hermann
14-04-2010, 22:32
Hi. Just registered on this forum to give some input.
Sorry to be non-controversial, but it's all positive so far, as I only had a VM basic 3 bundle package installed today: phone line, 10Mbs bb & M+ TV package.
Ordered online 3 weeks ago, a rep /surveyor called within 2 hours to confirm I had a termination point outside the house, get me to sign the contract, an email was sent 4 hours later confirming an installation date of today between 1 pm-6 pm.
1 week ago a Virgin van & man turned up, played around with the termination point on the road outside my house for 30 minutes then disappeared, presumably confirming the fibre optic worked up to that point.
Yesterday a call from Virgin making sure I hadn't forgotten I was supposed to be here 1 til 6 to supervise the installation.
Today at 3.30pm a 2-man team turned up, & within a minute were drilling through the curb & digging a neat little trench across my 20 foot front lawn, having carefully turned back the turf.
I told the outside installation guy exactly where I wanted the exterior cables to go ( low down, 1 course above ground level for minimal visual impact), they hid the brown box carefully behind a shrub so nobody can see it, carefully buried the cable run under the lawn, turned back the turf & stamped it down, capped & silicone sealed the exterior input holes etc. No problem, they kept saying.... is this OK by you?
Meanwhile the inside engineer (leaving his shoes outside & walking about in his socks) drilled two holes through the wall... 1 for the phone/modem in the study, 1 for the TV in the living room at the other end of the house, connected the boxes discreetly to the walls exactly where I'd indicated, vacuumed up the brick dust & dusted the immediate area & windowcills!! & somehow managed to completely reconfigure my complex jumble of satellite/freeview/home cinema wires to accommodate the neat little TV box AND install the 10 Mb broadband & phone line, tune in the TV, get the BB & phone working, sort me out a new email address, synched it with Windows Live Mail, etc.........
All within 1 hour 15 minutes.
Plus 15 minutes to give me a run-through on how to work the TV, & for me to do 3 different immediate speedtests on the BB before I let him go.........I was only getting 9.87 Mbs out of 10, but I thought I'd be charitable & accept that.
They took away all the packaging, wires, etc., tidied everything up, called me on the new ex-directory number I'd asked for, 15 minutes later, to check it worked. One & half hours from arrival to departure, very nice polite guys. Exemplary service.
To the extent that when my wife came home from work an hour later, she assumed they hadn't been, because everything outside & inside looks untouched, except tidier.
5 hours later, my BB speed's at 9.857, wife's happily playing with her new Tv setup, declaring the picture to be infinitely better than before on Freeview (looks exactly the same to me, but I didn't disagree), more channels, plus iPlayer, nicer user interface. If she's happy I'm happy.
And I don't work for Virgin, & was a bit worried reading many of the horror stories here, & it's only been up for 5 hours so far. I've rarely had such good service.
Downside: the modem does look pretty crap compared to my shiny black & curvy & now redundant BT Homehub, the Samsung V box came with a new giant but definitely Star Trek black remote (VM10BRCRU) with pause, rewind, ffwd buttons plus many others ( for the iPlayer content no doubt), which wasn't covered in the accompanying Virgin leaflet they left, & they left me a DIR-615 wireless router in a box as I don't have anything else to connect to wifi-wise, saying if you do, you can do it yourself, can't you.
Minor niggles.
I'll report back when & if it all goes pearshaped, though.
Sorry to be non-controversial, but it's all positive so far, as I only had a VM basic 3 bundle package installed today: phone line, 10Mbs bb & M+ TV package.
Ordered online 3 weeks ago, a rep /surveyor called within 2 hours to confirm I had a termination point outside the house, get me to sign the contract, an email was sent 4 hours later confirming an installation date of today between 1 pm-6 pm.
1 week ago a Virgin van & man turned up, played around with the termination point on the road outside my house for 30 minutes then disappeared, presumably confirming the fibre optic worked up to that point.
Yesterday a call from Virgin making sure I hadn't forgotten I was supposed to be here 1 til 6 to supervise the installation.
Today at 3.30pm a 2-man team turned up, & within a minute were drilling through the curb & digging a neat little trench across my 20 foot front lawn, having carefully turned back the turf.
I told the outside installation guy exactly where I wanted the exterior cables to go ( low down, 1 course above ground level for minimal visual impact), they hid the brown box carefully behind a shrub so nobody can see it, carefully buried the cable run under the lawn, turned back the turf & stamped it down, capped & silicone sealed the exterior input holes etc. No problem, they kept saying.... is this OK by you?
Meanwhile the inside engineer (leaving his shoes outside & walking about in his socks) drilled two holes through the wall... 1 for the phone/modem in the study, 1 for the TV in the living room at the other end of the house, connected the boxes discreetly to the walls exactly where I'd indicated, vacuumed up the brick dust & dusted the immediate area & windowcills!! & somehow managed to completely reconfigure my complex jumble of satellite/freeview/home cinema wires to accommodate the neat little TV box AND install the 10 Mb broadband & phone line, tune in the TV, get the BB & phone working, sort me out a new email address, synched it with Windows Live Mail, etc.........
All within 1 hour 15 minutes.
Plus 15 minutes to give me a run-through on how to work the TV, & for me to do 3 different immediate speedtests on the BB before I let him go.........I was only getting 9.87 Mbs out of 10, but I thought I'd be charitable & accept that.
They took away all the packaging, wires, etc., tidied everything up, called me on the new ex-directory number I'd asked for, 15 minutes later, to check it worked. One & half hours from arrival to departure, very nice polite guys. Exemplary service.
To the extent that when my wife came home from work an hour later, she assumed they hadn't been, because everything outside & inside looks untouched, except tidier.
5 hours later, my BB speed's at 9.857, wife's happily playing with her new Tv setup, declaring the picture to be infinitely better than before on Freeview (looks exactly the same to me, but I didn't disagree), more channels, plus iPlayer, nicer user interface. If she's happy I'm happy.
And I don't work for Virgin, & was a bit worried reading many of the horror stories here, & it's only been up for 5 hours so far. I've rarely had such good service.
Downside: the modem does look pretty crap compared to my shiny black & curvy & now redundant BT Homehub, the Samsung V box came with a new giant but definitely Star Trek black remote (VM10BRCRU) with pause, rewind, ffwd buttons plus many others ( for the iPlayer content no doubt), which wasn't covered in the accompanying Virgin leaflet they left, & they left me a DIR-615 wireless router in a box as I don't have anything else to connect to wifi-wise, saying if you do, you can do it yourself, can't you.
Minor niggles.
I'll report back when & if it all goes pearshaped, though.