Confused about virgin media in my area

firsttimebuy1

So about 2 weeks ago I ordered a virgin media bundle off their website as we have just bought a house and want to get everything set up. No issues, everything went through fine with extra bill credit etc and due to be installed on the 16th November.

Then yesterday they call me and say my order is on hold as there is an issue. So rang them back today as I wanted to know more and also seen that the order had been wiped from my Virgin account. To then be told Virgin isnt available in my area.

Okay, that's fine I'll begrudgingly have to look at sky and elsewhere who dont have as fast internet, BUT I thought oh I'll just look on virgin again anyway to compare and when I put my address into there search tool to see if virgin is available for my address it says Yes it is and I can even get their M500!

So you can all see my confusion, do I ring them back tomorrow and tell them this or will I just be wasting my time?

[Deleted User]

firsttimebuy1 wrote: »

do I ring them back tomorrow and tell them this or will I just be wasting my time?

You can ask them to check (again) whether their services are available to you, but don't expect them to suddenly find that your exact location is cabled if it's not.

It's possible that other people in your postcode area can get a Virgin service whereas you cannot. It's also possible their website checker is incorrect.

There were many many local cable cable companies made bankrupt by the exorbitant cost of cabling streets and it is this (far from complete) infrastructure which still comprises the majority of the Virgin network. Cable does not cover the whole country.

Bottom line is that if cable doesn't physically pass your home, you won't be able to receive cable services whatever their website says...

Neil_Jones

firsttimebuy1 wrote: »

So about 2 weeks ago I ordered a virgin media bundle off their website as we have just bought a house and want to get everything set up. No issues, everything went through fine with extra bill credit etc and due to be installed on the 16th November.

Then yesterday they call me and say my order is on hold as there is an issue. So rang them back today as I wanted to know more and also seen that the order had been wiped from my Virgin account. To then be told Virgin isnt available in my area.

Okay, that's fine I'll begrudgingly have to look at sky and elsewhere who dont have as fast internet, BUT I thought oh I'll just look on virgin again anyway to compare and when I put my address into there search tool to see if virgin is available for my address it says Yes it is and I can even get their M500!

So you can all see my confusion, do I ring them back tomorrow and tell them this or will I just be wasting my time?

Realistically you probably don't need 108Mb internet speed, unless you intend to stream UHD Netflix on multiple devices at once. You can get up to 38Mbps down the phone line relatively cheaply elsewhere. (and you can get topup channels from the likes of NowTV cheaply if you don't need all the bells and whistles of Tivo/V6/SkyQ).

If your property is a new build (or it was added after the earlier cabling was done by the cable company) then the site check won't know any better, particularly if its purely postcode based.

Nilrem

Postcode based systems for availability are often as has been said deeply flawed, as houses can be added to a street, properties can be subdivided/rebuilt as flats in which case you might find additional cables need to be ran (or the freeholder might not allow cabling to be run), they can also cover a large area or bits of multiple streets (one of which might be cabled, another might not).

There is also the simple issue that the cabinets in the street have a limited capacity and you can end up with them running out of ports for new customers:( especially if there are flats/properties built after the cabinet was fitted (as they fit them based on property numbers), or if you have houses with multiple lines (we for example have 2 cables to our house as going back years we had 3 stb's and a cable modem and at the time they couldn't get a decent signal to all 4 via just the one cable).

IIRC you can ask for a site survey if you get through to the right person/department, but I think it requires a higher level than normal sales, if they agree what they do (from memory) is send someone out to actually look at the street and cabinet in person rather than just via the computer and work out if it's possible.
Although it's possible that's already been done hence them saying they can't do it.