · 2 Jan 2019 at 16:31

We would love to move away from VM due to terrible prices, but it's our only option... By based fibre isn't going to be here for a while, the website says there are no plans.

Normal non fibre line is between 3mb and 17mb I think, with a promise of no worse than 8mb. No chance.

Sui · 2 Jan 2019 at 16:40

What does BT wholesale (https://www.btwholesale.com/includes/adsl/adsl.htm?s_cid=ws_furls_adslchecker) or this (https://availability.samknows.com/broadband/exchange_search) say?

Might help others narrow down your options

Duke · 2 Jan 2019 at 16:42

You won't be able to fill in the Virgin Media 'Cable my street' as your post code will say its covered already but its worth posting on their forum either way to get an answer - e.g. https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Managing-Your-Account-Cable/Cable-my-street/td-p/3570442

Also are you on just ADSL2 or slow FTTC atm?

bainbridge · 2 Jan 2019 at 18:25

Mobile broadband was my solution, got 200GB of 4g per month via virgin mobile and simply use my phone as a hot spot.

An average 30mb is lightening fast compared to the adsl line which barely goes above 1mb on a good day.

mattyprice4004 · 2 Jan 2019 at 18:27

Such a large variation (2-17Mb) would suggest a line / interference issue to me.

Malevolence · 2 Jan 2019 at 18:37

I live in a large city and our cabinet still can't provide any fibre product, and on the BTw checker it isn't even showing s date when they're thinking about enabling it. Virgin do service the area but have refused to install on three different occasions now. So I'm still stuck with good old ADSL2+ @ 1MB/s

Tom_ed1987 · 2 Jan 2019 at 18:48

Is the estate still under construction? I thought it was standard practice for all large new builds to get FTTP, albeit it could take a while to go 'live'

dowie · 2 Jan 2019 at 19:01

skyripper said:
As for people wondering why new build homes don't have capability for FTTP or Virgin to each premises (from 5UBs twitter link)- I don't believe thereis anything in the planning regulations to say it must be done, so it's down purely to economics. The cost to a developer building a street to run their own ducting and pre-cable it (or pre-fibre it) must be peanuts compared to the cost of digging up the road to retrofit it. Especially as they have to provide phone line capability.

Not sure how it was done exactly in my London flat but they certainly didn't need to dig the street up outside (not sure if they managed to follow some existing utilities in or something) - we have FTTP and can get up to 1 Gig - there is some router/switch etc.. in the basement of the building somewhere. They did need to do some work inside the building cutting holes in the ceilings and installing panels etc...

TJM · 2 Jan 2019 at 19:52

Tom_ed1987 said:
Is the estate still under construction? I thought it was standard practice for all large new builds to get FTTP, albeit it could take a while to go 'live'

Openreach will install FTTP for free in developments over a certain size but many developers don’t take up the offer for whatever reason.

OP, if Virgin is a non-starter then you’ll either need to pay Openreach for FTTP on demand (potentiality a lot) or get the community organised to share the cost. I’d seriously consider doing so if you plan to stay in the house for many years.

HAz · 2 Jan 2019 at 19:56

let me guess new build house?

Duke · 2 Jan 2019 at 20:33

HAz said:
let me guess new build house?

He did say 'show home' in an earlier post so guessing so.

randal · 2 Jan 2019 at 21:06

TJM said:
Openreach will install FTTP for free in developments over a certain size but many developers don’t take up the offer for whatever reason.

OP, if Virgin is a non-starter then you’ll either need to pay Openreach for FTTP on demand (potentiality a lot) or get the community organised to share the cost. I’d seriously consider doing so if you plan to stay in the house for many years.

Can confirm. Last time VM cheesed me off I mailed BT to see how much a FTTP install at my house would be since our exchange is enabled. They took 3 weeks to get back to me and then presented me with a £15k quote. Apparently that was discounted as well as other people would benefit from the fibre run. I'm around 1.5km from the exchange.

Reading up it seems BT hiked their prices for FTTP installs a year ago, the general feeling being that BT really don't want to get involved unless they really have to. Which could mean they're planning a wider roll out down the line, or more likely they think that 76Mb is enough for anyone.

FISHGUTS · 2 Jan 2019 at 21:24

TJM said:
Openreach will install FTTP for free in developments over a certain size but many developers don’t take up the offer for whatever reason.

OP, if Virgin is a non-starter then you’ll either need to pay Openreach for FTTP on demand (potentiality a lot) or get the community organised to share the cost. I’d seriously consider doing so if you plan to stay in the house for many years.

This.

I'm a small developer.

I'm going through planning at the moment for a 35 development country housing estate.
Fibre to premises is available to developers over 30 houses.

https://www.ournetwork.openreach.co.uk/property-development.aspx

I talked to a local estate agent about our site & potential house builds.
We are lucky enough that we have enough competance & assets that we can build it out ourseleves.
No other builders are offering this in our area, the reason from the estate agent was the larger builders will sell their crap builds anyway & literally can't be bothered with the hassle of fibre.

Flibster · 2 Jan 2019 at 21:26

Our flat in Hitchin claimed to have Virgin available. Ordered it, got told installation was £180'000, and all 18 flats in the building had to take it.
Went with ADSL and then fibre later on and Sky for TV.

Although, having dealt with Virgins customer service with the other half mum's service problems... No thanks. I'd rather put my tackle in a door and slam it shut than have anything to do with them.

233 · 2 Jan 2019 at 21:34

as a counter recently moved from a fttc property withh 76 mpbs to a full fat virgin area laptop pulls a solid 380 meg down over wifi and my hardwired desktop gets north of 400 meg a second. wit a 7/8 ms ping

certainly worth investigating further

Housey · 2 Jan 2019 at 21:36

I have 310mbps from Zen in the middle of nowhere, which even Zen went "How the **** did you manage that"

I am gloating, I have now answers.

But it's ACE OP, ******* ace!!!

llamadal · 2 Jan 2019 at 22:17

Look up someone senior on LinkedIn and contact/complain to them and ask them to help or refer you to the right person to talk go.

Good luck!

Caged · 2 Jan 2019 at 23:28

Do a Community Fibre Partnership

Avalon · 2 Jan 2019 at 23:37

VM sales people generally want an easy life, if it takes longer than the time to credit check you and key an order, they aren't interested. You live in a new build estate where the developer did a half arsed job, harass the developer - that's not VM's problem, but they are the people you need to fix it. Speak to normal sales, ask them to check the property listing on the database and tell you the status, if it's on the web tool, it'll be on the database and it'll have the reason for the failed install. It likely needs a PIV booked and an indication of the amount of construction required, if it's minimal a spotter (a field sales person with some additional training) may be able to supply the information to VM, if it's 8 doors down I suspect it'll need a full PIV. I'm not confident you'll get a positive outcome, but at least this way you'll get an actual answer as to why/why not.

BigT · 3 Jan 2019 at 01:41

Are you, or can you get, in any way friendly with a neighbour who can get virgin and you have line of sight to? If so you could do something around beaming it over to you via Ubiquiti nanostations.