Moving from Sky to Virgin - installation and cabling questions

[molinari]

We currently have Sky TV, BT phone, and BT broadband, and that all comes in at about £300 a quarter (£1200 a year ). Looking at Virgin Media, I can get the equivilent for less than half of that. The problem I potentially have is the installation...
Currently we have the Sky dish at the front of the house with one cable going into the front lounge to a standard sky+ box, and another cable goes from the dish over the roof to the back of the house and into the back lounge were our main TV and Sky+ HD box. We want the same setup for the Virgin TV, but we tried previously to get it installed, and on both ocassions the installers refused to put it over the roof, even after the area manager stepped in to say that can do that. I've decided that if I know what cable they use, I can buy some and put it over the roof myself, so all they have to do is connect it up at the front of the house, and also to the Virgin TiVo box in the lounge at the back of the house.
So, my questions are about the cable they use, and how it is presented to the property. I take it they bring a cable from the street to the property, but what happens from there? Is there a box outside or does it come straight inside and terminate there?
Any help is appreciated .

 

[Dano]

The cable comes to a box attached to the wall on the property, from there it gets routed wherever, mine comes in downstairs for the TV and another routed upstairs for internet, I think the cable is just standard coax possibly? Really not sure.

 

[visibleman]

Everything including and up to the hardware (STB, cable modem etc) is VM's, so i very much doubt an installer will agree to use cabling that you've installed yourself.

A better bet would be to re-route the cabling for the rear lounge, eg - either around the building or through the attic if VM are willing to do that.

 

[molinari]

Everything including and up to the hardware (STB, cable modem etc) is VM's, so i very much doubt an installer will agree to use cabling that you've installed yourself.

Thats a nuisance.

A better bet would be to re-route the cabling for the rear lounge, eg - either around the building or through the attic if VM are willing to do that.

It's a mid-terraced house with a loft extension so round the building of through the attic isn't an option .
I guess I may have to ring them and hope I speak to someone who knows what they're talking about.

 

[TheVoice]

Sounds like you need do the "threaten to cancel" thing with Sky. £75pm for phone, Sky HD with Multiscreen doesn't actually sound terrible though, but you can probably get a better deal.

 

[peahead]

Hi

I believe Virgin use RG6 7mm coax cable at least that's what mine is but mine was put in years ago

Webpro HD100 would be better option as its triple shielded and better for longer runs

 

[lucid]

I believe Virgin use RG6 7mm coax cable at least that's what mine is but mine was put in years ago

RG6 is really quite poor cable. I wouldn't recommend using it for anything to do with TV or Satellite or VM when there are better options available for not that much more money.

A quick run-down of the issues with RG6 would include that it uses a steel centre core that is anodised with a thin copper coating. Steel is less malleable than copper and it is more prone to corrosion. The cable also uses Mylar (plastic) film with a flash coating of aluminium rather than 100% copper foil as one of the shields. The braid shield is aluminium too and there are two problems with it. First, the density of coverage is poor, and second it is a much poorer conductor than copper. Given that the job of the foil and braid is to trap interference (both external and that generated by the signal running in the cable itself) and then shunt it to earth, and the fact that the foil is a poor conductors anyway, then much of the effectiveness of the shielding rests with the braid. A sparse wrapping of poorly-conducting aluminium is no match for a denser braid made of copper.

VM uses a cheaper version of HD100. My recollection is that it is triple shielded but that it uses what looks like aluminium and Mylar shielding to keep the cost down. Since the cable is VM's responsibility though and that it's up to them to fix any issues arising from it's use then I guess it's a case of he who pays the piper calls the tune. Electrically though Webro WF100 is a superior cable. It's better too than Webro HD100 for attenuation. The thing with HD100 is that it is triple shielded and that it exceeds VMs cable spec. There really can't be much argument about its suitability on that basis.

If you plan to run it over the roof then remember to use some catenary wire loops secured under the tiles to hold the cable in place and use a bit of hose to protect the cable where it will rub against the ridge tiles and other pinch points.

 

[Steampunk]

We currently have Sky TV, BT phone, and BT broadband, and that all comes in at about £300 a quarter (£1200 a year ). Looking at Virgin Media, I can get the equivilent for less than half of that. The problem I potentially have is the installation...
.

I wanted a non-standard installation (cable under floorboards), and the installers won't lift floorboards. What I did was lift the boards and drill relevant holes in joists/walls in advance, and the installer just cut me a long piece of cable to thread where I wanted it. He then crimped the ends and made the connections as required, and I put the boards back down after he left. It can be done, depending on the installer, and with the area manager backing you up, I don't see why they shouldn't do their jobs.

As already stated, your cable over the roof really needs to be properly fixed so it doesn't rub against the tiles and end up damaging itself. Maybe they are contractors who don't have ladders/willingness to do the job properly.

The alternative is to run the cable through the inside of the house, but I don't know how practical that would be depending on your layout. Unless you can hide things (as I did) it often looks quite messy. Do you have a loftspace you can get into? Maybe instead of running cable over the roof, you can run it up the side of the house, into the loft, across the joists, out the other side, and back down the other side of the house to re-enter at you lounge TV point?

As for "presentation to the house", VM run a cable from he street up to your house and put a brown box on the outside of the wall. From there they can run multiple cables to other points around the house, and then they put a white box on the inside, which can also be used to split multiple cables around the inside. I have one brown box on the outside wall, which has two cables. One goes upstairs to a while box on the wall for the cable modem, the other goes through the ceiling, and drops down a cable/pipe box into the TV point in the living room, where there's another white box that connect to the TiVo. Outside cables tend to be black, inside ones tend to be white.

 

[turanafon]

Virgin wont lift carpets, go over roofs or go into lofts unless boarded and lit.

best bet is to do the prep work yourself with triple shielded WB100 cable, or even get some rope in place so they can connect there cable and you can just pull it thru.

 

[red eye]

If you ask nicely the installer will give you some off cuts, I bagged 6 meters and a splitter to connect to my TV card.... All the analog channels my TV card could tune into