Install question - existing broadband upstairs, new TV downstairs?

[alanjrobertson]

Dear All

I'd appreciate any advice on the feasability of the following!

Currently we have VM standalone BB at £16/month (via a Motorola Surfboard SB4100 from Telewest Blueyonder days). The connection for this comes through the front garden to a brown box fixed to the external wall. A cable then skirts up the wall and enters the study where it is fixed to a paperback novel-sized grey Telewest branded box (one sided is slanted). A white cable connects from this to the cable modem.

We're now considering upgrading from Freeview to some extra channels and price-wise it looks better to leave BT and go for a VM triple-play package (probably BB M, TV M w/V+ & Complete Sports, Phone XL w/3-way calling/Vmail plus/call divert/call waiting).

My main query is whether they'll be able to take another connection from the brown box outside and feed it under the house (there's access from the cellar) coming up as a feed in the living room. Presumably there would need to be another box there (?smaller than the grey slanty Telewest ones) that the V+ would then connect to.

Grateful for any thoughts on the feasability of the above and any tips re. reducing costs (I know some of the discounted offers won't be available to us as existing customers).

Many thanks

Alan

Hi

As far as I know an extra cable from the outside box is feasible.

As for routing the cable, they generally prefer to go round an outside wall & drill through for the connection point. (mine is just a wall plate, I'm not sure what the more recent installations provide).

- if you want an 'unusual' route for the cable, my advice would be to run a conduit along the route you want & supply a suitable 'pull-through' for the installer to use. I'm pretty sure most installers will be ok with this after discussion during the tea & biccies

[alanjrobertson]

Thanks for the advice - glad to know the outside box bit is feasible .

We'll have a think about what we could do to make things easier for them to run it under the house, perhaps a pull-through as you suggest Would us doing that cabling bit beforehand (so they only had to connect it to the brown box at one end and a wall-plate at the other) be even more preferable? If so, what sort of standard of coax is required?

Thanks!

Originally Posted by alanjrobertson

Thanks for the advice - glad to know the outside box bit is feasible .

We'll have a think about what we could do to make things easier for them to run it under the house, perhaps a pull-through as you suggest Would us doing that cabling bit beforehand (so they only had to connect it to the brown box at one end and a wall-plate at the other) be even more preferable? If so, what sort of standard of coax is required?

Thanks!

Hi

- I have to 'dip out' at this stage, as I don't know - there is also the consideration that connection using other than Virgin Media supplied cable, etc, may not be within t&c - only the installer would be able to tell you that

- however, in my opinion
my cable is quite 'stiff', so any routing in conduit will presumably have to avoid too many bends & make sure the bends are not 90° to pull through successfully ?

[Jonnymeg]

Originally Posted by alanjrobertson

Dear All

I'd appreciate any advice on the feasability of the following!


My main query is whether they'll be able to take another connection from the brown box outside and feed it under the house (there's access from the cellar) coming up as a feed in the living room. Presumably there would need to be another box there (?smaller than the grey slanty Telewest ones) that the V+ would then connect to.

This all sounds fine, you should not have an issue. Except for one maybe...
To gain access to the living room will you need to drill a hole through the floor? This can be a little risky as pipes and cables are often routed in the space beneath floorboards. If this is the case i would just drill them befre the installer comes to sweeten the routing a little. You will need a hole of around 10mm for the tv cable, 6mm for telco or 13mm for both together.

[alanjrobertson]

Thanks for the extra info - agree doing the drilling beforehand makes sense. It may well be that running the cable around the outside of the house is easier for them, my only concern is how well the coax will go around the bends.

One other quick question that occurred to me - if I'm moving telephone services over to them too do they install a new socket for that as well or is it via LLU at exchange? If it's a new socket then presumably this would involve them running a cable from the entry box insider the house to the existing master socket?

Thanks.

[spike7451]

Originally Posted by alanjrobertson

Thanks for the extra info - agree doing the drilling beforehand makes sense. It may well be that running the cable around the outside of the house is easier for them, my only concern is how well the coax will go around the bends.

One other quick question that occurred to me - if I'm moving telephone services over to them too do they install a new socket for that as well or is it via LLU at exchange? If it's a new socket then presumably this would involve them running a cable from the entry box insider the house to the existing master socket?

Thanks.

VM dont use LLU as the system used is totally different than BT ect.They will run a new telco wire to the main phone socket & fit a CTE-5 Master socket.
As for running the Coax under the flooring,the installer may not be able to for H&S reasons.Also,I would'nt recommend using normal coax as the signal loss may be too high.(once had a chap who paid a spark £XX to run the cable under the floor,then laid a wooden floor thruout the house & was peed off when his NTL TV did'nt work in the back room!)*Before we had those boosters.

[alanjrobertson]

Thanks, Spike. Will have to have a think about the phone side of things - the house is 1920s and has some really weird wiring. BT managed to kill off all the downstairs sockets when they were doing some remedial work previously so everything runs off a slightly ropey socket upstairs. I guess VM could take the telephone line from the existing white box in the study (that has the SACM attached) and just run a new cable outside the house for the new TV connection. As we don't have an existing new-style CTE-5 master socket presumably VM would be happy to run the phone connection to wherever we want it?

[spike7451]

If the is an 'Isolator' (The internal slanted box) near to where you want the TV to go then yes,they can run a line from there & if you dont have any other wired phone extensions/sockets elsewhere apart from the main one,then they can put the phone socket anywhere you want.

---------- Post added at 17:45 ---------- Previous post was at 17:38 ----------

Originally Posted by alanjrobertson

Thanks, Spike. Will have to have a think about the phone side of things - the house is 1920s and has some really weird wiring. BT managed to kill off all the downstairs sockets when they were doing some remedial work previously so everything runs off a slightly ropey socket upstairs. I guess VM could take the telephone line from the existing white box in the study (that has the SACM attached) and just run a new cable outside the house for the new TV connection. As we don't have an existing new-style CTE-5 master socket presumably VM would be happy to run the phone connection to wherever we want it?

so everything runs off a slightly ropey socket upstairs.

Mount the new VM socket there & swap the extensions over from the BT one.

I guess VM could take the telephone line from the existing white box in the study (that has the SACM attached) and just run a new cable outside the house for the new TV connection.

Should that be Television ?