no TV, Internet or Telephone!

[markblue777]

Quick rant. Came back from clacton on Sunday evening to find we had no tv or internet. Monday still the same so tried ringing virgin media but phone not working either. So 0845 number from a mobile ( they should be banned i feel) and they said they could not see my boxes. Went out side and discovered that next door had cut through the bloody cable when she was tidying up the communal strip. The cable was in a green protective sleeve and a spade would not just go through it so she has cut it with sheers or something like that. The pipe was running over the surface partially. But seriously thats a special kind of stupid to cut through a wire that is in the ground.

Cheers
Mark

 

[hanser]

Don't think you missed much!
Just as a matter of interest who picks up the tab for the repair?

 

[markblue777]

Well i am not paying it thats for sure. Tbh they should have buried the line deeper. But if they charge they can send the bill next door. I'm just hoping they come at about 6 as ill be back from work else the misses will need to deal with it.

 

[RogerS]

Hope you get it sorted.

Mind you, it's a great advert for NOT having all your eggs in one basket! Separate phone line. Separate OTA Freeview signal = resilience.

Hanser ...he missed Fargo!

 

[RogerP]

Hope you get it sorted.

Mind you, it's a great advert for NOT having all your eggs in one basket! Separate phone line. Separate OTA Freeview signal = resilience. .....

... also = more expensive

 

[RogerS]

Hope you get it sorted.

Mind you, it's a great advert for NOT having all your eggs in one basket! Separate phone line. Separate OTA Freeview signal = resilience. .....

... also = more expensive

Mmm...maybe. I guess it depends where you are starting from. For instance, Freeview is free so apart from any initial capital investment ...most of which you are going to have to stump up for if you go cable....there is no on-cost. You need a TV licence if you are watching live TV via cable, Freeview etc.

So it's the bundled cost of the all-in-one service as opposed to paying for line-rental and a broadband service.

We keep revisiting this but as we don't and never will have cable where we live that removes one option! I tend to look at the whole picture and think about what sort of support I will get when things go pear-shaped and to that end is why we are very loyal to Zen (although they did have a bit of an outage a few weeks back!).

 

[ColeyS1]

Bish bash bosh wang in the cable as quickly as you can. Set it up get it signed off and on to the next. Working at a job recently and saw this happen. Sparky couldn't believe the state they left the cables and fixed it properly himself through fear of getting a bad reputation if someone asked who did the wiring- only took about 10 minute's extra to do the job properly

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk

 

[RogerP]

I have Virgin fibre-optic cable and one of their "packages", broadband, phone and TV. I also have, but never used (apart from testing), free-view on an aerial and the password for next door's BT Wi-Fi.

The fibre-optic installation, although quite a long run from the road, over and around the bungalow, is very neat and tidy. It was installed many years ago (15?) by the original cable supplier United Artists. As always the quality of the job depends more on the blokes doing it than the company.

 

[RogerS]

I have Virgin fibre-optic cable and one of their "packages", broadband, phone and TV. I also have, but never used (apart from testing), free-view on an aerial and the password for next door's BT Wi-Fi.

The fibre-optic installation, although quite a long run from the road, over and around the bungalow, is very neat and tidy. It was installed many years ago (15?) by the original cable supplier United Artists. As always the quality of the job depends more on the blokes doing it than the company.

Ah the joys of us living in the 'sticks' ! 15 years ago or thereabouts we were using a satellite dish for broadband because our geriatric exchange was on 56kbps (on a good day!).

 

[Fergal]

I've been with Virgin for 13 years and the service has always been pretty good. Once, we were having some work done in the front garden and the builders cut through the cable. Virgin came out and fixed it the same day from free.

A few years ago when they had a bit of a tiff with Sky and Sky1 was removed (which was the only Sky channel I was interested in at the time), I phoned them up to complain and they upgraded my TV & broadband package for free.

When they first installed the cable they left behind the 1m SDS drill bit they had used. That has proven very useful over the years...

As for the broadband, it is very reliable and has got a lot faster over time, which cannot always be said about ADSL connections over a copper phone line.

 

[RogerP]

...........
As for the broadband, it is very reliable and has got a lot faster over time, which cannot always be said about ADSL connections over a copper phone line.

Yes indeed. Virgin have just increased mine to 100mb for free - always checks out at 107+mb.

 

[RogerS]

...........
As for the broadband, it is very reliable and has got a lot faster over time, which cannot always be said about ADSL connections over a copper phone line.

Yes indeed. Virgin have just increased mine to 100mb for free - always checks out at 107+mb.

Out of curiosity, does this superfast speed make that much difference to 'normal' usage? Isn't download speed of files, for example, limited more by the server capacity/loading?

 

[RogerP]

...........
As for the broadband, it is very reliable and has got a lot faster over time, which cannot always be said about ADSL connections over a copper phone line.

Yes indeed. Virgin have just increased mine to 100mb for free - always checks out at 107+mb.

Out of curiosity, does this superfast speed make that much difference to 'normal' usage? Isn't download speed of files, for example, limited more by the server capacity/loading?

Well everything whizzes along and some files do download at near maximum speed. I'd not have bought the extra but it was a free upgrade from 60mb.

 

[Fergal]

General web browsing seems speedier and files download a lot quicker, although Virgin's policy of temporarily throttling your connection if you download over a certain amount each day is a pain.

Another benefit of getting your broadband via cable is it doesn't seem to slow down as much at peak times like ADSL does when there are lots of people contending for the bandwidth.

 

[JustBen]

General web browsing seems speedier and files download a lot quicker, although Virgin's policy of temporarily throttling your connection if you download over a certain amount each day is a pain.

Another benefit of getting your broadband via cable is it doesn't seem to slow down as much at peak times like ADSL does when there are lots of people contending for the bandwidth.

I found that when I was with Virgin. I used I check at various times including peak and I always got the maximum speed.

I do miss not being in a cable area. I'm with BT (Infinity 2) now and I never ever hit top speed.... Ever.
My 6 month old Hub5 broke yesterday and to their credit, a new one arrived this morning.

 

[RogerP]

General web browsing seems speedier and files download a lot quicker, although Virgin's policy of temporarily throttling your connection if you download over a certain amount each day is a pain.

Another benefit of getting your broadband via cable is it doesn't seem to slow down as much at peak times like ADSL does when there are lots of people contending for the bandwidth.

My Virgin connection never slows at all from the 100mb - checked at all different times and days. Never experienced this "throttling". What are you downloading to cause it to happen?

 

[morfa]

No TV or telephone? Sounds like heaven.

Ok, I'll admit, I'd be a bit lost without the internet. But I can easily take or leave the TV. Folk rarely ring me on the phone there days, so that wouldn't be a great loss.

 

[RogerP]

.......... Folk rarely ring me on the phone there days, so that wouldn't be a great loss.

....so what do they ring you on if not a phone?

 

[markblue777]

Yeah we have it all packaged up so its cheaper. Never use the house phone as i have unlimited minutes on my mobile anyway and the land line is a rip off if not used at weekends. To be honest dont know why we cant do it like they do in Hong Kong where you can just get broadband and not roped into a telephone line as well.

 

[RogerP]

Just depends the package. Our LL is used all the time, UK calls 24/7 are included in the overall package and cost no extra. My mobile is rarely used and I could well do without it but it's on a 3p a minute non-expiring PAYG with a tenner's credit so I keep it "just in case"