New Virgin Installation

Joe10155

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Oct 25, 2008
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I’m getting a broadband upgrade from Virgin in a week or so. Changing from virgin broadband over a BT line to Virgin Cable.

I’ve had a quick look at some of the old posts on the forum so some of my queries about installation have been answered; but I still have a couple of questions.

As I understand it the fibre optic cable stops at the cabinet down the road and coax is then used from then on.

I can see in my neighbouring property that there is a brown plastic junction box outside that should be fixed to the front wall (it hangs and swings in the breeze) fed from a cable in the street via a green corrugated tube (laying on top of the ground) and several cables come out for distribution up the wall and into the house (split into lots of bedsits).

So, question one: should I get my own new cable run from the street or is it more likely that it will be tapped off this less than perfect (but convenient) installation next door?

Secondly, how is it terminated inside the house? Will there be a socket (F connector?) outlet at the point of entry; or will there be a continuous cable run from the external junction box to the Superhub?

I ask this as having previously run some CAT6 cables around the house from my existing ADSL modem/router (I hardly ever use WiFi) this is located in the centre of the house at 1st floor level and I really don’t want surface run cables through the house (mainly due to having to move all the furniture and clutter (lots of clutter).

However, If the internal coax cabling is similar to standard satellite cable, I already have some CAI benchmarked Webro WF100 cable and would happily run a length internally (through floor voids etc.) from a convenient location at the front of the house at ground floor level to my preferred Superhub location (total cable run about 12-15 metres). Are there any disadvantages to this alternative solution, will there be a performance drop?
 

ukdavej

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Hi Joe

I can only speak from my own experience here. I have VM and the main cab is usually at the end of your street. There should also be an access point outside each property (little cover in the pavement somewhere near the big black line where they dug the initial trench to lay the ducts. What they do is run cable from the cab, down the duct until it pokes out at your access point then they route that to your property. What they did for mine was remove some lawn turf, dig a small rut across my lawn. They then layed the green tubing in that and under some flags to the side of the house. The cable was then fed through to the brown box which is fixed to the brickwork at ground level.

What they then do is run wiring from that and access the house at your desired place and terminate it internally with a white box. They then have cable running from that to the router.

If you can, make sure you are there when they come to install as you can be quite explicit with telling them exactly how you want it layed out. Mine has three access points to the house, living room for Tivo box and phone line, kitchen/diner (round the back) for second V+ box and upstairs front room for the router (as that is where my PC is). I even asked the installer to run the cable to the upstairs so it fastened neatly just under the window sill to hide as much wire as possible.

Hope that helps
 

Joe10155

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Thanks ukdavej,

I was hoping it was going to be somthing like that. Having had the oppertunity to think a bit more about the ideal location for the Superhub, I think that I will keep it simple and have it installed close to where it will will enter from the front garden at ground floor level. If I need to, at a later stage I can always use the Superhub as a modem only and use my existing wifi router in its current ideal location at first floor level.

Thanks again.
 

stevebrock

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I used to install it years ago.....

The will run coax from the cabinet in the street right into your property!

The Dist board in the cabinet will be labelled with all the cables for the street, so they can disconnect properties when they need to!
 

Joe10155

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Well it’s been installed.

Unfortunately, the existing run of cable from the cabinet (about 40meters away on the other side of the street) was too short. They said they could not rerun a new cable there and then as it would mean digging up the road; but they have put in an order for it to be carried out at a later (unspecified) date.

In order to get me connected on the day, they connected me to the next doors box and they did tidy up the existing poor installation a bit. They also said that they are allowed to connect up to three properties on the same run from the cabinet, so I shouldn’t have any issues.

Internally they did fit a small box with an F connector at the point of entry to my place. Then they made up a fly lead of coax cable to suit the proposed location of the Superhub. The whole installation was carried out pretty quickly and they were very helpful and considerate.

Apart from the first night when the traffic shaping was pretty horrendous going down for small periods from 30Mbps to just under 4Mbps and last Sunday night it went down to just 1.51 Mbps around 9.00pm it seems that it mostly gets cut down to around half speed say 14-17Mbps and the very low speeds are rare and last for only a short time. This is in contrast to my previous ADSL speed of a fairly consistent 10Mbps.

I have to say though that I do wonder if the slow speeds are because of the shared line to the cabinet.
 

Alantiggger

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Not too sure Joe but I pay for ap to 60 and for the most the speed is always over 50.

If you're not happy get them to drop the price you pay until you are sorted with your very own cable to your house. :)
 

Joe10155

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Hi Alan, I'm still getting a bargain as I am paying the same for up to 30Mbps on cable as I was for 10Mbps over the BT phone line; and this is several pounds cheaper than the standard virgin charge and even a few pence cheaper than the discounted first few months offer.

Out of the peak time periods I mostly get the full 30Mbps or pretty close to it. I checked it just prior to this reply and I got 8ms Ping; 31.42Mbps download & 1.98Mbps upload. So, apart from a few peak time cut backs I'm really doing rather well :)

However, I am going to continue with the speed checks to establish a service benchmark.
 

RobinKidderminster

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Suggest u dont get too hung up with megaspeedbytes. I have 7Mb but have usws others 2Mb and 60Mb recently. At school 100's sharing 1Mb, 10Mb and 100Mb. Unless u regularly download large video/music then u won't feel much difference since the server is the limiting factor and not your line.
 

Joe10155

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Robin, yes you are right, the speed I get from the ISP is only a part of the story. It seems to me it is more likely that busy servers at the point of origin or where in the world they are located that would have the biggest influence on overall download speeds. I'm still a bit of a Luddite really as I don't download films; and download music only rarely. I'm sure that this is likely change as it gets harder to obtain stuff on physical media.

GSB I really feel for you. I remember when I was on a dial up service I wanted to download a game of around 860MB and the maximum transfer speed I was getting equated to only 1MB every 5 minutes. I think it took me around one & a half weeks to finally download all of it.
 

GSB

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Mine is so slow becouse BT or Virgin won't put cable down our street...been intouch with BT and they have no plans too,even tho infinity is available just a few miles away.The phone lines are our limiting factor...apparantly :roll:

I called on a guy a few months ago and we got talking about his virgin broadband,he did a ping test and it showed he was getting 100mb download :O

He started on the basic 10mb,but over the last few years virgin have given him free upgrade's,about 20mb each time :grin:
 

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