Virginmedia contract and house move

TheGardener

An elderly neighbour has moved house 3 weeks ago, I have been helping with the 'administration' of moving. He has a virginmedia contract (from old address) that runs until Sept '22. The house move process was fairly straightforward - Virginmedia said the service was available at the new address and a date was set to do the connection. A week later a series of text messages said some work to connect the house needed to be done outside.
The lack of a phone line and internet access has been challenging but my neighbour has just about managed to get by using an old mobile phone. Virginmedia apologised for the delay and said they would set my neighbour up with a dongle in the interim - this transpired to actually selling him a virginmobile rolling 30 day contract for dongle wifi. 
Subsequent conversations with his new immediate neighbours and with 3 sets of cabling workmen have revealed that 4 houses on the small cul-de-sac were for some reason not included on what I assume is an old NTL cabling system. I'm led to believe by the last set of workmen that the old NTL system won't connect to modern cabling so either virginmedia will have to re-cable the whole estate or they will have to concede they cannot provide the service. Does this mean my old neighbour can insist virgin break the contract and refund the payments taken so far?
The only option seems to be having a BT line connected to the house. The previous elderly resident of this property did not have an internet connection and the only thing we can find is a small BT junction box by the front door which appears to be connected to the telegraph pole outside.  Virginmedia say they no longer do 'land lines'. Any suggestions? TIA. 

user1977

Probably better asking on the broadband etc forum. I think in practice virgin do allow you to break the contract if they don't serve your new address, but that's a matter of goodwill rather than something they're contractually required to do. 

littleboo

Have a look at this 

VM don't use the Openreach infrastructure so if they are not available, then you would need to look at one of the many PR based providers, unless you have any networks available to you

TELLIT01

user1977 said:

Probably better asking on the broadband etc forum. I think in practice virgin do allow you to break the contract if they don't serve your new address, but that's a matter of goodwill rather than something they're contractually required to do. 

Are you really saying that if Virgin, or any other supplier, can't provide the service you are paying for they can continue to charge for it?

powerful_Rogue

TELLIT01 said:

user1977 said:

Probably better asking on the broadband etc forum. I think in practice virgin do allow you to break the contract if they don't serve your new address, but that's a matter of goodwill rather than something they're contractually required to do. 

Are you really saying that if Virgin, or any other supplier, can't provide the service you are paying for they can continue to charge for it?

Up until the recent changes, yes. The contract is to supply the property you took it out at.

user1977

TELLIT01 said:

user1977 said:

Probably better asking on the broadband etc forum. I think in practice virgin do allow you to break the contract if they don't serve your new address, but that's a matter of goodwill rather than something they're contractually required to do. 

Are you really saying that if Virgin, or any other supplier, can't provide the service you are paying for they can continue to charge for it?

They can provide the service you're paying for, it's you that's choosing to leave the property at which the service is provided.

Grumpy_chap

TheGardener said:

Subsequent conversations with his new immediate neighbours and with 3 sets of cabling workmen have revealed that 4 houses on the small cul-de-sac were for some reason not included on what I assume is an old NTL cabling system. 

Is, or was, the cul-de-sac a private / unadopted road?  That could be the reason the 4 houses were never connected.

Nearlyold

TheGardener said:

A Virgin media apologised for the delay and said they would set my neighbour up with a dongle in the interim - this transpired to actually selling him a virgin mobile rolling 30 day contract for dongle Wi-Fi. 

When we  had a delayed Virgin media installation due to confusion over how long the trench would need to be, (they have different contractors for digging trenches over a certain length in pavements) we were set up with a Wi-Fi dongle to tide us over and although all the paperwork read as if we'd taken out a phone contract for the dongle it was supplied F.O.C. and was still live months after the install was completed when they finally switched it off. They've never asked for it back either.

mattyprice4004

TELLIT01 said:

user1977 said:

Probably better asking on the broadband etc forum. I think in practice virgin do allow you to break the contract if they don't serve your new address, but that's a matter of goodwill rather than something they're contractually required to do. 

Are you really saying that if Virgin, or any other supplier, can't provide the service you are paying for they can continue to charge for it?

The answer is rather obvious - the customer is moving, VM aren’t breaking the contract so yes they can. 

TELLIT01

If it was obvious, I wouldn't have asked the question.  I suppose it would leave Virgin, and others, open to people claiming they were moving to somewhere they know the supplier doesn't service to get out of a contract.

pinkshoes

user1977 said:

TELLIT01 said:

user1977 said:

Probably better asking on the broadband etc forum. I think in practice virgin do allow you to break the contract if they don't serve your new address, but that's a matter of goodwill rather than something they're contractually required to do. 

Are you really saying that if Virgin, or any other supplier, can't provide the service you are paying for they can continue to charge for it?

They can provide the service you're paying for, it's you that's choosing to leave the property at which the service is provided.

But the OP said:

The house move process was fairly straightforward - Virginmedia said the service was available at the new address and a date was set to do the connection.

So as VM said there WAS a service, and it turns out there wasn't, then surely under these circumstances they ought to cancel the contract?