In reply to a post by iancol:

And another thing! The triangular termination box sits right outside my garden wall, adjacent to the drive. If I go ahead, I'll install the duct so that it terminates on my property, just on the other side of the wall to the triangular box. All I'm looking to do is make it easy for the installer to get from the box to my property without making a mess. If it helps, I'll take a photo of the offending item.

I think I know exactly what you mean. I had one of those put outside my previous house in the early 1990s by a "cowboy contractor" working on behalf of a now defunct CATV company, the plant of which Virgin inherited. Essentially that is the end point of a duct which will lead back to a Virgin cabinet. If you were to take Virgin's cable services -- TV, telephone, broadband -- they would use that duct for their co-axial feed and, possibly, copper pair to your house.

Please do take a few pictures. I know I'm not the only one who likes to "have a look".

I'd be glad to supply a photo, but can't find out how to do it on this forum. Please advise.

Ian

Host it elsewhere - such as Photbucket.com and provide a link.

Thanks - watch this space. I hope it's worth the effort.

Perhaps I should have started with this!

http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz176/iancol/Term...

I'm guessing this is in Virgin's control, based on the content of recent circulars from them.

Ian

Yes, that's Virgin. Ours were installed by Nynex, which was bought by NTL, which is what I believe Virgin Media cable is - just licensing the use of the brand-name from Richard Branson's companies.

Ours doesn't have the fancy triangular cap. The tube you see just has/had a green plastic cap - of which very few remain.

As I understand it they push a hooked rod down and lift the cable up to joint the cable(s) from the premises to it. Then push it back down.

So to install a duct from near there to the premises, preferably with some sort of pull-through inserted, may be a good idea, as you were thinking. That's if you might ever want to go to Virgin cable. It could also be useful to the next occupier so long as they are made aware of it's existence.

With regard to BT installations, how does your phone line get to you already? The reason I ask is that for an FTTC installation there is nothing to install to get it to your house; it comes through the existing phone line. With FTTP then again I suppose it could be useful.

I haven't followed the link to the OR document, but have seen the Builders' documentation before and that seems to be green-field stuff for underground phone cabling. If your line is underground then that will be in place and I expect is what OR would use in the event of FTTP.

Hi again,

Thanks for that. I'm still looking for a source of the ducting. I've seen one product that's flexible and comes in 25m rolls, which would be ideal, once I locate a UK agent.

So, I know what to do, will soon know where to get the stuff to do it, but am still uncertain as to whether I would need to bother. The objective would be to future-proof my installation.

My current broadband supply is through my BT-installed land line, put in about 17 years ago. I'm about 2 miles form the exchange, but don't know whether there are any intermediate fibre optic cabinets. My account's with Talktalk and broadband speed's gradually increased since I signed up, from 2Mbps/0.4Mbps to the 5+Mbps/0.7+Mbps now. I don't expect to it to get much better with the current set up as I have a 5m 'phone extension between the incomer and the router. I can't put the router at the incomer and connect to the PC with ethernet, because I don't have power adjacent.

I already have coaxial cables between the loft and a suitable, powered location, thanks to an earlier occupier having installed a satellite dish. I could thus go for a satellite-based installation instead. On the other hand, I understand that the new Freesat HD kit works direct off the TV aerial. Would that be enough?

Thanks again,

Ian

If you are thinking about the flexible corrugated ducting - don't. It can be a real pain pulling cables through as they can often snag repeatedly unless it has a smooth lining.

You should be able to source some 50mm internal diameter rigid green ducting with a fixed 90^o bend at each end. It wil be a lot cheaper too.

http://i825.photobucket.com/albums/zz176/iancol/Term...

I'm guessing this is in Virgin's control, based on the content of recent circulars from them.

It certainly is.

Unlike the "hook it out, make connection and stuff it back down" scenario that RobertoS has described, at my old house that triangular plate covered the duct-seal (essentially a rubberised plug) and, for each individual property, the duct ran back to to footway joint-box and then from there to the Virgin cabinet.

When the service was provided to a property, a coaxial cable was fed from the cabinet via the footway joint-box and each individual property's duct, then finally buried underground from the triangular plate into the property itself.

Thanks again, all.