Pre-Installing Wiring/Cabling For Virgin

[SuaveBhav@aol.co]

Hi All,

I am in the process of running a bunch of wiring & cabling under floors and trunking inside walls for a home cinema system (so I hopefully will never see another wire in sight!) and whilst I am at it, I would like to try and future proof myself as much as possible. My room is an upstairs bedroom with a loft above and I have cut into the relevant wall deep enough to allow very wide trunking which will extend up into the loft to allow cables to enter into the room and they will exit via cable exit wall plates.

In case I ever wish to get Virgin TV (or internet/telephone) in the future, my idea is to run the appropriate cable up to my loft from which I can extend it to the outside of my house in either direction and have that cable directly connected to the one Virgin would be bringing in - makes life easy for the Virgin installer I guess! Please can someone tell me what cable I need to run for Virgin TV? I have been told that any good quality coaxial cable will do as used for normal TV or SKY (like say Webro WF100) but I am not so sure - I thought being cable, it would be a Fibre-Optic cable?

Some years ago, when it was NTL I think, some workmen dug up our road and laid cable for everyone with the result that for over the last ten years, my front garden has a large coil of thin black cable just lying there - is this the cable Virgin would use? It sure does not look like normal Coaxial TV or Satellite cable to me as it is much thinner. What is this cable, and if I need it, where can I get it from? Does Virgin operate everything (TV, Phone, Internet) from just one cable?

Many Thanks To All!

Suave!

[BenMcr]

The cable Virgin use is tri-sheild co-ax (either RG6 for Short Distances or RG11 for long distances)

The problem you would face with pre-wiring is that Virgin may refuse to use the cables. Officially, only the cable they install is supported

Also even if you do install it, don't put connectors on the end

---------- Post added at 01:14 ---------- Previous post was at 01:13 ----------

Apparently you can get the RG6 stuff here http://www.dvbjunkieuk.com/accessories-11/white-rg6-tri-shield-indoor-cable-0-75-per-meter-12.html

---------- Post added at 01:17 ---------- Previous post was at 01:14 ----------

As for the external stuff, that would be handled by Virgin if you took out services so don't worry about that bit

[SuaveBhav@aol.co]

The cable Virgin use is tri-sheild co-ax (either RG6 for Short Distances or RG11 for long distances)

The problem you would face with pre-wiring is that Virgin may refuse to use the cables. Officially, only the cable they install is supported

Also even if you do install it, don't put connectors on the end

---------- Post added at 01:14 ---------- Previous post was at 01:13 ----------

Apparently you can get the RG6 stuff here http://www.dvbjunkieuk.com/accessories-11/white-rg6-tri-shield-indoor-cable-0-75-per-meter-12.html

---------- Post added at 01:17 ---------- Previous post was at 01:14 ----------

As for the external stuff, that would be handled by Virgin if you took out services so don't worry about that bit

Hi,

Thanks for the quick reply! That RG6/11 cable looks just like normal coaxial cable - am I right? As I am prewiring for TV as well, I was going to use Webro WF100 cable as I was told this was amongst the best cable to use for TV/SKY but I am not sure if that is triple screened like the RG6/11 or double screened. Is WF100 pretty much the same or better than RG6/11?

I an finding it really strange that a Cable TV company would use a normal type of TV cable - may I ask then, is this cable run under ground in the streets then and if so, at what point do they use Fibre-Optic Cable? What is that thin black cable (is it Fibre-Optic?) that was laid by NTL years ago and what am I supposed to do with it?

Many Thanks Again,

Suave!

[BenMcr]

The Fiber will go to a Street Cabinet somewhere near to your house and then its aluminium co-ax from there to your house.

The cable in your garden is probably useless now and if you were to be installed, they would probably repull the cable (to make sure they knew it worked)

They would also need to put a junction box on the front of the house.

Again, don't worry about it.

TBH I have no clue about which cable is better or worse than the other, I'm sure someone a bit more familiar with it can tell you.

[Chris]

I would have thought the best thing to do would be to run a few lengths of heavy-duty garden twine through your trunking and just leave them there. The in they could be used in future to pull any new cables that are required. That way, if you get cable, the installer can deploy the correct length of the correct cable and be satisfied that he's not a hostage to unknown cable quality.

It would also save you a few quid. Garden twine is a fair bit cheaper than RG6 or RG11 coax.

[virgin_tech]

they only run rg6 throughout the house, rg11 might be usd as the drop cable form the cabinet to ur house if the distance requires it. normal tv coax cable is more flexable than rg6 because the in plastic core covering the wire is not solid like rg6 (mmmm awkawrd to explain ) also, its classed as rg59 and the install guys might not have rg59 rf conectors to do the job..
if you definatly want to pre wire ur house then its best to get rg6

thinking about it, its not really worth bothering , because from the box on the front of the house install have to run the cable around the outside of ur house to where u want the STB they drill through the wall and terminate at an isolator and from the isolator an internal white rg6 is taken to the STB and this lenght shoud be no more than 2 mtrs