Virgin superfast (50mb) - London coverage - help needed

kwikbreaks

Knowing an area won't help anyway as there are often odd streets or even just one side of a street without cable even in a cable area. Even a postcode search may not be conclusive as when the installers arrive they may find they can't do the job economically and decline it.

Congestion in a cable network is always fairly local - some parts of a 3/4 digit postcode area may be fine but others dire although with cable at least there is a chance the dire areas will be fixed where with ADSL a new technology would be needed to fix the problem.

Im_just_careful

Certainly avoid Barnet if you want Virgin cable coverage.

I think the North London "non-cabled areas" issue dates back to the original borough based franchises. Some franchisees went bust without doing much and their borough never got done.

I expect it is the Haringey part of Muswell Hill which is covered and the Barnet part that isn't.

You might find that this list of ex Videotron franchise areas a close match to the "not spots" of Virgin cable coverage:

Kensington and Chelsea, Lewisham and Greenwich, Lambeth and Southwark, Thamesmead Town, Wandsworth, Ealing, Harrow, Hammersmith and Fulham, Brent, Barnet, City of Westminster, City of London.

Some of these may have been covered by Videotron or someone else subsequently but I've not seen much sign of cable TV in Barnet.

Hope this is of some use.

spike7451

Cable broadband comes over the same line as the TV,the Coaxial cable, & not the phoneline.As Kurtis say's,in some areas,usually the 'student' areas or where the have been a lot of houses converted into flats, the capacity at the cabinet may be maxed out & the street ducting from the cabinets full to capacity.Every home on the VM network can get the 50Mb BBand but the are issues that can affect the service,like the wrong sized drop cable for the distance,the number of services in the home & the Tap & Port bank the cable is connected to in the cabinet.

joolsybools

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Knowing an area won't help anyway as there are often odd streets or even just one side of a street without cable even in a cable area. Even a postcode search may not be conclusive as when the installers arrive they may find they can't do the job economically and decline it.

Congestion in a cable network is always fairly local - some parts of a 3/4 digit postcode area may be fine but others dire although with cable at least there is a chance the dire areas will be fixed where with ADSL a new technology would be needed to fix the problem.

Thanks that's helpful to know.

We were declined at our last place when they came out and saw the job as it had to go to the rear of the building. I guess you need a 'front' flat on ground floor to be accepted.

joolsybools

flexrider wrote: »

If your considerating 50Mb Virgin media let me pass on my own problems and have now changed to Sky now for my broadband

It is not in london but in Merseyside. The whole parts were we can receive 50Mb broadband have been bad connections, You can read up here
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-30Mb-and-50Mb-broadband/Service-Status-in-Liverpool-Area/td-p/270383

this has been going on now for a long time until i left 50MB 2 weeks ago for sky Television and broadband and never been back to them.

Their has been some from your area complaining about the whole service also on the forum also
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Up-to-30Mb-and-50Mb-broadband/Very-slow-50mb-BB-New-customer-and-thinking-of-cancelling/m-p/496651

I would consider my options before moving to a cabled area or even going back to VM again as i have been a 50Mb user for 2 and a half years an to be quite honest im glad i switched because the level of service was annoying,While sky has been a much better improvement and cheaper!

Hope that helps

can understand about BT but it is a lottery (How far you are from the exchange ect)

The 50mb connections for me seemed to pick up speeds around the 20mb mark around my whole area and sometimes i could not even get online.

Thanks, will read up on those links.

joolsybools

macman wrote: »

Are you willing to move anywhere in London that has a 50MBps service, or are you simply trying to rule out areas that don't?
Don't you have some idea of where you want to live, i.e. the actual London postal district?

We're flexible - mostly looking at places West/North/Central - currently in NW6; considering Ladbrooke Grove, Finchley, Swiss Cottage, Muswell Hill, Queens Park and surrounding areas.

joolsybools

spike7451 wrote: »

Cable broadband comes over the same line as the TV,the Coaxial cable, & not the phoneline.As Kurtis say's,in some areas,usually the 'student' areas or where the have been a lot of houses converted into flats, the capacity at the cabinet may be maxed out & the street ducting from the cabinets full to capacity.Every home on the VM network can get the 50Mb BBand but the are issues that can affect the service,like the wrong sized drop cable for the distance,the number of services in the home & the Tap & Port bank the cable is connected to in the cabinet.

Thanks, that's useful about house to flat conversions.

joolsybools

Im_just_careful wrote: »

Certainly avoid Barnet if you want Virgin cable coverage.

I think the North London "non-cabled areas" issue dates back to the original borough based franchises. Some franchisees went bust without doing much and their borough never got done.

I expect it is the Haringey part of Muswell Hill which is covered and the Barnet part that isn't.

You might find that this list of ex Videotron franchise areas a close match to the "not spots" of Virgin cable coverage:

Kensington and Chelsea, Lewisham and Greenwich, Lambeth and Southwark, Thamesmead Town, Wandsworth, Ealing, Harrow, Hammersmith and Fulham, Brent, Barnet, City of Westminster, City of London.

Some of these may have been covered by Videotron or someone else subsequently but I've not seen much sign of cable TV in Barnet.

Hope this is of some use.

Very useful thanks. Yes it was the Haringey part of MH we are looking at.

KillerWatt

joolsybools wrote: »

I guess you need a 'front' flat on ground floor to be accepted.

Or a property where the coax is already installed, any new build from the mid nineties is likely to have this if VM were in the area at the time.

spike7451

joolsybools wrote: »

Thanks that's helpful to know.

We were declined at our last place when they came out and saw the job as it had to go to the rear of the building. I guess you need a 'front' flat on ground floor to be accepted.

No you don't.I've done installs on small on-street terraced homes with no garden that took an hour to install right the way thru to massive houses that took over a day to do! Installers are provided with the tools & materials to run the cable anywhere on a property.In cases like your's above,the ETB can be mounted on the side of the house & a siamese cable (combined phone/Coax cable) clipped round to the entry point of for the services.Biggest job I done was one with a 50 meter garden & their services went round the back,Myself & the bloke I was working with were on that job for nearly two days.
Some flats that were built before cable,had metal trunking affixed to the outside of the home with the cable already inside,the largest one I installed was to the top floor of a four story block in Rathcoole where the cabling's mounted externally.
Rathcoole;


Most likely the reason you were refused id the installer's get paid by the job,if your install is too big,then they'll bin it on the basis as it's too big to do so they won't be paid too much to do it. (I have first hand experience of this when working as a saleried installer for NTL when we got the big jobs the contractors refused)