Install scheduled for next week....what should I ask and check

[lester1]

Hi there
Have taken the plunge and will get an install done later this month. When the virgin guys arrive, what questions should I ask, what things should I check, and what will they ask me.
I am having a 20meg broadband and phone package only.
Thanks in advance.

[weesteev]

TV tends to be the product that brings with it most questions and will also be what the tech would spend most time showing off compared to just getting your broadband connection up and running.

Do you have anything on your mind that you want to discuss now?

[lester1]

OK
For starters, I understand that although the engineers will bring in the cable from the road to the house,they will not actually link it to the computer. This will be up to me. Is this difficult? If what I say is right, how do they test the connection is working without checking the computer can talk to the cable via the router.
Will they put the, for want of a better word, the base of the cable in the room that I want or is it left somewhere near to the front door. I assume this 'base' includes the router.
Also, I wont need the offered virus/firewall software they offer as part of the package as I have already spent money on Norton. Will this be OK.
Lastly, for reasons to do with work, I wont want to do away with my land line ADSL connection to one of my computers due to ongoing tasks. I cant afford to be without the internet and am nervous of making a seamless and instant reconnection within minutes to cable. I told the virgin salesman this and he says it will be possible as long as I am willing to contact Virgin Cust Serv. when I am ready to completely make the switch.

[weesteev]

The cable will be brought from the footpath to the boundary of your property, from there it will run in a thin protective duct laid by the engineer up to the edge of your home. The duct is normally buried approx. 6 Inches below the earth. At the edge of your home, an Omni box will be fitted and a splitter wil connect to the end of this drop cable from the footpath.

From here, an RG6 (or RG11 depending on distance) coax cable is run from the splitter and through the wall of your property into the buildings interior. Initially the cable terminate inside an Isolator plate (branded white Virgin Media protective cover) and this coax will connect to an Isolator (small box that helps prevent power surges on the line to our Network or into your equipment!).

Now the cabel is in your house and the internal routing of the cable will be decided between yourself and the engineer based on the layout of your home and what devices will be connected. In your case, firstly the phone.

The siamese drop cable that runs up to your home will split into both a Coax (for digital services) and Twisted copper pair (For Telephone). A master Telephone socket will be fitted where you require (depending on how realistic the location is!). For your broadband, the Coax cable will be run through your home to the point where you want your cable modem fitted. The modem will be connected and activated by the engineer using his mobile PDA. I believe the tech will connect the modem to your PC as well (will require an Ethernet port) and provide you with a wireless router if it was part of your install offer.

The security software is optional, there will be no CD to install software but there will be an online registration portal to create your email address and if you need, download any software (including the security software or V-Stuff backup software).

Remember to check your online account for your free photo prints, web storage and to setup your email addres if you need one! You can also setup your ebilling and view your unbilled charges through the website as well which is quite handy!

Finally... your ADSL has no link at all to either of the products being fitted by the Virgin Install tech. Your ADSL provider will be through a BT line which wont be affected by our install. The only issue I can see is if you are porting you rphone number from the BT line to us then your BT line will go dead and you "may" loose your broadband, otherwise theres nothing else that can really affect it.

Hope this helps, any other questions then give me a shout!

[lester1]

Thank you for all your help so far. Its very useful to know what will happen. I had my engineers visit a couple of days ago to check where I wanted all the cabling to go and the guy was excellent.
The only worrying thing he said was that Virgin cable did have some compatability issues with Norton security, my current and recently bought security suite (its Norton 360)
He said I might have to disable it for a while.
Any thoughts??

[jb66]

Not heard about that, news to me

[Peter_]

Thank you for all your help so far. Its very useful to know what will happen. I had my engineers visit a couple of days ago to check where I wanted all the cabling to go and the guy was excellent.
The only worrying thing he said was that Virgin cable did have some compatability issues with Norton security, my current and recently bought security suite (its Norton 360)
He said I might have to disable it for a while.
Any thoughts??
Not heard of any incompatibility issues with Norton whatsoever so talking porkies methinks.:)

[weesteev]

I will keep my personal feelings about Norton 360 out of this conversation... but it will not cause any problems with your service or the install process, I think the gentleman you spoke with may have been slightly bias against Norton.

Hope your Install go's well, let us know how it all went and what you think of the service!

[scaseman]

I am running Norton Security which is similar to 360 with no problems. I have heard bad things about Virgins Software so I am staying away from that.