In a cabled street VM says doesn't exist. Help please

[adman45]

Hi new to the forum & looking for help
I Live on a small development that was cabled by NTL at the time of construction. Each house has a cable point, just outside the house (a small plastic cover marked CATV), Under the cover are cable wires with a small numbered yellow tag. The cabling can be followed on ( by lifting small metal covers) on to the next rd, where it goes into a green street box (CAB) and the (again by lifting a metal catv grid), cables wires can be seen going off down the rd on to the network . The road the grren box is on is cabled and has cable customers on it.

I tried contacting VM customer services who were not helpful. I tried to get someone out to have a look, but they wern't interested

I brought this problem up on another forum about 3 weeks ago (please don't be offended, it was the first google led me to !) and there was someone on there who claimed to work for VM (And probably did) who seemed to be making some progress. He said we were definately on the system but had somehow got missed of the database. The forum then disappeared !

I am quite happy to try to sort this out my self, but I need to know who to contact at VM (I live near stafford), who can sort this out.

The reason I want to go on VM is that ASDL broadband is not good in our area due to distance from the exchange. So if it can be sorted I will join VM for broadband at the very least.

hope you can help

[Toto]

Any chance that you can speak to somebody in your street who has been cabled?

[MovedGoalPosts]

It's not unheard of for the postcode database to be wrong. You need to ask sales to arrange a site survey.

However, if your's is a recent development, it's possible that the developer put in the underground ducts, but that these don't connect to the infrastructure in the next road. There are limitations of distance tothe house from the street cabinet. There may also be capacity issues in the street cabinet.

[adman45]

thanks for replys.

Dev over 6 years old

Cables are in the ducts (you can see them). Its not far to the box less than 100m ( i could take some pics)

Also unlikly to be a capacity issue at the street box. As from what i know there arn't more than a couple of people connected on the next rd. There only about 10 houses on it.

VM seem to think our road is not cabled at all, Hence no one is connected. It may be relevant that this was installed at the time NTL were not accepting new customers. Hence they didn't bother to record it properly.

In answer to another post, How do you get a sight survey?

thanks

[MovedGoalPosts]

Speak to Virgin Media sales. They should be able to pass the site survey request on. However survey staff aren't customer facing so this can take a while.

[adman45]

I have been PM by some who's going to look into it.

thanks

[Zoolook]

I use to work for a Company called Diomond Cable some years ago were we laid ducts in the Middlands, i also did some work for Nynex which we did some work in Stoke-on-Trent which aint far from Stafford.

The ducts would get laid the , the optics would get put through , then you had to wait along time for the box that conect the streets etc etc

Some of these aeras still today have the ducts and optics in, and the street boxs to a degree, but are not switched on.

This could be to a numbers of reasons because the companies have been bought and sold that many times, inactive aeras get forgotten so they dont show up on the data base.

So on that note i would get through to head office, and tell them that there is an inactive aera, im sure they would be interested to know that they are losing money from that, its not the first time this has happend by a long shot.

[adman45]

I am sorry to say they are not that interested. I would just like some one to come out & look. I can't find any contact for VM except sales.
any suggestions??

[sprattgraham]

Try head office, number on the top of this page: http://investors.virginmedia.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=135485&p=irol-contact

Ask for Complaints

[adman45]

Thanks thats a start, is there an address you can actually write to. It may seem odd but I have found letters work better when complaining.

[adman45]

Well thanks to help from vm people from a couple of forums including this one, I have now placed an order with VM. The local system has been checked & our little bit did get missed, a survey was carried out, all is well and I even got a personal visit from a vm sales rep.

& hopefully thats the end .

this thread can die its natural death.

[Chris]

It'll be VM dying a natural death - a slow and painful one - if they make every new subscriber jump through the same sort of hoops you had to.

What is wrong with a company when people are queueing up to throw money at it and it can't be bothered to get off its corporate bum and do something about it?!

[Mr Clean]

What is wrong with a company when people are queueing up to throw money at it and it can't be bothered to get off its corporate bum and do something about it?!

A friend of mine had exactly the same situation last year as this one. He had cabling right up to his door, old NYNEX and NTL phone sockets in his house but couldn't get NTL/Virgin to connect him as his street in't on the grid. It was a complete joke. Neighbours both sides of him had NTL TV but he still couldn't get anyone to listen or help sort him out.

All he wanted was to remain an NTL Customer after being with them for years and unfortunately having to move house they lost his customer for being a joke.

You have to question the motives of these people who are quite clearly holding a company back from growing by not helping to get new customers. Customers who are practically falling over themselves to get on board. It's simply a joke.

[adman45]

Time for resurection

I agree with you. It should not have to rely on the good hearted nature of some of its employies. I have only got this far by "unofficial" means. There should be a sensible official way to raise problems like mine, but their isn't.
vm needs some real leadership!

The irony is at the local level, people are very helpful. Lets hope all goes well from now on.

If it works properly they have a good product to sell.

I'm with sky & Bt at present, no real complaints. Sky is expensive especially for multiroom or Hd, (CS is very good ). I've had no problems with bt, but am too far (3.5km ) from the exchange to get a BB service comparable to virgins, also our rural exhange will never be LLU by sky so still would have to pay £17.00 for 1.5 meg connection.

I'll try VM & see how they do.