Question about up to 10MB Package

Hey guys,
I'm think about replacing my Mobile Broadband service with Virgin Media (As I do not have a BT Landline) which I currently use at my uni flat. The question is do I have to pay the installation fee (I think its £40) as it looks like the previous owner had NTL Broadband as shown my the cable ports below (does this also mean the engineer does not need to lay new cables?):

Image: http://img834.imageshack.us/img834/3929/photo0137e.jpg

Also is the cable service generally reliable? I heard they some areas are congested with unacceptable pings. Also I dont see the self install option avaliable, I guess they stopped offering it?

depends what you mean by realiable.

in terms of congestion which of course affects ping stability (jitter), you will either have it or you wont, in my view if your area is congested it will probably stay that way, not many congested areas seem to get a long term fix and are likely to get worse with all the speed upgrades VM is dishing out.

connection stability, cable will typically not drop at all but if congestion is severe enough it may cause things like connection stalls.

Presumably you find the ping offered by a 3G dongle acceptable. You'd be very unlucky indeed if cable was more than about 25% of that.