25 meters from Virgin, but how to get it?

Hi everyone. I'm in a bit of a frustrating situation here, and I'm just wondering if anyone can offer any advice on what I can do, if anything.

I manage a sports and leisure venue, located in Derby City Centre at DE1 3NZ. The internet available to us - ADSL 20Mbps max (which is a speed we rarely achieve anyway) no longer meets our needs, even with multiple lines. BT have told me that we won't have fibre available for another 18 months, and have said that the only thing we can do is get a leased line, but that just isn't financially viable to us.

Virgin Media is in the city centre, yet we are part of the 2% that they do not serve. Despite their availability checker telling me that it is available to us, the various people whom I have spoken to in their sales department say that it will cost us thousands to get installed.

There are cabled streets very close by in all directions, with us in the middle - an island in a sea of Virgin Media. The nearest neighbouring property with Virgin available, as far as I can tell, is located 25 meters away in a straight line. I understand that it in reality, it wouldn't be as simple as running a perfectly straight cable from another property to us, but this gives you an idea of how close we are.

Could anyone shed any light on the following questions so that I can try and build up a case before I go back to them?

1 - Does the cable need to enter the property at a particular location (eg the front door)? The building has a perimeter of approximately 250 metres and I don't mind at all where the cable will enter. I am happy to sort out the internal wiring myself to get it from where it enters to where it needs to be.

2 - A former office block, which is joined onto us, is currently being converted into 12 apartments. If I were to inform Virgin of this, would they maybe consider extending their network slightly to potentially gain an additional 13 customers, including us?

3 - Could I request that an engineer comes round to chat with me and survey the area to see if anything can be done? If so, will it incur a cost?

Or am I simply out of luck and will just have to put up with slow speeds for another 18 months (plus delays I'm sure).

Thanks in advance.

All depends on the cost to get across the 25 metres, if soft ground and its public land then you might manage it, but if there is a pavement or road in the way then 25 metres will be too expensive for one connection and by the sounds of it you are not looking for the expensive leased line type lines, but rather a basic business connection.

The way virgin sets their network up there is a port for each property, and it's not as simple as adding an additional port. They also have to keep signal levels relatively balanced between users on a cabinet.

Last I checked, they also only offered 50meg as a business service, so not much faster than 2 bonded DSL lines for you. They also tend to be very unwilling to do any sort of nonstandard work.

I used to live in bristol, which is almost entirely VM enabled, in a small culdesac with ~45 houses that had no cable. We backed on to houses with VM, and VM was available to the road that we spurred off from.

I spent ages trying to get VM to extend to us, even went so far as to write them a letter signed by 28 other residents asking for services, but they were not in the least bit interested.

In reply to a post by nemeth782:

The way virgin sets their network up there is a port for each property, and it's not as simple as adding an additional port. They also have to keep signal levels relatively balanced between users on a cabinet.

That's why the 48 port cabinets round my neck of the wood serve unto triple their design with splitters hanging out of the ports!

Not that this is the correct design.... just making the point that if someone wants to be connected, they will be regardless of the capacity and taps available.

PS.. Just making sur your aware, Virgin Business offer an unto 152Mbps business cable product now.... and stories have it that this is soon to be upgraded to 300Mbps

Edited by mlmclaren (Fri 30-Oct-15 00:36:44)

We currently have a 150mbps business package for around £40 a month, I believe next year they are offering a 300mbps package for businesses.

Hope you get it, our business used to have a flaky ADSL connection, having Virgin has made a huge difference.

In reply to a post by kingbiscit:

Hope you get it, our business used to have a flaky ADSL connection, having Virgin has made a huge difference.

I certainly won't be getting it.... not here anyway.

I've had Virgin's services at my current location and like your old ADSL connection very flaky, unreliable and useless after 3PM...

Thanks for all of your responses. I spoke to a very nice chap at Virgin Media today and some progress has been made. He says it may be a possibility, particularly after I mentioned about the new flats, and will arrange for an engineer to come and have a look once I have submitted a signed Wayleave form from the land owner. I wouldn't have thought this would be necessary unless it actually gets the go ahead, but if that's what they need then fair enough.

I don't know whether they have recently relaxed their installation criteria, or if I just got lucky and spoke to the right person. I've spoken to them twice in previous years and both times I just got "it's not at your address, pay us thousands or get a leased line, otherwise you're out of luck".

I'll let you know how I get on.

Sounds like you are making progress and maybe this is because Virgin has at last started to roll out more network coverage. They have a site "cablemystreet" where residential and business customers can register interest. See https://my.virginmedia.com/customer-news/articles/ca...

Well the engineer/surveyor has been out today. As far as Virgin are concerned, they are happy to do it. However the obstacle that has to be overcome is the fact that they would have to lay it across a private road owned by a housing agency, in order to join onto their supply. Therefore it's completely down to them.

Unfortunately he says that when it comes to businesses it all has to be done properly, unlike residential supplies that can be acceptable just tacked to fences/buried under an inch of lawn etc.

Is there anyone else reading this who has been in a similar situation who is able to share their experience?

I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I fear that we may be doomed to be stuck with the 10Mbps Download / 0.75Mbps upload for a long time yet.

So it's one month later and I have now received an installation quote. Turns out my 25 meter measurement was in fact the path they intend to take. As the entire route involves digging up solid ground and laying carriageway suitable ducting, the cost comes to £1700. Virgin have said they will fund £900 of this, leaving me with £800 to pay if I give them the go ahead.

The thing is, they could in theory run the cable from an existing manhole outside a neighbouring property along a brick wall and a steel security fence into the building. Costs would be dramatically reduced if this was the case. When I pointed this option out to the surveyor, he said it would be perfectly fine in a residential setup, but they wouldn't do it this way for a business as the cable would be too exposed, risking loss of service.

Does anyone "in the know" think that if I enter an appeal, they would be willing to apply their residential guidelines to a business installation in this case? I would of course be willing to sign a contract stating that I understand there is a greater risk of service loss, and if it goes down then so be it. If they did the underground method like they want to, there would still be a small amount of cable affixed to the wall on the outside of the building anyway.

Thanks in advance.

Surely £800 is not too much for a sports & leisure centre to raise if you really need better speed?

Well it's not something we can just pay out without a second thought when there's potentially a much more cost effective route available

In reply to a post by derby13:

Well it's not something we can just pay out without a second thought when there's potentially a much more cost effective route available

But Virgin have told you that there isn't. Seems like a good deal to me, they are subsidising more than half the cost of the work - they could have just turned you down point blank.

Granted, but I'm asking if someone who has experience in the matter can provide any details about the alternative route being viable.

Virgin Media is within its rights to state their preferred route. So while they may listen there is a risk that if you continue to try and negotiate the price may change, or they could be stubborn and just say the other route will cost more anyway. A non-standard contract is something they will not entertain I suspect, and by the time their lawyers wrote it up and reviewed it the lawyer time might exceed the cost saving.

OK, that's useful, thanks.