My Virgin Broadband install

[yorkshireborn]

Since soulman mentioned sky installs, I thought I would share my virgin broadband install.

Bloke arrived early - great. Then he drilled into the house as opposed to drilling out. As a consequence he came in 5mm of a power socket and then bodged the rest of the job, including not installing an isolator as there wasnt enough space. I am missing plaster of my wall and my equipment could have been damaged.

He then said dont worry it will be on in 20 mins and naffed off, no line test or anything.

It never came on and infact wouldnt do because the previous owner had ripped the cable out when they put a new lawn in. (Found this out later)

2 hours after the install I called and reported that it wasnt working, switched the modem on and off 3000 times to satisfy the guy many miles away in india. He then told me he had to escalate the issue and I should expect a response after 72 hours.

After 72 hours and no response I called the help line again, this time I spoke to someone who knew their job. As the modem wasnt on the network, escalating it would do no good. He booked a tech for the next day.

The tech arrived and was furious at the disgusting install, called every manager he could and told me a supervisor would be with me the same day and a new cable pull the next.

Nowt happened, several calls and several departments later I managed to get the supervisor to come out. He surveyed the situation and returned 1.5 hours later to patch the line. Called me the next day to give me a date for the new cable pull (they will run a new cable from the cabinet all the way down the street to my house).

All in all I think my problems were down to:

a: the fact the previous owner ****ged the line
b: the install guy did a shoddy job
c: best shoring call centres is a bad idea
d: communication can always be better

Anyway, its working now.

when i had mine installed he made sure everything was working 100% b4 he left.

the installer should not have left untill your conection was up and running and stable. the mess should have been cleaned up.
if i was u id be ringing virgin for some one to come out and redo all the work to a decent standard.

i got a call from virgin 20 mins after the installer guy left asking if i was happy with the work carried out i was apart from he forgot to clean up the plaster dust from where he drilled for the internet cable. got £5 knocked of next bill for that.

overall virgin are no different to sky u get the good guys and you get the bad guys.

[m8internet]

Before I moved into my current house in 2004 I noticed that it was pre-wired for TeleWest (now Virgin Media), but had never been installed
At my previous house I went online to sign up, but it came up that TeleWest wasn't available
Thankfully a local salesperson had left a card so I phoned and she confirmed that the address was indeed covered by TeleWest
I made an appointment, for while the house was empty
She made a quick survey and I had an installation date for a week later
The engineer had brought a set-top box and modem, and hadn't been told the house was already pre-wired, "Blimey, this will be easy", or so he thought
He had the TV service up and running within 10 minutes
However, the modem for broadband was a different matter
"The signal strength isn't enough"
He made about 20 phone calls, left all his gear, went away for about 15 minutes, then came back
"You are the only house on this branch, for some reason it hadn't been activated, but that's been fixed now"

I sat downstairs watching the TV service while he did all that, total time was less than an hour
I've never seen an engineer since, great service

Later that afternoon a neighbour asked why there was a TeleWest van outside
I pointed out that I had just had it installed
"Darn, I went to their website and it said I couldn't get the service"
I noticed the salesperson left another round of cards later that week, and their website was updated the following month

[Leviathan]

Before I moved into my current house in 2004 I noticed that it was pre-wired for TeleWest (now Virgin Media), but had never been installed
At my previous house I went online to sign up, but it came up that TeleWest wasn't available
Thankfully a local salesperson had left a card so I phoned and she confirmed that the address was indeed covered by TeleWest
I made an appointment, for while the house was empty
She made a quick survey and I had an installation date for a week later
The engineer had brought a set-top box and modem, and hadn't been told the house was already pre-wired, "Blimey, this will be easy", or so he thought
He had the TV service up and running within 10 minutes
However, the modem for broadband was a different matter
"The signal strength isn't enough"
He made about 20 phone calls, left all his gear, went away for about 15 minutes, then came back
"You are the only house on this branch, for some reason it hadn't been activated, but that's been fixed now"

I sat downstairs watching the TV service while he did all that, total time was less than an hour
I've never seen an engineer since, great service

Later that afternoon a neighbour asked why there was a TeleWest van outside
I pointed out that I had just had it installed
"Darn, I went to their website and it said I couldn't get the service"
I noticed the salesperson left another round of cards later that week, and their website was updated the following month

Yeah, I think I basically just had a bad first time experience so not marking their score card yet. I think its mainly down to 1 poor installation technician, everything else was a knock on effect.

After my complaining they did eventually sort the sloppy work out and knocked off the £30 install fee.

The tech that came to look at the problem was great, knew his stuff and wanted to get me fixed up asap. I even called him on his mobile when nothing was happening and he helped out beyond his job description.

[vxvirgin]

no that's BT

but virgin are said to be intrested but as yet dont do it.

Think you'll find it's Virgin too (and talk talk) http://webwise.phorm.com/current_pilots.php

[glenboy]

^^^Thats good news about Phorm,just signed with BT.....^^^

Glad you got there in the end Darren,let us know how fast it is compared with your old ISP...............